Meeting Your Trip in DIJON

This page offers help (concrete or informational) on reaching your trip. Topics include...

1. Where you Join Your Trip (see immediately below)
2. Our “Access Packages,” designed to help you to do so.
3. Suggestions on how to time your trip to the trip, whether you are having us arrange your travel, or doing it yourself.
4. Service information regarding train travel to your trip start location.
5. Suggested pre-trip visits, especially when these are not geographically obvious, but are rendered economical and convenient by direct rail connections.
6. Hopefully helpful hints for those setting up their own travel to the trip.

If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.


1. WHERE and WHEN Do You Join Your Trip?

The trip assembles on Sunday morning in Dijon, at our hotel, between 9 and 10a.  Start time is too early for a same-day intercontinental flight, so you will have to be “landed” in France by the previous day.

We will send you details of meeting time and place with your final itinerary.

If you wish to make your own way to the trip (in other words, not to set up your travel arrangements through us), a couple of hints on getting there are offered at the bottom of this page.


2. Our ACCESS PACKAGES
as of January 20, 2012.

The closest intercontinental airport is Paris.  Our “Access Package” includes a Saturday TGV (high-speed train) ticket from Paris, from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, or a ticket from Geneva or Lyon. 
Tickets from London are available at an additional cost.

Base (Starting) Access Package Price:  85€ double, twin or triple, 105€ single.
Share rate guaranteed to singles willing to share until 35 days prior to trip start.
To see what this means in your currency, look here: http://www.bluemarble.org/CurrencyConv.html

Availability is normally good until 35 days prior to trip start, since we try to keep an allotment of hotel rooms in Dijon until then.  Within 35 days, availability must be confirmed, and costs may be higher (especially the costs of shipping rail tickets).  But there is no guarantee of availability at any point, since the fares used for the trains are capacity-controlled discount fares.  Book as soon as you know your plans, to avoid disappointment.

Included:

• Train tickets to Dijon from Paris, Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport (only one daily train — see service information, below), Geneva or Lyon.
  These tickets are not refundable or exchangeable once ordered – exchangeable tickets are available at a higher fare (see below).
• Seat reservations if your selected train(s) require(s) them.
• A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
• A hotel night in Dijon.
• Breakfast on Sunday.
• Our “Route Sheet to the Trip,” helping you through your journey.
• All taxes, booking charges, baggage charges.
  In other words, no irritating surprises.
  

Options Offered at an Extra Cost (subject to availability)
Prices are in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price.  For a general discussion of train upgrades, see here. Topics include the relative comfort of first versus second class, and different types of accommodation available on overnight trains.

• Tickets from London.  Add 69€ if you are also purchasing tickets back to London, 109€ if not, or if you prefer a changeable return (in 1st cl., add 109€ or 149€; 1st class tickets include meal service).  A Paris stop-over is available at no additional charge, if desired.
  
• Tickets from other points.
  All prices include seat reservations on any trains which require them.  Except as specified, tickets are train-specific, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered.  Extra cost tickets, modifiable or refundable, are available at an additional cost (see below).
  - Nice:  add 31€ 2nd class, 51€ 1st class.
  - Zurich (downtown or airport), Milan:  add 64€ 2nd class, 98€ 1st class.
  Tickets from either are train-specific, 50% refundable once ordered.
  A discount rate of 75€ is sometimes available in first class.
  - Barcelona:  add 78€ 2nd class, 112€ 1st class, 87€ 1st cl. discount rate.
  Overnight trains are available from Italy, Austria, Madrid, Berlin... add 99€ (129€ from Vienna) including a couchette sleeping birth on board (sleeping car upgrades available).
• Higher fare code tickets which are exchangeable locally on a space-available basis and for a nominal fee paid directly to the railway, until your reserved train’s departure time:  +19€ from any point within France, +39€ from international destinations, in either class.
  These tickets are also refundable less 20%, provided that they are cancelled prior to the train’s departure (tickets must be returned to their issuing office for cancellation).
• First class train tickets (in lieu of 2nd class):  +18€.
  A discounted rate, subject to availability.
• Saturday night in Paris instead of Dijon, Sunday early morning train to Dijon:  + 20€.
• Paris airport train tickets, from Charles de Gaulle or Orly to Paris center.  Follow this link for details.
  
• Saturday night dinner in Dijon at a favorite local brasserie:  38€.
  Organized for trips which connect from our Northern Burgundy route, and where a Blue Marble Trip Coordinator is reliably present in Dijon.  You may join on the spot if you wish to, and the restaurant can take you, but the place we favor is generally full on Saturday nights, so reservations are recommended.
• Private Single Room on Saturday night.  +29€.
• Additional nights in Dijon:  +35€ / person double, +40€ / person twin, +68€ single.
  Includes taxes, booking charge, but not breakfast (which is, however available, and can be paid directly to the hotel).
  

Options Offered in lieu of our package (subject to availability)
Prices are complete (not in addition to the Access Package price).

• Saturday night hotel in Dijon.  76€ single, 48€ / person double or twin, including breakfast.
  Includes taxes, booking fee.
  

3. TIMING Your Trip

If we may influence your thinking on the topic of timing...  Dijon is one of France’s most beautiful cities, former capital of the Duchy of Burgundy, and a place that definitely punches above it’s weight.  And you will not have time to see it on Sunday morning, since we have a full day in the vineyards (you will, however, return here at the end of the trip).

So, if you have the flexibility to do so, try to schedule a Saturday arrival, and in time to walk around the old town (the tourist office offers an excellent walking guide).  You will enjoy your subsequent visit more for knowing your way around a bit.

Like airplanes, trains to Dijon usually require reservations.  You must not only tell us by which gateway you wish to arrive, but at what time of day you wish to travel.  Allow ample time to connect from a flight:  the railroad is not responsible for (chronically) late planes.  Moreover, it can take intercontinental travellers up to 90 minutes to clear customs, immigration and baggage claim upon arrival.  If you are attempting a tight connection, we suggest modifiable tickets.


4. Service Information
Schedules are approximate – exact timetables can be consulted at
http://www.raileurope.com/index.html.
Best trains are mentioned.  Others are slower or have multiple connections.

• From Paris.  Trip time is 90 minutes, service every 90 minutes.
• From Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.  One daily train, departing the airport at 8p (arriving Dijon 9:45p). 
  If you are landing in the morning, or even through the first half of the afternoon, you will prefer to make your way downtown in order to catch an earlier train, and not waste the day at the airport.
• Nice.  Travel time is a shade over 6 hours on a direct train, around 7 on a connecting service.  Direct trains run at 1:30p and 5:30p.  Connecting services operate at 7:30a, 11a, and 2:30p (the 11a requires 2 connections)..
• Geneva.  Travel time is 3 hours, one change of train required in Lausanne. Departures at 8:30a, 11:30a and 3:30p.
  Trains depart directly from the airport, and also from the downtown station.  Seat reservations are required, and tickets are train-specific.
  An alternate route, taking an hour longer, but not requiring advance reservations, is available via Lyon, with service spread throughout the day.  If you are coming from the airport, this route requires that you first take a shuttle train downtown.
• Zurich:  direct trains depart 9:30a and 1:30p:  a 2'30" trip.  Services with a connection take an hour longer, and run at 7:30a and 3:30p. 
• Milan:  depart 8:30a, 9a, and 11:30a.  The first two have one connection, the last has two.  Journey time is 6 - 7.5 hours, depending on the train selected.
• Barcelona. Depart 8a, ar. 5:30p, two connections required.   Or depart at 12:30p, arrive 9:30p, with three connections.
• From London.  Frequent service via Paris; a station change in Paris is required:  Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon. 

5. Suggested PRE-TRIP VISITS

Zermatt, a beautiful Swiss alpine village at the base of the Matterhorn, is a few hours away by train.  And, you can couple a visit to Zermatt with a ride on the famous Glacier Express, along the spine of the Alps in a glass-enclosed panoramic 1st class car....


6. Hints on TRAVELLING INDEPENDENTLY to the Trip
Guests subscribing to an “Access Package” need not read this section.

See also “Timing Your Trip” and “Service Information,” above, as either of these may additionally help.

We gladly provide travel consulting (schedule or routing information) concerning pre-trip individual travel.  In particular, we have invested a great deal to become railway experts.  Our service fees are reasonable:  20 € for all but the most complex projects – or the most simple (for instance, only a 10 € charge applies if the service is limited to the preparation of a routine rail ticket).  You will generally find them well-justified by the time they will save you in research, standing on line, overpaying for your tickets, or all three.

But, for some, this type of research is fun.  So, here are some hints, intended to start off hardened “do-it-yourselfers.”

Trains. Schedules for all routes can be consulted on this web site:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm

Dijon is served by TGV (high-speed train) from Paris and from the south of France.  Main line trains also run from elsewhere in France, Switzerland, Alsace (connections from Germany)....  Overnight sleeper trains can bring you from pretty much anywhere in Europe.

Planes.  Paris and Lyon have the nearest real airports; only the former offers intercontinental flights.
Ryanair serves an airport in St.-Etienne, about an hour outside of Lyon.  But you are still 3 hours by train from Dijon....

If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.