mktraveller

Three of us are travelling to France in early June, arriving at Charles de Gaulle. We are staying in Brittany. Plan was to find transport from airport to Rennes where we will have a car rental for the month (not wild about driving the car around Paris). Train system has me confused. Any suggestions appreciated.

Robespierre

There are a few trains a day directly from the TGV station in CDG Terminal 2 to Rennes, starting at 10h28, the next at 13h38. This would definitely be my preferred route.

Most other trains leave from Gare Montparnasse, which can be reached by the suburban commuter train (RER) connecting to the Métro, or directly on an Air France bus.

Train schedules can be seen here: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

Use <b>Aeroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle</b> for your From: criterion.

Michael

I doubt that there is a direct connection between CDG and Rennes. Take a taxi to the Gare Montparnasse. You may want to order your Paris-Rennes ticket in advance, giving yourself a few hours to get out of the airport and into Paris.

http://www.sncf.fr/indexe.htm

PalenQ

10:28 13:27

There are a few direct CDG-Rennes TGV trains like one leaving daily at 10:28am, ar Rennes 13:27 - even if you had to wait a few hours at the airport it'd be quicker and much easier than going into paris to Montparnasse for hourly TGVs from there to Rennes. there's a direct airport Rennes train later in day but not many any day.

Robespierre

Direct trains from CDG to Rennes depart at

10h28
13h38
15h42
18h24

And I agree that waiting for the next one is preferable to schlepping into Paris only to arrive in Rennes at about the same time as the TGV - although the idea of spending a few hours in Paris isn't <u>completely</u> repugnant to me

But if you're arriving from a transatlantic flight, taking the TGV to Rennes and hitting Paris on the return trip would be preferable.

TimS

What time will you arrive at CDG? If the timing is right, you can take a TGV directly from the airport to Rennes. Departures are 10:28 and 13:38.

For more frequent service, you'll need to take a TGV from Gare Montparnasse. You can get there on Air France bus #4 (one stop at Gare de Lyon) for 14 EUR. Or you can take the RER B to Chatelet-Les Halles, walk through the tunnels to the Chatelet Metro station and take Line 4 (direction Porte d'Orleans) to Montparnasse-Bienvenue. Cost: 8.10 EUR. Either the bus ride or the RER/Metro ride will take around an hour (probably a little longer for the bus).

If you don't mind schlepping your own luggage and choose the RER &amp; Metro route, go to www.ratp.fr to download and print a Metro/RER map for central Paris and a RER map that shows service to outlying zones, including CDG.

You can book train tickets up to 90 days in advance at www.sncf.com. PREM'S (discount) tickets, when available, are a very good deal. Leave France as the default country and print your own ticket. If you book a standard fare, choose the option of picking up your ticket at a station or ticket boutique.

ripit

Why not just pick up the car at De Gaulle? You are really not driving in Paris, as CDG is outside of the city. All you would do is exit the airport and hop on the autoroute. You would be on the Peripherique for a short time while skirting downtown but it really is not difficult at all. From there is mostly Autoroute the whole way to Rennes.

You are paying for the car that day anyway, so you may as well save yourself the additional cost of train tix for 3 ppl. Also, once you clear immigration you can pick up your car and go rather than worrying about train schedules and such. It would probably be the fastest route door to door. The French roadway system is excellent and quite easy to navigate IME.

Robespierre

I do not recommend changing from RER to M&eacute;tro at Ch&acirc;telet if it can be avoided. In this case, it <u>can</u> be avoided by riding RER B to Denfert-Rochereau and transferring to M&eacute;tro Ligne 6 to Gare Montparnasse.

A good all-in-one transit map is http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...eur&amp;fm=pdf

TimS

Robespierre is right. Transferring at Denfert Rochereau (his suggestion) is better than doing so at Chatelet-Les Halles (my suggestion). Less walking and less of a maze of tunnels.

PalenQ

A variant on the TGV:

If can't get direct CDG-Rennes TGV and don't want to hassle with change in Paris you try taking the more frequent CDG TGVs to Massy then changing to the hourly TGVs from there that go to Rennes (from Montparnasse).

Fairway

Hi PalenQ,
I'm confused on what you said --

&quot;try taking the more frequent CDG TGVs to Massy then changing to the hourly TGVs from there&quot;

Is Massy the same as Gare Montparnasse? There are frequent CDG TGVs to Massy? Can you explain further?

The reason is we are deciding how best to get into Paris to get the TGV train at Gare Montparnasse: either via RER (and whatever else we need to ride to get there) or via Air France bus #4. We left 4 hours before the TGV train south... hoping to maybe catch lunch in Paris somewhere.

PalenQ

Well i should have said more frequent because the CDG - Bordeaux TGVs stop at Massy, in south suburban Paris before heading south. Massy is also a stop i believe many Montparnasse-Rennes TGVs make so you could transfer there to the hourly or so Montparnasse-Rennes TGVs

Hop CDG-Bordeaux TGV, change at Massy to the Paris-Rennes TGVs. I haven't looked at schedules but believe this is possible. I took a CDG TGV to St Pierre-des-Corps (Tours) recently and it stopped at Massy (which is not Montparnasse. check www.voyages-sncf.com to see if this is possible. would require two separate TGV reservations however.

kerouac

You can also get to Massy on the RER B.

mktraveller

Just a quick thank you to all of you for your answers, suggestions, and website links. We are arriving about 10am so we will either take the 13:38 direct train or consider if we should rent the car from CDG for the journey. I'm a little leary to do this as I am returning to CDG by myself and worried about driving and navigating at the same time. Thanks again for your help - I'm so much more confident about what we need to do. Happy Travels!

Michael

If yourent a car, do it ahead of time from the States. You can do one way rentals. Try Autoeurope or Kemwel.

http://www.autoeurope.com/

http://www.kemwel.com/

They are related (their web pages are exactly the same), and yet they sometimes offer significantly different prices.

PalenQ

For your car rental return simply drop it off in a place like St-Pierre-des-Corps and then hop TGVs from there directly to CDG so you don't have the oft terrible drive thru or around Paris to the airport.

ripit

I would recommend picking up the at CDG, droping off the car at Rennes and taking the TGV back to CDG. On the day of arrival you really have no way of knowing when you will be ready to leave the airport, i.e. will your flight be delayed, will there be a long line at immigration, will your luggage get lost (hopefully not), etc. If all goes well and you arrive early or on time, get through immigration and retrieve your luggage quickly, you will now have to wait for a couple of hours for the direct train. If are delayed or would prefer not to wait, you will have to nagigate the various connections with all of your luggage.

Most rental agencies charge little or no drop fees for picking up and dropping off your car at different locations within the same country.

Personally, after a long flight I want to get out to the airport as quickly as possible. I think navigating your way out of CDG by car is much easier than navigating the various RER/Metro/TGV connections.

As for the return, you can probably drop the car right at the train station in Rennes right before the direct Rennes - CDG train, assuming this gets you to CDG in enough time to catch your flight.