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Meeting Your Trip in Laroche-Migennes
This page offers help (concrete or informational) on reaching your trip. Topics include...
- Where you Join Your Trip (see immediately below)
- Our “Access Packages,” designed to help you to do so.
- Suggestions on how to time your trip to the trip, whether you are having us arrange your travel, or doing it yourself.
- Service information regarding train travel to your trip start location.
- Suggested pre-trip visits, especially when these are not geographically obvious, but are rendered economical and convenient by direct rail connections.
- 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 assemble at the railway junction of Laroche-Migennes, between 11a and 2p on Sunday. Laroche is about an hour an a half from Paris by train.
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 February 10, 2011
The closest intercontinental airport is Paris. Our “Access Package” includes an “open” rail ticket from Paris (reservations are not required on this line). Our London “Access Package” additionally includes a train from London to Paris.
Base (Starting) Access Package Price: 31€.
To see what this means in your currency, look here: http://www.bluemarble.org/CurrencyConv.html
“Ride the Bike Train” Access Package: 11€.
To qualify, you must have spent the previous night in Paris (reliability is crucial), be willing to travel on whichever of the 8:30a or the 10:30a trains we ask you to. In this case, you will meet your Trip Coordinator at our office an hour before train time, and ride your bike to the station with him (if you have other than cycle luggage, we transfer it to the station for you). See service information, below, for details.
Availability is guaranteed until 10 days prior to trip start (payment received by us). Tickets ordered within 10 days must be called for at our Paris office, or higher shipping charges will apply.
Included:
- Train tickets to Laroche-Migennes from Paris.
See Service Information, below, for the bike train information.
- A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
- Our “Route Sheet to the Trip,” helping you through your journey.
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, 99€ 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.
- Paris airport train tickets, from Charles de Gaulle or Orly to Paris center. Follow this link for details.
3. TIMING Your Trip
Fast trains run from Paris to Laroche throughout the morning, taking 90 minutes to complete the trip.
Catching a train in the 10a at the latest allows for a full riding day. Taking trainin the noon hour still allows for a pleasant (but truncated) afternoon ride.
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. Express trains run at 8:20a, 10:20a and 12:20p (trip time is 80 minutes).
- Please be sure to tell us which train you intend to take, so that we may send you the appropriate meeting instructions (trains depart from two different Paris stations), and so that we are sure to get your cycle to Laroche in time for your arrival (cycles are shipped on two separate trains).
- The “Ride the Bike Train” discount applies to the 8:20a or the 10:20a train, at our discretion.
- From London. 8:20a, with a connection in Paris.
If you order your ticket through us, we also include a Paris metro ticket, to help improve your chances of catching the 12:20p express from Paris to Laroche. This is nonetheless a very tight connection (30 minutes to get across town: only 3 stops on the métro, but a connection is required), so you generally wind up missing the first day’s cycle. Consider spending Saturday night in Paris....
5. Suggested PRE-TRIP VISITS
Travel to Laroche is easy from Paris, and also from Switzerland.
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
Laroche is on the “old” (pre-TGV) Paris - Dijon main rail line. Getting there other than via Paris rarely makes sense, though if you are coming from the east it is worth checking into connections via Dijon.
Travel from London on a Sunday is a bit awkward, as the first morning Eurostar (8:30a) only reaches Paris at 11:47a Paris time. The express to Laroche departs at 12:20p in the current schedule, but from Gare de Bercy (you arrive at Gare du Nord). If you are fluent in Paris Métro, you usually make it, but it is close....
Planes. No airports are closer than Paris’ three. Charles de Gaulle and Orly are equally convenient. If you land at Beauvais, allow 3 hours for the trip from the airport to the Paris rail station.
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.
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