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Need help with transportation decisions

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My wife and I are trying to decide if we should rent a car and drive from the Charles De Gaulle airport to Bayeux or take a train to Caen and rent a car there. How hard is it to drive from the airport to Bayeux? Will the traffic be bad? We arrive in the middle of the day, 11:15am, so hopefully traffic won't be too bad. If we do the train it is hard to decide what time to reserve because we don't know if our flight will be on time and how long it will take to get out of the airport. Do we need to buy train tickets ahead of time? We will be there the middle of March so shouldn't be as crowded as late spring and summer. After getting done in the Bayeux area we will leave our car at Caen and take a train into Paris. Should we reserve this train ahead of time? I don't like the idea of being tied down to a specific train time, would like to just catch a train when we are ready and go with it. The train ticket thing is really confusing to me. Sounds like there are train passes that we could buy and be able to use on whatever and however many trains we felt like taking during our trip. Is this an option? Doesn't make a lot of sense though, cause if a train was sold out how could people with passes get on? I'm a rookie so sorry for all the questions.

We are going to do day trips from Paris to Versailles and Fontainebleau. Should we be booking these trains ahead of time?

Posted by
28096 posts

A rail pass will almost certainly cost a lot more than buying tickets as you go.

I would not be a safe driver on my arrival day after a sleepless night on the plane. Do you know for sure that you will be able to sleep well on the plane? If you do not, you'll be both sleep-deprived and jetlagged when you begin your drive. The usual recommendation is for folks wanting to start their trips in Normandy to hop on a train to Caen or Bayeux. Caen has more car-rental options. Bayeux is the best base for folks interested in the D-Day beaches. The van tours of the invasion sights mostly depart from Bayeux. If you plan a van tour for your first full day in France (Day 2), you won't need a car until Day 3--and not even then if you're heading right back to Paris.

A D-Day tour is highly recommended as being far more informative and efficient than driving yourself around and looking at a lot of sand. The vehicles used are small. It's not like being a on a big-bus tour.

Although some regional-train (TER) tickets can readily be bought right before departure at no additional cost, there is a range of fares for faster trains, and those tickets can be a real bargain if you buy them ahead of time, though that does mean committing to a specific date and time. You're traveling soon, so I don't know how much potential there is for savings on your tickets. I imagine there are some trains for which all the bargain tickets have already been sold. You can take a look now on the SNCF website. Be sure you're looking at the correct date.

Guessing what to do about that first trip north is difficult, given the vagaries of transatlantic air travel. Many people would recommend that you just wait until you land in Paris to buy the ticket for that trip. I certainly wouldn't buy it in advance unless I got a really great bargain on the fare.

I'm going to let someone else answer the question about Versailles and Fontainebleau.

Posted by
8166 posts

If you don't rent the car, take a cab to Gare St Lazare from CDG.
At Gare St Lazare buy your train ticket to Bayeux.
It is a good idea to buy your train back from Caen in advance. That is a popular route.
Or if you want a more spontaneous experience keep the rental car and drive to Paris.

You don't need to buy train tickets to Versailles or Fontainbleau in advance

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