My head hurts I'm about to book a self-guided bike trip that starts in Gourdon. But I need to make sure I can get/afford train fare there first. I fly into CDG on 5/26, arrive 8 a.m. The only tickets I'm finding that get me into Gourdon before midnight (too late! need to meet person, get bike, etc. on the 26th to start biking on 27th; and B&B won't take such a late arrival) are really expensive (over 100 Euros one-way). I started looking on the TGV site, then iDTGV... (as well as sncf) they all show different availability, prices, etc. I've also checked out whether a rail pass would save me (for 4 days travel it costs $271 also doing a short trip Paris-Bayeux), but that doesn't include reservations, which I know I need for TGV to Gourdon not sure how much that costs. I just want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong/overlooking something. I thought booking over 60 days in advance would help (apparently not!) pricewise.
Any advice welcome.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
You're not doing anything wrong. You've simply waited too long to get a good discount fare. If you decide to get a railpass, it would be a good idea to buy your seat reservations ASAP for trains that require them. SNCF limits the number of seats that it allocates for passholders. Buy your reservations at raileurope.com.
Posted by
OP
Charlotte, NC, USA
386 posts
Tim,
Thanks. Yes, I'd pretty much arrived at that same conclusion by end of yesterday (all affordable fares gone). The even bigger problems were the train times themselves nothing got into Gourdon before 9 p.m. Luckily, the tour organizer has offered to drive to a town (that gets a lot more trains from Paris than Gourdon) about an hour away to pick me up, so I think I'm set.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
You're welcome, Shelly. I'm happy to hear about your extremely helpful tour organizer. I'm curious. Where are you going on your bike tour? It's probably not too late to get a discount fare for Paris-Bayeux. The cheapest Prem's fare is €15.00.
Posted by
OP
Charlotte, NC, USA
386 posts
Starting in Gourdon (Dordogne) and doing a loop to Rocamadour, La-Roque-Gageac, Les Eyzies, Monpazier and back to Gourdon. (It's run by a British man and his French wife, Cycle the Dordogne).
The best price I've found for the train to Bayeux is 30E, but kind of narrow window -- want to leave Paris in early morning, come back following day early evening.