Paris and a TGV fix

If you have no big preference on the destination, I would check the best Prem's fares for various cities on www.voyages-sncf.com</a>. The TGV Est can get you to Strasbourg in 2h20. The TGV Méditerranée can get you to Avignon in 2h45 or Marseille in 2h58. My company did a day trip to Marseille once and found that we had plenty of time to visit the city.

You can also get to Lille in 55m or Brussels in 2h20. Then there's Dijon, Geneva, Rennes, Poitiers....

Oops, I meant Brussels in 1h20.

Consider that there are different types of TGVs, maybe you could try to ride different ones on each leg of you journey? E.g. the 'Duplex'-TGVs go most frequently to Lyon, I think, though you're likely to be even more crammed in your seat than in the 'ordinary ones'. Or in case Eurostar allows domestic travel (does it?), you could visit Lille and return by TGV 'nordest'.

You can also look for cheap fare on the www.idtgv.com</a> site, which is also run by the SNCF. It has tickets for as little as 19€ from Paris to places like Avignon, Marseille, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Montpellier, etc., if you hit the right date and time. It even allows you to choose seats by personal affinity -- it's practically a dating service.

If you think you will get an impression of speed, you will be disappointed. The ride is so smooth that the train doesn't even seem to be going that fast. When it is parallel to an autoroute, then you can see how you are leaving all of the cars behind.

You might try a visit to the city of Angers. Catch an early TGV from Montparnasse, spend the day in Angers and return early in the evening. Trip is less than two hours. Here are some pictures of my trip there a few years ago. The train station in Angers is in the center of the city and most the sites are within easy waling distance.

Lyon; a great city to visit, a two hour trip and trains every at least every hour from early till late so easily done as a day trip. All trains go to Part Dieu station but try to get one to Perrache . It's less frequently serviced but it's walking distance to the old town, which is the main attraction of Lyon. Getting there from Part Dieu is a hassle as you'll have to get metro tickets etc. As for speed, see comment 5, the TGV is about as exciting as sitting in a plane.

SNCF sent an email today. Paris-Geneva for 20 euros.
SNCF is Paris-fixated. I want to go Beziers-Geneva but the cheapest I found was 55 euros.

Yes, since I live in Paris, I find all of those SNCF emails delightful, even though I can only take advantage of maybe 1% of them. For Béziers-Genève, you could probably get a train to Paris for maybe 20€ and then Paris-Genève for another 20€ -- naturally by choosing the most unappealing dates. And naturally, you wouldn't save any time.