We are a retired couple planning our first (and probably our only) trip to Europe. Our primary plan is flying into Paris, then by train to the Tuscany region of Italy, probably flying out of Rome.
However, we don't want the 185 mph trains. We want a slow trip, with the ability to stop in some of the smaller villages along the route. We will have 2 to 4 weeks, depending on costs.
Any suggestions?
You have many, many options for this trip. I would just start with a map and some guidebooks to decide on what you want to see.
To learn more about train travel in Europe you might also want to read the very helpful Man in Seat 61 website: www.seat61.com
Any reason you want to completely avoid the TGV trains?
I don't necessarily want to avoid TVG trains, I just am not interested in flying past all the small, unique villages. We want to "stop and smell the roses" along the way.
Perhaps renting a car may be better, but the costs may be prohibitive.
Thanks for the response.
I can't speak to train travel for the Italian part of your trip. In France, you have to buy "point to point" tickets meaning that you can't buy a ticket from Paris to Lyon for example and get off the train in Dijon and then catch a subsequent train from Dijon to Lyon unless you get a rail pass and are taking trains that do not require reservations. Rail passes are not usually a good idea in France but they could be for an itinerary, like the one you want, that does not include many TGV trips. For a trip like the one that I think that you are envisioning, you should pick out the places that you want to visit en route to Tuscany and purchase tickets from one place to the next. If you want slow trains, take the TERs, the slow regional trains which happen to be IMO the only ones for which having a pass might make any sense. It's a little harder to travel between regions on TERs because you have to make connections between regional train systems that may not have coordinating schedules but it can be done. What exactly are you interested in seeing in France -- the Burgundy wine growing area, the Alps, the Cote d'Azur, western Provence, plus beaux villages, etc.? Those are just a few of the possibilities. Do you want most of the trip to be in France or most to be in Italy or equally divided? There is a lot of France between Paris and Tuscany so some ideas of what you want to see would help if you want a suggested route.
One of the problems, at least in France, is that train service to small villages was eliminated a couple of decades ago. Nowadays, local trains stop in medium-size or large towns and you need to have a taxi lined up beforehand to take you to the villages, which could be anywhere from 2-40 kilometers away. In some places, local buses run once a day in each direction and only one or two days a week in some others. The more touristic the village, more likely it will have better bus service. This will take a lot of careful planning.
Perhaps Nighthawksh is thinking of places a bit larger than we are assuming. Some examples might help us provide more specific information.
I spend a lot of time visiting smaller cities, though few that I would term "villages". Even when train service exists, there are times when buses are more convenient due to direct routing, frequency, or the location of the bus stop vs. the train station. They may also be cheaper.
If there is a cluster of small places to be visited in a condensed area, more than you would be able to see conveniently on a single day via public transportation (3 is usually really pushing it), it's worth Googling to see whether there might be one-day bus tours that hit a lot of places on your list. I do that very rarely, but it can be worth it as an occasional splurge. I lucked out by finding some extremely affordable van trips radiating out of Lecce in Puglia last year. They were about 55 euros per person, transportation only.
Another possibility, if one of you can drive a manual-transmission car, would be to rent cars selectively for 1, 2 or 3 days at a time when the geography makes a car especially helpful, such as for the Tuscan or Umbrian hill towns. For covering small rural areas, gas, toll, and parking costs should be pretty minimal.
For all the reasons alluded to, I suspect that you will spend less time on trains than you anticipate. My gut feeling is that a rail pass will not save you money, but only sketching out your trip and adding up the 2nd-class rail fares will allow you to decide. Just don't rush to buy a rail pass. Folks here can give you good guidance on that decision after you have a possible itinerary.
Rome2Rio.com will help you estimate the travel time between stops and will identify where there is bus and train service, though you'll have to follow a lot of links to see the frequency of service. That would be my first step (after reading guidebooks), to see what might be possible. Then I'd get into more precise train schedules and costs at the French and Italian rail web sites. Trenitalia requires you to use the Italian spellings for cities.
You didn't mention what time of year you plan to take your trip. One thing to keep in mind when you're hitting a lot of smaller places by public transportation is your exposure to the weather. There will necessarily be a good bit of time spent hanging around small-town bus stops (typically outdoors, may or may not be covered) and non-air-conditioned railroad stations. Small towns typically have pretty infrequent service, and the penalty for cutting it too close may be 3 or 4 hours of cooling your heels in a little town you've already seen. They tyranny of the schedule is the price you pay for visiting a spot that--with luck--isn't very touristy.
Time of year may also affect how comfortable you are with sort of winging it--making your hotel reservations only a day or two or three in advance. That's the way I travel, but it's not for everyone, and it means you can't pin down your hotel costs before departure. Of course, you'd be nuts not to reserve in advance for your first night and last night.
You don't indicate your hometown, but there may be a travel group near you (we are retired and think it's worth driving 90 miles and back to a monthly group for the information and tips and support) You can combine trains with car rental, but mapping out where you want to go and what you want to do there is probably the best place to start.
With the Uber App on your smartphone you're never very far from a ride if you need one.
Connections between TER trains to achieve long distance journeys are often deliberately poor or impossible, because SNCF wants people to buy the more expensive TGV tickets.
With the Uber App on your smartphone you're never very far from a ride if you need one.
unlikely in the rural areas and smaller towns
Cost of a car rental (especially an economy-sized car with manual transmission) should not be prohibitive. However, dropping it off in a different country can add a high fee. So if you have a car for a week or more on the French side, drop it in Nice and take a train to Italy. Maybe you'll see something without a car first, such as a couple of nights in Cinque Terre Siena, then pick up an Italian car for more Tuscan exploration. You can get regular rental price comparisons through Auto Europe or check out their separate tab for "leasing" at http://www.autoeurope.com/buyback.cfm, which allows you to use a car for three weeks or more and drop it in either Milan or Rome.
In addition to Rick's guidebooks, Michelin Green Guides are helpful for finding smaller towns of interest.
