My husband has a free flight into Paris but then must get to either Milan or Venice mid June. I went to the France train websit (SNsomething?) but it kept coming up as an error.
Should he fly or train? How long is the trek? Anyone know? Appreciate any help..
Paige, there are numerous options. It all really depends on what the circumstances are. Is it a business trip? How important is it to get there quickly.
Buy a plane ticket: fast, easy, fairly no-nonsense.
Buy a train ticket: longer, relaxing, pretty simple.
If he's actually vacationing, night trains are nice. There is a train from Paris to Milan that leaves at 8:30 pm and arrives in Milan at 5:38 am.
The night train to Venice is the same train, and arrives there around 9:30 am.
Plane tickets are fairly straight forward and I would be pretty surprised if you can find a one way ticket to either MIlan or Venice from Paris for under $100, especially if your husband is flexible on departure.
Train tickets are sometimes hit and miss, especially on night trains. If you book far in advance, you can get fairly good deals, and in some cases pay less for a bunk than you would for a hotel room.
If you want to buy a train ticket, I would suggest the SNCF website (voyages-sncf.com), which is in French. You can use Google Translate to get the key information from the site if you're not able to understand French :) I have found that when you try to buy tickets through SNCF, and actually tell them that you're from the US, they kick you over to raileurope.com, which seems to me to be price gouging terribly. From what I've seen, I would NEVER use raileurope.com
If you choose to buy train tickets on voyages-sncf.com, you can select to pick up the tickets at a train station. Then all you need is your booking ID/confirmation number thingy and they will give you your ticket.
I assume you can handle the logistics of booking a plane ticket. Use kayak.com, if you're not already.
Geoff
If you can't handle French, you can book your train tickets in English at www.tgv-europe.com and get the same discount fares which are offered on the SNCF site. To keep the site in English and to avoid being bumped to Rail Europe, choose Great Britain as both your country of residence and the country in which you will retrieve your tickets. You will be able to pick up your tickets at any SNCF station or boutique (ticket shop) in France, even though you originally chose Great Britain.
If you book far enough in advance, you can get discount fares on budget airlines for either Paris-Milan or Paris-Venice. If possible, avoid flying Ryanair. It's a good airline, but the airports it uses are a long way from all of the cities in question. Three good search engines for budget airlines in Europe are www.flylc.com, www.whichbudget.com, and www.skyscanner.net. Whichever airline you choose, book on the airline's Web site to get the best fare.
On budget airlines you must pay strict attention to luggage size and weight limits and especially to the check-in deadline. If you don't have a boarding pass in hand when the deadline arrives, your ticket will be worthless and you'll have to buy a new one at full fare on a later flight.
