Meeting Your Trip in SOUILLAC

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?

At the Souillac station, between 1 and 2p.

Souillac is too remote for a same-day arrival from any intercontinental origin point, or from London by train, so you must travel on Friday to reach the trip (flying on Thursday night if coming from North America). The Souillac “Access Packages” all include a bed of one sort or another on Friday night.

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 March 15, 2008

The closest intercontinental airport is Paris. Our “Access Package” includes a rail ticket from Paris, and a Friday night hotel in either Paris (for the first morning train to Souillac), or in Souillac itself.

Our London “Access Package” additionally includes a train from London to Paris.

Base (Starting) Access Package Price: 92€.
If you are a North American traveller, the $ price (US or Canadian) on your price chart applies until 35 days prior to trip departure. Otherwise euro prices are transcribed to your invoice in its currency, converted at the exchange rate of the day on which the package is requested (rounded to the nearest whole dollar). Current “mid-market” rates can be consulted from the site we use for conversion. We use the mid-market rate on the day of conversion, and add 2% to cover currency broker exchange commissions (our conversion rates are thus as good as, or better than, any you could obtain, including via your credit card, unless you are a professional currency trader).

Availability is not guaranteed (capacity controls on trains mean that discount prices may not be available), but is normally pretty assured until 35 days prior to trip start (payment received by us). Within 35 days, availability must be confirmed, and costs may be higher. Some extra-cost options have higher prices if ordered w/in 35 days.

Included:

• 2nd cl. daylight train tickets to Souillac from Paris or Toulouse (for use on either Friday or Saturday), or tickets on the Friday overnight train from Nice or Barcelona.
  - Tickets are train-specific, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered, except from Toulouse. Allow ample time for plane-train connections, as the railroad is not responsible for chronically late planes.
  - Tickets from Toulouse are “open,” and can be used on any train, any date.
  If seat reservations are required on the next departing train, they can be made at travel time, in the Toulouse station, without risk (the train will always have space available between Toulouse and Souillac).
• A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
• Our “Route Sheet to the Trip,” helping you through your journey.
• A Friday night hotel in Souillac or in Paris, based on shared occupancy (unless you arrive via the night train from Nice or Barcelona).
• Breakfast (only if you spent the night in Souillac).
  

OR

• Friday overnight sleeper train from Barcelona, including a berth in a 4-person sleeping car cabin. Upgrades to double or single cabin, regular or deluxe, available.

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 99€ or 145€; 1st class tickets include meal service). Price includes a metro ticket, to smooth the cross-city station change in Paris (a direct metro line makes the connection, Gare du Nord to Gare d'Austerlitz).
• Tickets from Barcelona. Add 29€.
• Private single room in Paris or Souillac. 27€.
• First class train tickets (in lieu of 2nd class), from each of these cities.
  With the exception of tickets from Toulouse, which are “open,” tickets are not refundable or exchangeable once ordered. Changeable tickets are available at an additional cost, and are suggested if you are attempting a tight plane-train connection. See next term.
  - Paris (also daylight connection on trains from Madrid or Lisbon): 22€
  - Toulouse: 11€
  - Barcelona: 29€
  Local train between Barcelona and the French border may not offer 1st class seating.
• Modifiable / refundable tickets: + 27€ from all points except Toulouse or Barcelona, free from Toulouse or Barcelona.
  Can be modified on a space-available basis without penalty at any French rail station until train departure, and at the train’s departure station until 1 hour after departure. Can be refunded less 20 percent.
• Upgrade to “Comfort Couchette” on overnight train from Nice: 27€ discount rate.
  Sleeping cars are not offered on this train. For modifiable / refundable tickets, see previous term.
• Paris airport train tickets, from Charles de Gaulle or Orly to Paris center. Follow this link for details.
  
  

Alternate Arrangements, in lieu of our usual packages (subject to availability)
Prices are complete (in other words, they are not in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price)

• Overnight couchette train from Paris. 59€.
  Tickets are not refundable or exchangeable once ordered. Changeable tickets are available at an additional cost, and are suggested if you are attempting a tight plane-train connection. See above. Upgrade to “Comfort Couchette” (4 people per cabin in lieu of 6): 22€.

3. TIMING Your Trip

If we may influence your thinking on the topic of timing... Souillac is interesting. A pretty town with an imposing abbey church.... And you will not have time to see it on Saturday (when the trip assembles), if you arrive only that morning. If you have the flexibility to do so, try to schedule your arrival for Friday evening, in order to have a couple of hours to visit on Saturday morning before your trip meets.


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

• From Paris. Travel time is 4.5 hours. Friday departures are at 10a, 1p with a connection, and 5:30p.
  The late train does not reach Souillac in time for dinner, and offers only sandwich and beverage service aboard – plan accordingly.
  Saturday, depart Paris 8a, connect in Brive to a railroad-operated bus 12n / 12:20p, arrive Souillac 1:30p. Or depart 9a, with two connections, arrive 2:30p.
  The 9a service reaches Souillac too late for the trip start: you must make special arrangements to use this one.
  There is also an overnight couchette train, but which reaches Souillac at 5a (editorial: yuk).
• From Toulouse. A 2-hour trip, Friday trains currently scheduled at 7a, 11a, 1:30p, 5p, 6p, 10:30p. Saturday morning trains run at 7a and 11:30a.
• From Nice. Night train departs 9p with a 6a connection in Montauban, ar. Souillac 9a.
• From Barcelona: departures at 9a or 3p, a 9-hour trip.
  Overnight train at 9p, with a 5a connection in Limoges, arrive Souillac at 8a.
• Thursday overnight travel is possible from Madrid or Lisbon, with Friday daylight connections to Souillac at the French border.
• From London. Via Paris, with a station change there: Gare du Nord to Gare d’Austerlitz (direct via métro line 5, 9 stops, 15-minutes). Depart London 4 hours prior to any given departure from Paris.

5. Suggested PRE-TRIP VISITS

Bordeaux wine country, or Sarlat, a beautiful 16th century town close by.


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/fares_schedules/index.htm

Souillac is a small station on the line between Paris and Toulouse. Service is limited, and should be coordinated with flights if at all possible. There is a single morning train from Bordeaux that travels to Souillac via a connection in Sarlat, and arrives in time for trip assembly.

Planes. Brive, 30 minutes away, has a rediculous airport served by 40-passenger planes from Paris, though the service is periodically disrupted as the regional carriers who supply it go bankrupt. Otherwise, Toulouse and Limoges are roughly equadistant. Toulouse has many European flights, Limoges is served by Ryanair. Ongoing rail service to Souillac is limited, and should be coordinated with flights if at all possible.


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.