Rail passes & TGV

I first of all want to admire your overall plan, which makes intelligent use of rail and appropriate use of autos. I wonder first of all if your Norman itinerary, if reordered, would leave you close to Lille. If so you might consider returning your car, and catching your train to A'dam, there; Caen - Amsterdam is a long trip. At the other end of your trip I think Brussels to Paris, then Paris to Reims (or even Reims as a day trip from Paris) makes more sense logistically, renting Car 2 in Reims. But probably you have some reason for preferring the longer, double-back route you outline, I can't really answer your question, partly because I don't know the prices but also because I don't know what value you place on the amenities of a pass. Even if more expensive there is some convenience to being able to come and go more or less as you please, also perhaps you value traveling first class. But it should be pretty easy for you to find out about costs and make your own decision. Add the fees to your pass to get the total costs and compare them to ticket prices for comparable days that you will find at tgv-europe.com. You can't get quotes for September yet, but you can pick comparable days 90 days out and if you do you may see some very steep discounts for some tickets. Tell the web site you live in the U.K.

Eric, This seems like an extremely busy trip for only six days, with too many changes in location. Hopefully it all goes well. Happy travels!

Adam, thanks for your vote of confidence. Hopefully, all will go well with our take-no-prisoners itinerary. I've done a small amount of driving and a lesser amount of rail riding in France. Yet, I'm totally embarrassed to admit that I was surprised to find that we had to return to Paris from Caen in order to get to Amsterdam. That said, the total time consumed seemed to be just another travel day. FWIW, we'll arrive on a Thurs and spend 4 nights in Bayeux. A D-Day tour and side trips in Normandy will occupy sufficient days/time such that Caen will be our best egress from the region. The Brussels to Reims train would be a jump-off point to get a car and go to Colmar for 2 nights, via Verdun. We intend to return the car in Reims, and catch a TGV to Paris for 3 nights. Ken, thanks for your best wishes. We know the pace seems much too fast to absorb everything. But, we're trying to get a snapshot of things for future reference.

Caen-Amsterdam: According to viamichelin.com, it will take about 4 hours to drive from Caen to Lille. It will take 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 hours to take either a TGV or the Eurostar from Lille to Brussels and a Thalys train from there to Amsterdam. Taking the train from Caen to Paris and a Thalys train from there to Amsterdam will take less than 7 hours so you wouldn't save time by driving from Caen to Lille. The standard 2nd class fare for Caen-Paris is €33.30. The cheapest Prem's fare is €15.00. The standard 2nd class fare for a Paris-Amsterdam Thalys train is €99.00. The cheapest discount fare is €35.00. Book up to 90 days in advance to get the best fares. Amsterdam-Haarlem-The Hague-Amsterdam: Short rides on cheap IC trains. See the Dutch Rail site for fares. Amsterdam-Bruges: You can travel Amsterdam-Antwerp-Bruges on IC trains or Amsterdam-Brussels on Thalys trains and Brussels-Bruges on IC trains. See the Belgian Rail site for fares on IC trains. Bruges-Brussels and return: IC trains. See the Belgian Rail site for fares. Bruges-Brussels: IC trains. Brussels-Reims: For Thalys trains from Brussels to Paris the cheapest discount fare is €25.00. For TGVs from Paris to Reims the cheapest Prem's fare is €15.00. Reims-Paris: See above.

Tim: No of course driving from Caen to Lille saves no time, and certainly since Eric is leaving from Caen the train is his best bet. But in his first post he said he'd be touring Normandy beforehand, so I wondered if rearranging things a little (and driving to Lille) might improve the route. I similarly misunderstood the end of his trip--thought he proposed going Brugges > Reims > Paris before getting a car and driving to Colmar.

Tim - on the plus side, we have the itinerary all set, so we know our dates and times. Actually, we somewhat built it around the train schedule. We've been leaning toward the 1st class 6-day France-Benelux "saver" rail pass. To get to that decision, I compared the approximate point-to-point rates for both 1st and 2nd class to the comparable saver pass rates and found savings of ~$180 and ~$52 respectively with the France-Benelux saver railpass. It worked out to about $74/day p/p for a 1st class saver pass. Curious, I also compared reducing the saver pass by 1 day and just paying point-to-point for the shorter Holland portion. Not surprisingly, I found that most of the money saved in dropping the pass from 6 days to 5 days, was eaten up by an increased daily cost to which I could also add the additional p-t-p costs in Holland. So, I was back to the 6-day pass idea, despite the higher daily rate for that day in Holland. So, on to my next issue: we will be using TGV or Thalys on possibly 4 separate occasions. Considering the quotas and apparently higher reservation fees for passholders, I'm wondering if this too will reduce the cost/efficiency of the pass. I guess from my own research, as this eats into my initial $180 savings, I have my answer. ;-) I did come across the reference to EurAide. Maybe the easiest way for me to resolve this dilemma is to throw myself on their consultancy?

I assume you realize that you would have to buy two saverpasses, not just one. If you book far enough in advance to get discount fares as I listed in my previous post, point-to-point tickets will almost certainly cost less than railpasses plus the reservation fees for trains that require them. For your trips between Bruges and Brussels on days four and five you would benefit from buying a rail pass for €76.00. It covers ten rides between two specific stations. Between you and your brother you would use four rides on day four and two rides on day five. The standard 2nd class fare is €13.50 each way so buying the pass will save you €5.00 even though four rides will go unused.

Yep, two saver passes. Thanks for the wakeup call. I'm pretty sure I used, a) the rail-europe site; and b) a comparable day of the week, but NOT as far out as 90 days. I expect this skewed the costs I was getting for p-t-p. Thanks again, Tim, for the sage advice. You're recommending buying these passes, along with everything else, in advance?