Can anyone help me figure out the Rail Europe schedules, routes, stations? One route included 4 or 5 stops and took several hours. Must be a better route but darn if I can figure it out. Thanks in advance.
Don't use the Rail Europe site, it only shows schedules for trains they sell tickets for. Instead use the SNCF site at: http://www.sncf.fr/indexe.htm
Make sure you tell the site that you are collecting your tickets in France, our it will redirect you to Rail Europe. Your fastest connection should be Paris-Gare-de-Lyon to Bellegarde to St-Gervais-les-Bains-le-Fayet to Chamonix. The journey will take 6 hours.
As Michael says, use the SNCF site for timetables and fares.
While it won't give you fares for routes that don't include Germany, the best site for detailed timetables for all of Europe is www.bahn.de. After you get summary timetables for Paris-Chamonix, click on "Details for all" to see the connecting points.
Thanks guys for the feedback - I appreciate it.
And of course the Deutsch Bahn website is great for covering all of Europe:
http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/en
Rick has some helpful hints for using the site at: