Normandy, Brittany & the Best of the North_ With Paris (Fodor's) - Fodor's [182]
With an advance arrangement, SNCF will pick up and deliver your luggage at a given time. For instance, if you’re planning on spending a weekend in Nice, SNCF will pick up your luggage at your hotel in Paris in the morning before checkout and deliver it to your hotel in Nice, where it will be awaiting your arrival. The cost is €23 for the first bag, and €10 for two additional bags, with a maximum of three bags per person.
BOARDING THE TRAIN
Get to the station a half-hour before departure to ensure you’ll have a good seat. Before boarding, you must punch your ticket (but not EurailPass) in one of the orange machines at the entrance to the platforms, or else the ticket collector will fine you €15. Once you’re aboard, note that smoking is now forbidden in TGVs (the ban now applies to all public transportation in France). Even lighting up in the bathrooms or connecting compartments will land you an on-the-spot fine starting at €65.
Don’t forget to validate your tickets (composter le billet) at the yellow ticket punchers, usually at the entrance to the platforms (quais). If you board your train on the run and don’t have time to punch it, look for a conductor (contrôleur) as soon as possible and get him to sign it. Otherwise, you’re in for a nasty fine (amende). Tickets printed by the SNCF must be validated; tickets printed at home don’t need validation.
TO AND FROM THE U.K.
When you factor in travel time to and from the airport, not to mention flight delays, taking the Channel Tunnel is the fastest and easiest way between France and the U.K. It’ll take you 2 hours and 15 minutes on the high-speed Eurostar train from Paris’ Gare du Nord to London’s St. Pancras Station; 35 minutes from Folkestone to Calais, 60 minutes from motorway to motorway. The Belgian border is just a short drive northeast of Calais. Eurostar trains use the same tunnels to connect London’s Waterloo Station directly with Midi Station in Brussels in two hours.
British Rail also has four daily departures from London’s Victoria Station, all linking with the Dover–Calais–Boulogne ferry services through to Paris. There’s also an overnight service on the Newhaven–Dieppe ferry. Journey time is about eight hours. Credit-card bookings are accepted by phone or in person at a British Rail travel center.
There’s a vast range of prices for Eurostar—round-trip tickets range from €600 for first class to €77 for second class depending on when and where you travel and how far in advance you book.
BritRail Travel (866/274–8724 in U.S. | www.britrail.com). Eurail (www.eurail.com). Eurostar (0870/518–6186 in U.K. [€0.15 per min] or 08–92–35–35–39 in France [€0.17 per min] | www.eurostar.co.uk). Rail Europe (888/382–7245). SNCF (08–92–35–35–35 in France [€0.34 per min] | www.sncf.com or www.voyages-sncf.com for ticket purchases). SNCF Luggage Delivery Service (3635 from any phone in France, then say “bagages” [bah-gahj] [€0.34 per min] | www.sncf.com).
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Accommodations | Communications | Eating Out | Electricity | Emergencies | Holidays | Mail | Money | Passports | Safety | Taxes | Time | Tipping | Visitor Information
ACCOMMODATIONS
The following is the price chart used throughout this book to determine price categories for most hotels listed. Paris remains the pricey exception: for that city, the highest category is over €250 and the lowest is under €80. Prices