Forum menu
Planning a trip to Les Arcs in July.. it seems we've missed the bargain flights so are looking at rail options, which would be environmentally preferable too of course 😀
But, as you may expect it's a total minefield. Has anybody any experience of this? We're heading for Bourg St Maurice and the best we've done is one expensive train, from London - Paris and another separate expensive one from Paris - Bourg. This was on raileurope.co.uk Price is nearly £300!
There's handy ski season websites with direct eurostar services for much less but they show no results after mid-april. Any tips on where to look? ie. French sites?
Any help/experience would be much appreciated
Seat61 usually has good info. Only ever done it in winter before but it was about £150 return I think. Not sure where I booked it sorry.
Cheers! thats one useful website for this kind of thing.. frustratingly seems to confirm that getting to the Alps by rail doubles in price outside the winter season! 😡
Drive it FTW 🙂
Yup...drive it.
I'd love to get the train but i've looked quite a bit and just can't get it to work financially. As you say, prices are around £300 which is four times (approx) it would cost you to drive (four in a diesel car).
I do like the idea of just getting on a couple of trains though
http://www.interrailnet.com/interrail-passes/one-country-pass/france
This might be an option, get the ferry to Calais then hit the trains!
Getting across Paris with bikes and kit is fun 😐
[i]Getting across Paris with bikes and kit is fun [/i]
Yep, and their taxis are about the most expensive I've come across.
Either fly or drive - we drove FWIW
The direct train from london to bourg is ski season only and stops in april.
It's only one metro train between the two stations so getting bike and gear across paris should be Ok as long as it's not rush hour
Eurostar to Annecy in July is currently £189 for a non flexible ticket. It should not be too much to get from there to Bourg St Maurice on a local train
Yep, and their taxis are about the most expensive I've come across.
Try Luxembourg taxis. Airport to my office is 60e. It takes 10mins.
Always drive, if you are taking bikes and kit and more than 1 person, it works out way cheaper.
You need a car of course, which you may not have, so that could be a useless bit of info.
Eurostar to Annecy in July is currently £189 for a non flexible ticket. It should not be too much to get from there to Bourg St Maurice on a local train
That seems like a decent deal, Bourg is only a few stops down from Annecy, takes about 70 minutes and is a spectacular journey. We head to Bike Village on 14th July for or Honeymoon...how on earth did I manage to have her agree to that 😀
it's only one metro train between the two stations so getting bike and gear across paris should be Ok as long as it's not rush hour
The stairs and ticket gates are a pain with bikes and kit
I have just booked train travel for the Etape in July, Ebbsfleet to Lyon for £124 return. I thought this was a bargain compared to flying which I am not keen on. Car hire fron Lyon to the Tarentaise was under £100.00 for 5 days as well. Could not drive there and back for those figures!
Book the Eurostar separately and see if there are any cheaper crossings. After that Raileurope should give you the same prices as SNCF I believe (I was tight and checked last year)
[i]It's only one metro train between the two stations so getting bike and gear across paris should be Ok as long as it's not rush hour [/i]
Hmmm, sounds ok except having used the Paris Metro many times (esp. Gard du Nord) its not something I'd even bother trying.
Make sure you check non-TGV prices too, usually much cheaper although slower of course.
In case the car is a goer, NorfolkLine is cheap. Dover to Calais is about £70 return for a car & 4 adults in July.
Ooops..not been on here in 5 days and lookee'ere. Really helpful advice from everybody! cheers..
Not got a car but ended up booking flights, which are over 50% more costly than the same journey booked end of May last year - rising fuel prices?
The Eurostar is OBSCENE (in summer) for the record. Nearly twice the price of a simple single ticket in winter. I would get the train over driving/flying in winter anyday, you get 2 more days on the mountain for a start.
Come on responsible public transport, I want to make use of you!