Hideaway in France - gîtes in the Pyrénées near Carcassonne

How to get to the South of France by train

Eurostar from St Pancras

Letting the train take the strain, either by putting the car on board or saving the hassle of going through the airports, is becoming more and more popular...

Rather than trying to guide you through the maze ourselves, we thoroughly recommend you look at www.seat61.com. 'Seat61.com' has a huge amount of very knowledgeable and helpful information about train travel across Europe, and our summary below has been created by adding their up-to-date details to our own experiences and conversations with guests.

Bringing the car down by train

A number of our guests have brought their car down to the South of France by train, saving the hassle of driving and getting a good night's sleep during the journey. It is not possible to take a motorail train during the day, the only departure on this route is at about 8:30 pm.

The downside of this option is that you need to cross the channel before you load the car onto the train - the terminal at Calais is the best place.

It is possible to offload the car at either Brive-la-gaillard (North of Toulouse), Toulouse itself, or at Narbonne down on the Mediterranean coast. Some people prefer to offload the car at Brive as the rail track from there to Toulouse winds through the edge of the massif central, and can be a bit twisty. See the motorail page on seat61.com for more details.

Travelling as foot passengers

As foot passengers there are many ways of crossing France, especially if you are coming from the London area. Some possibilities to consider are:

• Quickest: St Pancras to Lille (Eurostar); Lille to Narbonne (180mph TGV). Leave St Pancras at 08:30, arrive Narbonne 18:00, pick up a hire car and be with us for 19:30.
  On the return journey leave Narbonne at 07:20 and arrive St Pancras 16:00, or leave at 12:30, arrive 22:20.
• With a stop in Paris: St Pancras to Paris (Eurostar, about 3 hours 30 mins), then Paris to Toulouse (180mph TGV, about 5 hours 20 mins), we are just over an hour from Toulouse by car.
• Via Toulouse avoiding Paris: St Pancras to Lille (Eurostar); Lille to Toulouse (180mph TGV). Leave St Pancras at 08:30, arrive Toulouse 20:15, pick up a hire car and be with us for 21:30.
  On the return journey leave Toulouse at 05:22 (not pleasant!) and arrive St Pancras 14:30. As a small detail on this route there is a 500m walk to change stations at Lille.

For more details see the timetables on seat61.com (France page). (This is a HUGE page, it takes a while to appear on your screen and we recommend you don't print it!).

How to make your booking

As you would expect, booking train tickets is more complicated than booking ferries or flights - while there are tens of ferry routes, and each airline has tens of air routes, SNCF (the French rail company) has thousands of rail journies between hundreds of stations. Again, look at the How to use 'voyages-sncf.com' page on seat61.com to avoid a frustrating experience!