Please sign in to post.
Holiday Sale! Save 20% Storewide!

Train Travel in France

Posted by (Atlanta, GA, USA) on

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time figuring out and planning train travel in France (Paris & Bayeux). We've taken the train through Ireland, England, Scotland, and Italy without any problems. My two questions/problems are:

  1. We have a train from Paris to Bayeux booked via the raileurope link on this site. It said we could pick and reserve our seats but we never got that option. We are on an intercity train and assigned to coach 7 seats 12 and 18. Does anyone know if these seats are next to each other? I can't find a seat map with high enough resolution to figure this out. It's not a big deal if they are not next to each other as I'm sure we can ask someone to switch with us but it would be nice to not have to do that.
  2. When we return to Paris from Bayeux, what is the best way to get to CDG? We get back to Paris St. Lazare around 2pm. We have a flight back to Atlanta the next morning so we're staying at the Novotel at CDG. It looks like it's a short walk from the Roissypole-Gare RER station at CDG. We would also like to be able t go back into Paris that evening for dinner and then head back to the hotel.

Thanks for the help. Like I said, we had no problems planning train travel in other countries but France seems to be giving us problems for some reason.

Posted by
14980 posts

Your #2 is what I would do....sort of. At 2 pm from St Lazare take the Metro (or bus) to Gare du Nord, then at Nord the RER B to get to the hotel at Roissy by 9 pm at the very latest, if you decide on having dinner in Paris. I wouldn't, I eat dinner at my hotel at Roissy on the night before flying back to SFO.

On the Paris -Bayeux train there are no reserved seats, like everyone else, you just board. If it's super crowded, you stand.

Posted by
1229 posts
  1. Your seats are not next to each other, but they are both window seats. BTW, seat61.com is a wealth of info for trains in Europe.
  2. I always take the RoissyBus from Opera Garnier to CDG. The bus stop is a 7-minute walk from Gare Sainte Lazare, and it is a much simpler and pleasant way to get there in my opinion. No changes, and it drops you right at the airport. I believe it is 12€ per person.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.