BOOKING

We purchased our tickets at the Bordeaux train station, aka Gare de Bordeaux-Saint-Jean, about an hour before departure. We made sure to skip booking way in advance using a USA-specific site such as Rail Europe (read more about the best way to book a French train ticket in advance here: How-to: Booking French Trains (RailEurope vs SNCF)).

We were able to book our tickets for 37.30 euros each (~$46.43 USD); in contrast, the RailEurope version of the tickets would have been closer to $60+ each.

THE ROUTE

The Intercités routes means non-high speed trains on all of the classic, original French rail lines. Where the TGV won’t take you, Intercités should get you there. In fact, “since December 2011, the Téoz (long distance trains with reservation obligatory) and Intercité de nuit (overnight sleeper train) brands have been re-integrated and the Intercités brand now covers all non-high speed SNCF national-network passenger services.” Here’s a map of the route network:

The stretch we took from Bordeaux-Nantes is highlighted

By the numbers, Intercités by SNCF operates:

• 35 lines in all of France
• 345 cities and 21 regions served
• 12 night train lines, useful for saving a night in the a hotel and arriving well-rested in the morning
• 23 daytime lines

The stretch that we were on runs daily service from Toulouse <–> Quimper:

The schedule has changed slightly, but here’s a sample of the stops made on Train 3854

INTERCITÉS 3854 BORDEAUX-NANTES

After boarding right on time, we pulled out of the station just a few minutes late (exactly 3 minutes late to be precise), right at 2:58pm. While this wouldn’t pass muster with the Swiss, it is extremely prompt in my book.

By: patrick janicek – CC BY 2.0

Our actual route, complements of my Garmin GPS watch

Because we had a rather poor experience on our first train ride (SNCF TGV Train: Paris CDG to Bordeaux), this somewhat run down train felt (relatively) newer and fresher and immediately left us with a good impression.

Although we thought it was a free-for-all, general admission style seating, the train was partly reserved, which we learned the hard way after a few minutes into the ride. We walked through a few cars looking for empty seats and promptly plopped down at the first available. Within minutes, we had a very confused French family confronting us, fortunately my increasingly limited but still somewhat useful French, got us out of the situation.

So, the moral of the story was that seats with a ticket above them are reserved. If you have an unreserved ticket either look for seats scattered about in the reserved cabins without a ticket (but someone might be coming for them eventually?) or you’ll likely find an entire car for unreserved seats at the very rear of the train.

Seats were just as comfortable if not more comfortable than the TGV with the exception of not having a recline. There was very little luggage storage space and the space that we did find was already full of large rolling bags. There are just a few slots in each car and a small area in the middle. You’re best off getting there first to ensure a slot.

The best news? Multiple power slots at every row

The ride was quite pleasant and we made it to Nantes about 3 minutes early.

This was a far more relaxing option over driving. Not including the car rental cost, this route on the road would have been about 57 euros including tolls and fuel. Although this route was 74 euros for the two of us, the convenience of not having to worry about renting a car, parking, rental insurance etc.. was worth far more than the additional 17 euros we had to pay.

TRAIN STATS

If you’re looking for the (self-admittedly) nerdy train stats, here ya go:

This shows our speed and the ~8 stops we made along the way

BOTTOM LINE: Although driving would get you there in just 3 hr 19 mins vs 4 hr 00 mins on the train, you’ll be hard pressed to have a more relaxing experience with a full cafe, power plugs at every seat and a price tag of just 37 euros/person.

The post SNCF Intercités Train Review – Bordeaux to Nantes first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

TGV service/review

We were scheduled on the 16h21 train (that’s 4:21pm to you Freedom-fry-loving guys in ‘Merica). Because this train didn’t originate at the CDG airport, we had to wait until about 15 mins before departure to see which track it would be on. The trip was scheduled to take 4 hours 16 mins (!) and put us at Bordeaux St. Jean right at 21h37.

The TGV has been in service since 1981 and, to be quite honest, some of the cars are starting to feel like they were one of the pioneers back in 1981. That said, everything was rather old and dated and this model didn’t offer power ports at the seat, but we were traveling in 2nd class, so it’s possible that only 1st class was power-outlet equipped. (Update: Double checked and these particular cars were built between 1988-92 and then refurbished between 2005-09.)

The bathrooms were dirty but, all-around, this wasn’t a bad trip, just pretty sparse when compared to the “glamorous” European train travel that we’ve all heard touted by our brethren from across the pond.

As with anything quintessentially French, wine and coffee wasn’t too far:

The full-service dining car had about anything and everything you could want/need on a 4+ hour train ride.

TGV: Not as fast as you may think

If you’re like me, you were thinking 4 hours 16 mins to go from the CDG airport to Bordeaux?! That’s a substantial trip! For comparison, a direct train trip from Paris Montparnasse takes 3 hours 14 minutes. While it’s absolutely easier to take the train, it’s only marginally faster and only cheaper if you’re going with no more than 2 people.

A drive would take you 5h28 vs 4h16 on the train:

Part of the reason that taking the train from the airport adds an extra 58 minutes is that they take you all the way around Paris to get there:

Going around your…..to get to….how’s that saying go? Well they’ve perfected it here

And, at the end of the day, while the TGV has achieved speeds of up to 190 mph on this line, it’s all about averages and actuals:

Average speed of just 95 mph

Actual top speed achieved 145 mph

I wore my Garmin GPS watch on the trip and have the the train-nerd stats here:

Check out the Garmin Connect Player to see it in action: Garmin Connect Player

Interestingly, when researching this route, I found that the SNCF is currently working on a €7.2 billion project to rebuild over 300 km of this line to shorten the distance and make higher speeds possible. When opened in 2017, Bordeaux-Paris route is expected to take 50 mins less, down to 2h24 from 3h14–glad to see the the French are still investing money in rail!

BOTTOM LINE: I still think nothing beats train travel in Europe, but this particular journey had me questioning my loyalty–from the slightly dated train and dirty bathrooms to the rather slow 95 mph average for a “High-speed train.”

The post SNCF Train: Paris CDG to Bordeaux first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

Our bags took a good while to hit the baggage claim belt, not totally surprising since we landed way over at Terminal X, a very long series of walks + train rides to the baggage claim terminal. Fortunately, our bags were some of the first off since we had Sky Priority.

Charles de Gaulle to TGV Station

The station is connected to the airport and yes, you can walk there! (or take a quick and free shuttle bus/train).

There are very few words to express how awesome it is that Paris has a high-speed rail station from their main international airport that accesses all major lines to the rest of France. In the US where it’s uncommon to even have decent rail access from an airport to the city, long distance high-speed train access is unimaginable.

After scooping up your bags from the terminal, you’ll have a short walk from Terminal 2 to the TGV station.

If you land at either 2E, 2F, or 2G, your bags will wind up at baggage claim in 2E/F, so you should only have a 6-8 minute walk. If you’re arriving by train and flying out, you’ll want to budget enough time based on where your terminal is, see this chart:

The recommended minimum transfer time is:

– Train –> plane: 40-55 min. (depending on your terminal location) before check-in deadline
– Plane –> train: 50-60 min. before train departure.

But, this can vary widely with flight delays. I’m comfortable with the recommended 40-55 min train to plane time since delays on main TGV lines are infrequent but I would allow much more than 50-60 mins for a plane –> train transfer.

Should I buy my ticket before arrival or at the station?

This is always a great dilemma, here’s our example and how we handled it. In short, I prefer to purchase tickets once we’ve landed.

Our flight was scheduled to arrive CDG at 12:30pm, giving us the following choices for the CDG-Bordeaux train:

2:09pm departure
4:21pm departure
6:09pm departure

When pricing out the tickets online, we compared both purchasing through RailEurope and direct on the Voyages-SNCF.com site and determined that dramatic savings (20-40%) can be achieved by purchasing direct through SNCF (post linked).

On the Voyages-SNCF.com site you’ll find a few discounted fares, and have the choice of applying any discounts you might qualify for.

The most important things to watch out for when pricing a ticket are the exchange/reimbursement terms of the ticket. Take this pricing for example:

For the PLEIN TARIF LOISIR fares, you’re restricted to:

• Exchange or reimbursement for free up until day of depart.
• 10 euro fee for exchange/reimbursement on day of depart
• No value retained after departure

This is shaping up to be a bad choice when arriving in France on an international flight, if you’re just 1 minute late for the train, you’ve lost 91 euros. In fact, the most flexible choice you’ll find, the TGV PRO 2NDE fare, has some serious risks in booking in advance too:

• Exchange or reimbursement for free up until minute of departure.
• Up to 1 hour (in some cases 2 hours) AFTER the departure of the train you can still can fully reimbursed ( “Il vous permet notamment d’échanger ou de vous faire rembourser gratuitement vos billets jusqu’à 1 heure après le départ, dans votre gare de départ en France”)
• No value retained past the 1 or 2 hour window

The obvious problem with this is the possibility for lengthy travel delays. If your flight is delayed a little, you might arrive to the train station within that 1 or 2 hour window, but, if it’s seriously delayed, you might be out 100+ euros.

For us, we wanted to waste as little time as possible in that train station–we were ready to make it to Bordeaux to start sightseeing! With the plane schedule to land at 12:30pm, there was a possibility, albeit it small one that we could make the 2:09pm train. If not, the 4:21pm train should be easily doable. We opted to wait until arriving at the train station to book so that we could be on the very next available train while minimizing our risk in missing a pre-booked ticket.

Our recommendation: If you’re flexible on time, book the cheapest ticket possible (will have the least flexible terms) and allow plenty of time for your transfer. If you don’t want to waste time waiting around the airport, and are ok paying a good bit more, plan to buy your ticket once you land and make it to the TGV station for the next available train.

Buying your ticket at the Charles de Gaulle TGV Station

Once in the TGV station area, keep following the escalators down until you’ve reached the main concourse. Here, you’ll find 2 large ticket offices, a bunch of self-serve ticketing machines, restaurants, cafes, a bank with ATM (if you need to either withdrawal or change $$) and a waiting lounge.

A) Best bet: If you’ve got a credit card with the built in chip, then you can easily use the self-serve ticketing machines. They’re quick and rather easy to use.

B) If you aren’t lucky enough to have a credit card that will work, then you’ll have to join the queue to see an agent. The line is almost never shorter than 15-20 mins and could be as much as 60+ mins, so plan accordingly. Just about every employee here will speak English and they can take standard swipe credit cards.

With ticket in hand, you can proceed to your platform and board!

BOTTOM LINE: Flying into CDG and taking a train out, or vice versa, is very convenient but requires planning! Make sure to budget plenty of time for a transfer or buy your tickets when you arrive to remove the worry. We opted to buy our train tickets once we landed in Paris.

Photos: http://mappery.com/maps/Charles-de-Gaulle-Airport-Map.jpg, http://www.easycdg.com/

The post Taking a train from Paris Airport CDG-Charles de Gaulle first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

Pros: RailEurope.com is a good resource for researching entire rail network in Europe and is the only place to book a multiday rail pass that covers numerous countries and service providers

Cons: If just booking a simple roundtrip or one-way ticket, it can cost 20-40% more than going direct to the train website

When planning our France trip, we needed to book about 3 train tickets to get us from CDG-Bordeaux, Bordeaux-Nantes and then Nantes-Paris. So, when trying to research the best way to book, we checked out all the venues, starting with RailEurope.com.

We were looking at taking the 11h05 train from Bordeaux to Nantes on March 10th– RailEurope is quoting $70.

Ok, let’s buy it:

Ok, still looking good, coming in at $70.

Ok…now the price has jumped to $72 with no explanation about where the extra $2 came from.

Continuing on to book, I select “issue e-tickets” and see in the fine print that Rail Europe is slipping in a $7.95 booking fee.

Ok, well maybe I’ll just have them mailed:

That’s even worse at $18 for fast shipping. So, now the total has jumped by almost 10% to $79.95:

Booking French train company SNCF direct on Voyages-SNCF.com

Pros: You can see discounted and promo fares

Cons: If you click “English” on Voyages-SNCF.com, it forwards you to RailEurope! Discounted fares might be more restrictive

Head to Voyages-SNCF.com, when prompted select “Other Countries (EUR)” to display in English and ticket collection country as “France” to show you the best prices. If you select either USA or UK as your country, the website will forward you to RailEurope.com! For the exact same train, we’re getting quotes of 37.30 eur (≈ $48.50 US), which is a discounted rate not even available on RailEurope. Now, the discounted rate comes with a more strict exchange policy, so, for the purposes of comparing apples to apples, we’ll use the 49.70 eur rate (≈ $64.70 US) which has identical exchange policies to the Rail Europe ticket.

On to the next screen to book it. I selected “e-ticket” and then proceed to payment. The grand total comes out to 49.70 eur (≈ $64.70 US), no hidden fees or surprises.

This equals a discount of $79.95 – $64.70 = $15.25 saved, nearly 20% off by using Voyages-SNCF.com. And, you’re booking directly with the company, skipping the middleman so, in theory, any changes or refunds should be much easier. If you take into account that the ticket I actually booked was the 37.30 eur ($48.50 US) rate, then the savings were more like $79.95 – $48.50 = $31.45 off, a savings of almost 40%.

BOTTOM LINE: The more sites you check, the better for shopping train and airline tickets, but, in this case, it nearly always pays to shop directly with the issuing authority.

The post How-to: Booking French Trains (RailEurope vs SNCF) first appeared on Weekend Blitz.