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Getting from St Jean de Luz to Nice

We're going to Saint Jean de Luz and my wife and I wanted to meet a friend in Nice. It seems there is no sane way of getting from A to B. All this information gives the costs for 2 people obtained from Rome2Rio...

Drive: Estimate gas costs = $200-$300, plus the cost of renting the car

Bus: Only $120, but we’d have to leave the day before we planned to, and it’s an overnight drive (leave 9:30 PM, arrive 11:30 AM)

Train: SNCF, $460, plus it’s an overnight trip, going by way of Paris and having to go to 2 different stations in Pari (leave 1:30 PM, arrive 9 AM)

Plane: $475, and all of them go by way of Paris - one went St-Jean-Paris-Amsterdam-Nice (leave 11:20 AM, arrive 5:30 PM)

Posted by
571 posts

If you are traveling in summer, there are daily nonstop flights from Biarritz airport to Nice on Air France and on easyJet. The frequency of nonstop flights drops off dramatically in the fall to roughly twice a week, as demand falls.

Otherwise, there are nonstop flights daily from Bordeaux to Nice all year around. Bordeaux of course is quite a bit farther than Biarritz.

Rome2Rio can be useful for getting a general sense of transportation options but it doesn't do multimodal very well (and I would never trust the specific times or prices) -- in this case it looks like the best trip is to pair ground transport, either to Biarritz or to Bordeaux, and catching an onward flight from there.

Posted by
48 posts

Thanks! We are going in October when there are no direct flights from Biarritz. The inexpensive flights from Bordeaux to Nice are the first couple in the morning, and no train from Saint Jean de Luz arrives in time to take advantage of these. So, once you can get there you're back up to around $400.

Posted by
590 posts

Looking on SNCF connect site, it shows a 10H, 100€ish trip going through Toulouse on to Nice in October.

Posted by
48 posts

Via Toulouse would be good. Funny, the one you describe didn't come up for me. Maybe it's the day of the week? - we're going on a Saturday. The nearest I can right now find is €108, 12 hr 15 min, St Jean de Luz to Bordeaux, to Marseille, to Nice. I'll try it again using a weekday and see if that makes a difference.

A later addition: There is a train on Fridays (and possibly all weekdays) via Toulouse and Marseille (2 train changes), the one I found was 12 hours, from 10:30 AM to 10:30 PM. Slightly cheaper, at about €97 or so.