St Raphael - Nice

[Mark_1987]

Hello folks

Just wondering if anyone knows enough to advise what the best tickets are for a day return between the above stations in France ? I've had a look on a couple of websites but can't make out if the fares shown are open tickets for any train , or advance purchase style ?

I'm actually an active member of staff with a FIP for me and my partner , and we have 3 children age 8 / 4 / 3. I believe the age for a child rate fare is 4 but obviously I can't get a FIP for the 4 year old ?

There are two other adults travelling separately who will need normal fares

Any advice ?

Kind regards !

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Hello folks
Just wondering if anyone knows enough to advise what the best tickets are for a day return between the above stations in France ? I've had a look on a couple of websites but can't make out if the fares shown are open tickets for any train , or advance purchase style ?
I'm actually an active member of staff with a FIP for me and my partner , and we have 3 children age 8 / 4 / 3. I believe the age for a child rate fare is 4 but obviously I can't get a FIP for the 4 year old ?
There are two other adults travelling separately who will need normal fares
Any advice ?
Kind regards !

Normal fare St Raphael-Nice is €12.30 (one way, any train, break of journey allowed).
This is on TER (local) services. There are also some peak-time limited stop services (LHCS 2 years ago), at the same fare.
There are a few TGV services which need advance reservation, and the non-refundable fares are a bit cheaper than TER, while the flexible fares are more expensive.
I'm no expert on child fares, but the SNCF site seems to say that 4-11 year olds pay half fare, free under 4.

The cheap day passes (Pass Isabelle and Zou Pass) are restricted to one département, and St Raphael is in Var and Nice in Alpes-Maritimes, so there doesn't appear to be one day ticket for this journey.
(Isabelle used to cover the whole coast and would have been ideal).

If you put your group into the TER web site it offers a family fare (Découverte Enfant+) for a maximum of 5 people including 2 children for €76 all up, instead of the €99 full fare.
I don't know how useful this is.

You can buy a month in advance on the TER web site: http://www.ter.sncf.com/paca
But you can buy on the day too, no reservations on TER.

If you haven't been, the coastline east of St Raphael is superb.
From the top of Cap Roux you can see as far as Corsica on a good day.
St Raphael itself is also a nice resort.

 

[30907]

Fares on Regional (TER) trains are generally unrestricted, whereas TGVs are compulsory reservation. Can't see why you'd need to use a TGV though.

There's also a regional day rover ticket for €15 per departement, but the trouble is you'd need 2 as the boundary is at Le Trayas. http://www.ter.sncf.com/paca

Beaten to it!

 

[Gordon]

Firstly, the concept of a 'day return' in the British sense of the word tends not to exist in Europe, so avoid thinking in those terms.
TER is the standard France-wide term used to denote regional services overseen by the French political regions (stands for Train/Transport Express Régional, but is a strange 'coverall' term sometimes a misnomer because TER services range from all-stations (i.e. not 'Express') to limited stop local expresses' . PACA region avoids this problem by dubbing some trains 'Intervilles - Train regional a grand Parcours 1 / 2 classes' (with a black diamond in the attached timetable sheet)

Thus, there are four types of train in the PACA region, TER, Intervilles , TGV
and SNCF Intercités (reservation obligatory on this line).

I would avoid (a) paying in advance as strikes are quite common in the 'PACA' region, and (b) the complexity of advance reservation fee for TGV is pointless as TGVs here are running on ordinary line at 'traditional' speeds.

Timetable is here:http://cdn.ter.sncf.com/medias/PDF/...ia_13_Dec_2015_V2_tcm65-64437_tcm65-64436.pdf

Suggests the outbound trains available for your proposed excursion are limited to the 08.10 (not weekends) 09.16 (Intervilles) or 10.18 (TER) departures from St Raphael. The 09.16 would be the one to get as it is one of the limited stop 'Intervilles' trains

Choice of reservation-free trains on the return would also be helped if your journey is not on a weekend




.