Thursday, April 19, 2012

Rent a car or buy a Railpass?

We would like to stay at Nice, but plan a 2-day trip to Paris and the surrounding areas. Would you recommend renting a car or buy a railpass? Do you think it%26#39;s safe for tourists to drive around the country, even if you%26#39;re not fluent in French? We would like to visit the Normandy area (Caen and Rouen). It seems travel time is cut 2 hrs if taking the train to Paris. Are there inexpensive tour packages to Paris from the French Riviera?





How is the French Riviera in October? Thanks for all replies.








|||



A two day trip to Paris and the %26quot;surrounding areas%26quot; is hardly enough considering the distance between Paris and Nice. Even if you take the Autoroutes (toll roads) it will be an all day drive. Why not visit another region closer to Nice, so your time isn%26#39;t all spent on the road or train?




|||



I agree there is not much time to do that if you have only two days.





If you could find another day or two, I would take the TGV to Paris (buy a ticket, one-way or return, no Rail Pass needed), spend a day or two here, then rent a car and drive from Paris up to the WWII museum at Caen and visit the American and German cemeteries at Colleville and La Cambe. Driving in the French countryside is no problem. There are also tours that go to Normandy from Paris.




|||



It is difficult to offer advice as I am not clear about how much total time you have available and your overall travel priorities. Renting a car is not that expensive and offers the greatest travel flexibility. French fluency is not required while touring France, but driving from Nice to Paris would take approximately 9 hours without stopping (using the autoroute and assuming no traffic).





If you are going to Nice and want to visit more of France, may I suggest you consider renting a car (try www.autoeurope.com) and research exploring Provence. Much information about such an intinerary is already available on the forum and this could ultimately be just as rewarding an experience as going farther north to Paris and Normandy.




|||



Thanks for all the advise received. This is our first trip to France, and will be there for 10 days. We picked Nice, in case we buy the railpass and visit Italy also. Do you think 10 days is too short? If you buy the railpass, are overnight travels included?




|||



Assuming you are arriving from the US, and have the flexibility to still choose your arrival destination, may I suggest you simply travel to and from Paris, spend 4-5 days there, rent a car for 4-5 days and either (1) make a trip north west to Giverny, Honfleur, Normandy beaches, Mont St Michel, and St Malo or (2) make a trip to the Loire Valley (chateaux country, I recommend Tours as a base). You could also rent an appartment and easily spend the entire 10 days in Paris.





Resist the impulse to see as much as you can because you%26#39;ll ultimately miss a great deal and return home needing a vacation instead of feeling as though you just arrived from having been on one. If you want to visit Italy and/or the south of France, do so on another occasion. You will thank yourself if you greatly simplify the overall itinerary.





By the way, the weather in most of France is usually still very plesant during the month of October.




|||



eib4421 -





Rick Steves has a great section on his website that will help you decide if a rail pass will be the most economical way to do things - it also analyzes the various types of passes available. Go to www.ricksteves.com. That site will also tell you which passes must be bought in America, before you leave for your trip.





For those of us in North America it is tempting to overschedule ourselves because European countries are smaller than ours. However, it helps to remember that France has been there for a while, and it%26#39;s probably going to stay there for a while, so there will be time for you to make more trips. Give yourselves the opportunity to absorb and enjoy some of the %26quot;frenchness%26quot; of the country. You%26#39;ll be glad you did.





Bon voyage.




|||



I agree that with only 10 days, you need to be really careful not to overbook. France is a country of great contrast and spirit. It should be savored. The worst thing you can do with your 10 days is to overschedule, forcing you to spend all your time hurrying from one place to another. Leave time to explore the unexpected and to detour, guilt free, along the way. Sit in the cafe and watch the other tourists scurry by. I travel often, and my rule of thumb is to always leave wanting more.





Paris, and Rouen, Chartre, Versailles, Giverny, Caen, Mt St Michel, or the Normandy beaches would make a lovely and very full 10 days. So would Paris and the Loire Valley. My very favorite place, though, is le Sud. The south of France is full of Mediterranean spirit and Roman history. The roads are well-marked and driving is easy, if not obligatory. Nice, Avignon, Arles, the Camarague, Carcassonne, the Corbieres, the lavendar fields near Sault, and Gordes - it is so easy to make a full 2 weeks. If relaxing is your aim, I%26#39;d do a little trip down the Canal du Midi. The small towns in the south are medieval and their people are very friendly.





But, if you have your heart set on both Nice and Paris, then rent a car for your time in Nice and take the TGV train to Paris. It%26#39;s fast (3 hours from Avignon to Paris) and very comfortable.




|||



Quick questions...



Is it recommended to buy the Railpass or best to purchase individual tickets when we get to there? For example from Paris to Nice, Nice to Pisa, Rome to Pompeii. Which is the least expensive?





Thanks for all replies.




|||



For the itinerary you suggest, you%26#39;d almost certainly be better to buy point-to-point tickets. And you should NOT purchase your tickets in the USA, but online from the French/Italian national rail sysyem sites. You will save anywhere from 20% to 60%.



The problem with Rick Steve%26#39;s site which purportedly allows you to calculate whether a railpass is better than indiuvidual tickets, is that it completely overlooks this fact. You may be able to figure out why if you think about it...





www.voyages-sncf.com



www.trenitalia.it





Before you attempt to use either site to purchase tickets , do a search on the France forums (clickable from this page) for MorganB%26#39;s step-by-step guide to the SNCF online purchasing system. The key thing is that you NEVER want to give your country of residence as anything other than France when buying French rail tickets. You will either be able to print your tickets yourself or you will have to pick them up when you arrive in France. In some cases both options are avbailable. There are occasional oddities which make both options unavailable, and the only option given is to hav your tickets mailed. Again you do NOT want to ask for your tickets to be mailed to the US.



Just a quick question - earlier in this thread you were talking about trying to see both Paris %26quot;and the surrounding area%26quot; and the Riviera in ten days. Several people suggested that that was not enough time. For the trip you are currently proposing, I would say that three weeks is a flat-out minimum. Both Paris and Rome are certainly worth a full week (actually you could spend a month in both cities without having seen half of what is worth seeing) and the Riviera the better part of another week. And I%26#39;m not including the %26quot;surrounding areas%26quot; in this time estimate.



Do you now have more time available than the ten days you were originally talking about?




|||



I just realized you are not travelling until October. You can%26#39;t buy tickets on the SNCF site further ahead than 90 days. On the trenitalia site it is 60 days. Especially in the case of SNCF tickets you should book as early as you can within that window as deep discounts are often available for advance purchase tickets.



Meanwhile you can probably check timetables for October, and get an idea of prices by looking at early June trains in Italy, early July in France.



By the way, US third party brokers can%26#39;t book until then either, but they%26#39;ll be happy for you to give them an interest-free loan in the meantime - and overcharge you down the road.

No comments:

Post a Comment