Hey hey! Just planning a month-long holiday around France in April, and I'm going through our itinerary to compare transport costs. I'm not sure if it's just me, but is French rail travel hideously expensive? I've got the prices from the SNCF website, and it's a fortune - 40 euros for some trips! I'm not sure if I'm just taking big trips or it's the prices: I know everyone does this, but this is a rundown of the towns we'll be staying in, and if anyone knows any ways or has some suggestions to cut costs (supplement with buses, or would a rail pass suit better, etc), that'd be fantastic!
Paris - Versailles - Rennes - St Malo - Tours - Bordeaux - Pau - Lourdes - Provence - Marseilles - Lyon - Dijon - Reims - Rouen
Thanks all, as usual, appreciate everyone's help!
Hi, sorry, forgot to mention - when I did the search for prices, I used the magical date of 7 December 07. No reason really. Cheers!
Rail travel is not dirt cheap, I agree. Except if you can plan and book in advance, for long trips or high speed train... Of course, shorter distances will appear comparatively more expensive. Some areas, like Provence, have a good bus network, which is somewhat cheaper, but train along the coast could be more convenient.
40€ for several 100 kms? It sound cheap to me - where are you used to travel? Thailand? Why do you think that planes can compete with trains? As far as I remember the trains in Australia costs a fortune and runs once or twice a day - not twice an hour - or do not exist at all.
If you book far enough in advance (up to three months allowed) on the SNCF site, you can get PREM'S (discount) fares on many long distance, high speed routes. However, those tickets are non-exchangeable and non-refundable. No discount fares are offered on regional trains.
Total up the price for each of your routes, with and without any discount fares. Read the railpasses sections at www.seat61.com and www.ricksteves.com. Compare the cost of the various kinds of passes (like consecutive day or flexi) and see which one would cover your routes for the least amount of money. You may find that a combination of using pass days for longer trips and buying point-to-point tickets for shorter trips would be more cost effective. Or you may find that not buying a pass at all would be the most cost effective, particularly if you can get some PREM'S fares.
As already mentioned, seat61.com is a great resource and the way to save on French rail expense is to buy in advance, buy in advance, buy in advance. A purchased the day before ticket from Paris to Amsterdam on the high-speed train (now the only kind of train running Paris-Amsterdam, unless you want to string together several short-run tickets) just cost me 100 Euros. On international travel you can also economize by using the Eurolines buses. The bus option would have cut the cost to between 27 to 43 Euros. Budget airlines are a limited, but rapidly growing, option for intra-national French travel. Here again you are generally rewarded for buying well in advance and sticking to a rigid itinerary. It's more fun to do things at the last minute, but joie de vivre ain't cheap.
40 euro for a long trip is not at all the max: thats way over 100. but tipical SHORT trips (up to say 100/150 kms) in Fr can be VERY expensive, per km, as then the usual (yes, theyre are right; PREBOOK prems) do NOT apply. However, about any region has its own discount system- which wll not pay off for just 1 trip. Paris_Vers: thats nonsense, just the city-metro+bus/or a tiny traintrip. you MUST count the LONG/overnight trips and buy a railpass for THAT nr of days, OR indeed try to prebook: do NOT be wayled by 'they dont send tix to OZzieland, of course not< you get a CODE via email with wjhich you can print ANY ticket at ANY yellow SNCF touch-screenc omputer: also a thing that NSW strikerail does not have
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