French rail help

www.tgv-europe.com for all of these train journeys. Use Great Britain as your ticket collection country. If you use U.S.A., the system will switch you to RailEurope which you do not want. If you buy tickets on the website, you can print them out at home. Thus, you will not be going to the U.K. to get your tickets. For your first leg from Paris to Avignon TGV, there is a direct train with no changes. 2hrs39min as I recall. If you book early, you can get some good fares.

There's only one rail system for these journeys - SNCF, the French national rail company. You may be confused by all the names they have for various trains - TGV, Lunea, Corrail, Teoz, etc. Ignore these - they're just "branding" for various routes and types of train cars, and you won't have a choice on most city pairs. Larry is quite correct about using that website, choosing Great Britain as your country, and refusing to be redirected to Rail Europe, where you'll pay more and have fewer options. When you buy the ticket, you'll have the option to print at home (only for some), pick up at a ticket window or SNCF Boutique, or pick up at a machine using a chip-and-pin credit card. Don't choose the last option. Only chip-and-pin cards work at the machines. One other tip: buy one ticket at a time. When I tried to buy three different routes (I had them all in my shopping cart before check out), I was only given the option to use a card at a machine. When I bought one at a time, I got the option to pick up at a SNCF Boutique or window. There are SNCF Boutiques all over French cities; just be SURE to bring the credit card you used to purchase the tickets, along with the printout of your order.

Thanks for the replies. I did order and print my first ticket from the SNF site based on what someone said here. it was much cheaper that way. Correct me if I'm wrong. With these tickets I do not have to have them validated before boarding the train right?for those shorter legs of my trip do I need to buy early or can I just show up and buy a ticket in case my plans change?

If your tickets have a specific departure date and time as well as seat reservtions, you do not need to validate. However, if this information is not on the ticket, you may be on a Regional-type train. These types of trains do require reservations if bought in France. They may be pre-validated if purchased online. I've only had TGV tickets.

If your ticket has a specific date and time of departure and is printed at home, you do not need to validate it (I usually do, just in case, but that's my paranoia. It's not hard to just stick my printout into the validation machine). But you do need to show your passport when using a print-at-home ticket. To see if there's any financial advantage to buying in advance, check prices for tomorrow vs for your desired date of travel. If there is no difference, you can buy them when you get there. For short legs like Avignon to Marseilles and Marseilles to Aix, you can just buy when you want to go. I doubt there's any advance purchase discount on these short routes. These tickets will need to be validated. The yellow machines are everywhere, as long as you know to look (and aren't running to catch your train). You can often get tickets for close-by cities, like those two city pairs I mentioned above, out of machines that take coins, but not bills. Regular French ticket machines that sell longer distance tickets don't take cash, or swipe credit cards; you need a credit card with a chip and pin, so they won't work for most Americans. If you're buying at a window in Marseilles, allow a LOT of time for standing in the long lines (smaller cities have much shorter lines). This is why I now favor the SNCF Boutiques I keep mentioning. You take a number, like at a bakery, and sit in a (somewhat) air conditioned office until your number is displayed. You then sit at a desk and complete your transaction, and they can take a swipe credit card (at least they could a few years ago, when I last did this). Much more civilized than the train station.

Avignon has two stations, Centre and TGV. Either one has trains to Marseille (note spelling). The old Centre station is more convenient but the regional trains take twice as long, are usually less comfortable and are not necessarily cheaper. The TGV trains are wonderful, with reserved seating, but you must take a shuttle bus from near the Centre station (but inside the city walls) to the TGV station on the edge of the city. The trip from Marseille to Aix is even shorter and also has both regional and TGV routes. Again there is a shuttle bus from the TGV station into the town (www.tgv-europe.com includes that connection on its site) while the regional train goes to the older central station. The comment about the lineups at the central Marseille station ticket agency is dead on. It may be worth a couple of euros extra to buy a reserved TGV seat to Aix in advance. If any of the TGV tickets aren't available to print at home, an agent in Paris or Avignon will print them, avoiding bottlenecks like the Marseille ticket office. Act now to get TGV and iDTGV tickets for September for up to 50 per cent cheaper than you would pay to travel next week. www.tgv-europe.com

Southam: Sorry about the misspelling of Marseille - brain freeze late at night!