France by train, who’d have thought?!
A week on, and my family are still reminiscing about how good our week in France for the half term break really was. Including the traditional tasty baguettes, croissants, pastries, cheese and wine, and the sunny, warm weather, heated outdoor & indoor pools, huge beaches and the real ease of simply just getting around.
There are ideas being tabled about next year already, and quite a few others have expressed an interest in our experience, so I have tried to share it here.
Our adventure started with an late afternoon train from Garforth to Leeds and onto London (giving us peace of mind for the UK leg). Staying at the Premier Inn opposite St Pancras International, for an easy start to our travel to France the following day (including the usual buffet breakfast (kids eat free)).
St Pancras International check in, passport control and security check took all of 20 minutes and we had enough time to get some euros and a coffee before boarding the Eurostar before departure. Having never been on Eurostar, it was incredibly quiet and 'floaty'!, within half an hour we were in the tunnel and another 25 minutes later, breezing across the French countryside, clipping an almost 300kmph!
Arrival at Gare du Nord was ontime, to the minute. A quick purchase of Navigo easy cards to get across the Paris Metro underground (which you can recharge using your phone) and we were on our way to Paris Bienvenue and Montparnasse on Metro line4.
Our TGV to Nantes rolled out of the station, literally to the second. We'd booked top deck tickets, so we could see the changing scenery, and a spacious table (for playing cards, games, reading, eating). Dare I say, it was even comfortable and even pleasant. 2 hours 15 minutes later we pulled up in Nantes.
We spent an overnight here, with a 15 minute walk to our hotel, 15 minute walk to the city's tram and a 15 minute walk (there's a theme here!), to an amazing museum the following day, Les machines de l'ile.
A local train the following day took us onward to Sables d'Olonne, and a short Uber trip dropped us at our camping and caravan site, Yelloh Village Domaine de l'Oree, for the week.
We had the site virtually to ourselves for 5 of the 6 days we spent there. Spending a good few hours every day in the heated indoor and outdoor pools, and on the water slides. There's even a video of me whooping like a 9 year old!
We hired bikes for the week, just to get around. And what a nice surprise, you could get anywhere safely on a bike, with 95% of it on dedicated cycle tracks and with signposting everywhere. It was 15 minutes to the supermarket, 15 minutes to the sea, 30 minutes to Sables d'Olonne. And it was so good to see so many people using the bike tracks. Wonderful.
After a week there, feeling rested, we turned our tails back to Paris. Experiencing a small 'Race across the world' moment on the Friday morning when our Uber didn't turn up (our mistake). After a run through the campsite to find some English speaking campers, we managed to catch our TGV (thanks to Amanda from Ashford for your random act of kindness).
A 3 day weekend in Paris followed, staying at an airbnb near Gare du Nord. Within walking distance to Montmartre, the Eurostar, the Metro and as much international cuisine you could ever want (we'd recommend Ismail Trudaine, as well as others).
That left for us to jump on the Eurostar at a reasonable time Monday morning, followed by a short break at Kings Cross, before heading north on the LNER to Leeds and home.
Our trip was to see if we could wrap a relaxing break, with activities for adults and our daughter, whilst seeing and experiencing more of the country we were travelling through. And it worked a treat. So much so, that we already have a pretty good idea we'll be heading to Bordeaux on the TGV sometime soon (its only 2hours 15minutes from Paris #bonkersfast!)
Some of the logistical detail
Wednesday; 16.43 Garforth arriving London 19.30
Thursday; 10:24 Eurostar (2hrs34) arr Paris 13:58 CST
15:39 TGV from Paris Montparnasse, (2hrs15) arr Nantes 17:54
Friday; 16:35 Nantes, (1hr25 plus a 20min delay) arr Sables d'Olonne 18:00
Following Friday; 9:31 Sables d'Olonne TGV (3hrs50) arr Paris 13:21
Monday; 10:01 Eurostar Paris Gare du Nord (2hrs29) arr London St Pancras Int. 11:30 BST
13:03 London Kings Cross arr Garforth 16:05
(even leaving time to do the Aldi big shop!)
Notes:
We bought a 4 day (use within 1 month) Interrail Global Pass costing £492 for both adults (kids under 12 get a free pass! Seniors and Youth also get discounted passes)
You then have to pay to reserve seats on the Eurostar and TGV, we did this through Rail Europe (but Trainline do too), costing c£250. The Interrail Global Pass saved us c£750 (v's individual ticket price).
Reassuringly, travel and accomodation (excluding food) for 12 day/nights, was comparable to a 7day/night trip to Lanzerote last October. And obviously signficantly more sustainable.
Look out for December sales of discounted passes, which can save even more money - passes are valid for 1 year and you don't activate them until just before you travel.
We avoided travelling on weekends, especially here in the UK.
Keep it simple. We only did 1 or 2 legs each day, at either end of our break.
If you were to miss a connection, there's always another train in an hour.
All major stations have good shops, where you can buy food/drinks.
On the return leg, you gain an hour, giving you more travelling time to get home.
Whats not to like? There's a bit of preparation needed, you can't leave it to the last minute (we booked it all 3 months before travel). Happy to help anyone explore this way to travel in the future. Also, check out 'The Man in Seat 61' and various Facebook groups. Byway also offer flight free holidays.
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Well planned thought out and explained. Pleased you all enjoyed. TL.
Great way to travel. We shall be following in your footsteps in September but at Montparnasse we will get the TGV to Hendaye, right on the Spanish border. We then walk about 100 yards to the Euskotren Station for a very pleasant ride to San Sebastian, a really lovely seaside town. I shall let you know how we get on with the rest of the trip when we get back late September.
Your holiday sounds great – thanks for sharing the details about how to find the best prices on tickets. Also interesting to see Ingrid’s plans. We were not ready to take the plunge on a car free holiday yet, but rather than a long drive to France we took the Hull ferry to Rotterdam in early June. We stayed in Friesland (north Netherlands) for a week. It was less than 2 hours by car from Rotterdam. As expected loads of cycle paths, lovely lakes for swimming and water sports, museums a-plenty and very friendly locals who were all happy to speak English as soon as we stuttered “we don’t speak Dutch / Ik spreek geen Nederlands”. The weather was similar to UK so not unbearably warm and mixed sunshine and rain. The ferry isn’t cheap – but you do get to sleep while you travel and arrive refreshed – so for us it was worth it, and much lower carbon footprint than flying!
Alison, I have travelled many times Hull- Rotterdam as my Mum was Dutch. It is expensive and in future we will get the Eurostar to Rotterdam and then travel by train to Noord Brabant to see my Mum’s relatives.
Onward travel to Amsterdam opens up other travel opportunities such as to Hamburg and from there you can carry on to Copenhagen. Travel to Poland is also easy. The one caveat is that my sisters experienced problems with late running trains in Germany, 2-3 hours and no redress for missed connections!
Noord Brabant is also great for cycling, more wooded and with some gentle hills towards the east and they get bigger as you head south to Maastricht. Glad you enjoyed your trip to Friesland.
One tip I picked up before our last trip to Spain: buy metro tickets for Paris at the cafe on the Eurostar. Saves looking for/queuing for a machine. We only needed tickets to get from Gare du Nord to Montparnasse.