Meeting Your Trip in FRYNAUDOUR

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?

We meet in Frynaudour (a house and two cows, if they’re both home) on Sunday afternoon (so, you will have missed the opera matinée).

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.  Good luck with that.


2. Our ACCESS PACKAGES
as of March 1, 2011

Our Access Package is just the train from Paris, or from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Base (Starting) Access Package Price:  65€
To see what this means in your currency, look here: http://www.bluemarble.org/CurrencyConv.html

Availability is dependant on discount fare codes which disappear quickly.  Book as soon as you are sure of your travel schedule, to avoid fares higher by as much as 50%.

Included:

• Train tickets from Paris.
• A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
• Our “Route Sheet to the Trip,” helping you through your journey.
• All agency charges, booking fees, taxes, baggage charges...
  All those things that airlines add at the last minute, right before you push the “buy” button.
  

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).
• First class train tickets (in lieu of 2nd class):  +26€ (+13€ children 4-11, +20€ youth 12-25).
• Paris airport train tickets, from Charles de Gaulle or Orly to Paris center.  Follow this link for details.
  

3. TIMING Your Trip

The riding day is short, so leaving Paris as late as late morning is still compatible with the ride.  The 11a train from Paris is the latest you can take.


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. 9a or 11a.
• From Charles de Gaulle Airport.  There are no conveniently-timed services direct from the airport TGV station.  Allow 90 minutes to get off the train and through customs and immigration, 30 minutes to file your claim for lost baggage, and 90 minutes for the transfer from the airport to Montparnasse station.
  In other words, if you are flying in the same day, you should book a flight which lands early.
• From London.  The first Sunday morning Eurostar does not reach Paris in time to connect to Frynaudour.  You must either spend Saturday night in Paris, or you may catch the overnight Brittany Ferries sailing from Portsmouth to St.-Malo, and train from there.

5. Suggested PRE-TRIP VISITS

Maybe a couple of days in Paris?


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:  a 20€ charge 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

Frynaudour is a tiny halt on the branch railway line from Guingamp to Paimpol.  Make sure the train crew knows you wish to disembark there:  the train only stops on request.

Planes.  The nearest airport is in Rennes, but it offers no meaningful service.  You are really looking at Paris.


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.