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France Travel and Destination Guide
TRANSPORT
Getting There
Air France and scores of other airlines link Paris with every section of the globe. Other French cities with international air links (mainly to places within Europe) include Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Strasbourg and Toulouse. In France, inexpensive flights offered by discount airlines and charter clearing houses can be booked through many regular travel agents.
If you are doing a lot of travel around Europe, look for discount bus and train passes, which can be combined with discount airfares.
Buses are slower and less comfortable than trains, but they are cheaper, especially for people under 26, over 60, teacher and students.
Rail services link France with every country in Europe; schedules are available from major train stations in France and abroad. You can book tickets and get information from Rail Europe (www.raileurope.co.uk, www.raileurope.com) up to three months ahead.
Tickets for ferry travel to/from the UK, Channel Islands and Ireland are available from most travel agencies in France. In some cases, return fares cost less than two one-way tickets.
Getting Around
Air France (tel: 0820 820 820; www.airfrance.com) controls the lion's share of France's domestic airline industry although British budget carrier easyJet has flights linking Paris with Marseille, Nice and Toulouse.
France is eminently easy to cycle around. On train timetables, a bicycle symbol indicates that bicycles are allowed on particular trains. The SNCF baggage service Sernam (tel: 0825 84 58 45) will transport your bicycle (or any other luggage) door-to-door or station-to-station for a fee.
Buses are used quite extensively for short-distance travel within départements, especially in rural areas with relatively few train lines (eg Brittany and Normandy) - but services are often slow and few and far between.
Having your own wheels brings freedom but it's expensive, and city parking and traffic are frequent headaches. Many of France's main motorways are subject to tolls based on the distance travelled - remember to factor in these costs if you're driving long-distance. Motorcyclists will find France great for touring: the websites www.viamichelin.com and www.autoroutes.fr both calculate how much you will pay in petrol and tolls for specified journeys. To hire a car in France you'll generally need to be over 21 years old and hold a valid driver's licence and an international credit card. Your credit card may cover CDW if you use it to pay for the car rental.
France's superb rail network reaches almost every part of the country. Many towns and villages not on the SNCF train and bus network are linked by intra-départmental bus lines. France's most important train lines radiate from Paris like the spokes of a wheel, making train travel between provincial towns situated on different 'spokes' rather slow. In some cases, you have to transit through Paris.
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