Food on the train

Since I will be going directly from an all day tour to the Lyon train station, I will have to purchase in the station.

Nice Ville station has at least a Paul (quality bakery/sandwich chain) and Lyon Part Dieu has several options: http://www.sncf.com/en/gare/services/lyon-part-dieu. But you're also welcome to bring in food and beverage from anywhere. If you know that you have reserved seats around a larger table, you can get pretty fancy, but in some train seating areas you'll have a smaller tray table, like on an airplane.

How does one arrange for a larger table on the train? Is this first class?

How does one arrange for a larger table on the train? Is this first class?

In 1st class on the TGV, you can select "dual face-to-face" which means you and your travel companion will have seats facing one another, with a table between you. I do not think you can do this in 2nd class, but look at 1st class and buy in advance. There are good discounts for non-ref tickets that might put 1 Class in your budget.

Forgot to say.... We once ordered food on board the TGV. It was awful. Bring your own and settle for buying a coffee on board.

The larger stations always have a variety of food outlets, and that's where I normally buy food for long train journeys. The food is usually fresh and seems to be better quality than typical food bought on the train.

Sometimes the onboard dining options are okay but you can't count on that.

The Paul chain is an excellent choice, you can find one inside most train stations in France.

I love grabbing food in train stations and hopping on the train! For people who've not done that and imagine Burger Kings and McDonalds as the food options - guess again. The food choices can be incredibly good. And don't forget to grab a bottle of wine (or 2) and a nice flaky chocolate croissant for dessert.

Did I already say "I love grabbing food in train station and hopping on the train"??

There's no need to travel in first class just because you want to eat a sandwich or have a salad. Standard class seats throughout Europe are plenty fine, many have pull down tables with a little notch for a drink, and most carriages have a combination of what is called airline seating (4 or 5 across with an aisle 2+2 or 2+3 where several rows are all facing the same way and the backs of the seats in front) and table seating, usually 4 around a table in standard and 4 around a table or 2 face to face in first.

It would be a waste of money to go First just to eat a sandwich.

What Nigel said. Second class has the face-to-face seats (and thus bigger tables) too.

this should be in the France forum?

Anyhow, we took the TGV first class from Lausanne to Dijon and then Dijon to Paris. It included a lunch served at our seats which was very good, with wine. Similar to an airline meal. Years ago we took the Thalys between Paris & Belgium and it included a similar meal.

I was wandering around the TGV and saw the food car, it looked like there were OK options. But it's like plane travel, if you want to make sure you get to eat what you want, bring it onboard.

Train station food in Europe is good to very good. In France, I'd expect to find really good food. . . . and wine.

If having face to face seating with a little table were important to me I'd figure out my train route, check specific seat configurations on www.seat61.com, then book and reserve my seats (in 2nd class).

Can't always rely on getting food on the train. We travelled from San Sebastian to Toulouse by train (about a 6 hour trip - arriving in Toulouse at 11.30pm). No food provided on this train. Once the locals started breaking out he baguettes, we knew we were in trouble!!!