We'd never visited the area properly (work meant that main holidays were in high summer) so it was high time for an early autumn break. All neatly planned - two nights in Turin on the way out, then over the Col de Tende route to Nice, and return via Dijon (which we'd not visited when we were last in Burgundy 20 years ago owing to a heatwave). A 4-day Interrail would cover that, except Turin to Nice which isn't expensive.
Then a French mountain fell onto the railway (see sundry threads) so we had to replan. Another two nights in Nice? No, prices were through the roof owing to the rugby. So I found us an AirBnB in Breil-sur-Roya, whence we could do the Tende route to Limone or Cuneo, and visit the hillside village of Saorge on the relatively frequent bus.
Friday:
0835 Saltaire to Lyon 2000 via London and Lille. A boringly reliable journey, apart from discovering we were at the wrong biometric passport gate at St Pancras. The ES wasn't quite full in SP, the single-deck TGV was after CDG Airport, and was a few minutes late throughout "owing to a delay from another train."
I used the 90min at Lille to book TGV top-deck reservations which you can't do on the Interrail or Belgian sites. The clerk in the very quite travel centre was most helpful; I discovered he didn't have access to the "choose-your-own-seat" facility but could only book by type of seat, but thatcwas fine.
I then decided to test the ticket machine. Easy to make a reservation, much more problematic booking an actual seat:
I asked for 2 side-by-side and got seats across the aisle from each other; 2 facing each other got random seats at opposite ends of the coach.... anyway I succeeded in the end!
BTW the Ibis Styles at Lyon PD has loads of rooms overlooking the station
Saturday:
0906 Lyon-Marseille then 1157 Marseille-Nice and a 20min connection up to Breil arriving at 1600. Another straightforward trip? Not!
We got to Marseille on time and discovered that there had been an "accident involving a person" in the suburbs and the route to Nice was blocked. Still, we found seats and coffee, while chaos reigned around us. TGVs from Paris came in and waited - and waited - as did passengers for Paris, as trains from Nice were obviously being held back! There were regular announcements, but they were unintelligible owing to the sound system or speaker (we both have decent French).
At 1230 a chance look at the screens revealed 2 RRBs had been organised to Aubagne, where presumably there would have been a connection to Toulon, but after looking at the queue we decided against, as we had no idea whether we could get beyond Toulon any quicker than by waiting for the delayed 1157 which was expected to be +120 at that stage.
Eventually a platform was announced, the train arrived from Nice nearly 4h down (oops! the platform side doors were mostly locked, which rather horrified us - the train wouldn't have used any offside platforms en route so no-one had noticed! Doors unlocked, passengers released and we boarded, the doors closing announcement was given and....30min later we left, 3h 23 down, and made our way to M-Blancarde where a Ouigo and one of the Paris TGVs were sat in platforms.
Complication - Wales v Portugal at 1745 in Nice, and plenty of spectators on board (we stopped at the new Nice-St-Augustin near the stadium so any TGV passengers had been told to change to us. I have to say the onboard staff were excellent at explaining the arrangements, but they still missed the 1st half
Back to Blancarde - we were 1st out and went on the single "slow" line which had been the first to open, past the scene where the last of the orange army was leaving - and were promptly overtaken by the TGV which then delayed us a bit more as it divided at Toulon for Hyeres.
Final arrival at Nice was 3h 50 late, partly caused by more passengers cramming on. That said, we had found one of the two 1sts in the 8-car TER of rehashed Corail stock behind a BB22XXX, so the journey itself was pleasant enough.
Nice Ville was - not surprisingly - heaving So all we had to go was grab something to eat (Cafe Paul on the station forecourt did the trick) and catch the 1909 to Breil. Oh no! Cancelled owing to an object on the line near Sospel.... probably a tree or a small landside, it had been a stormy afternoon. Anyway, the following 1943 (why are there two trains within 35min, you may well ask?) was announced and ran pretty much to time, crossing a punctual service train and an ECS en route, no doubt the result of the disruption. We reached Breil 4h 55 late, which ranks as the worst delay I have ever experienced! No fault of SNCF, of course....
Anyway, I had plenty of time to work out how to buy the new 7-day pass valid on all public transport in Alpes-Maritimes. I'll post the details separately on the International subforum.
EDIT: the delay compensation is worth EUR24 - agreeded with little fuss by Eurail.
Then a French mountain fell onto the railway (see sundry threads) so we had to replan. Another two nights in Nice? No, prices were through the roof owing to the rugby. So I found us an AirBnB in Breil-sur-Roya, whence we could do the Tende route to Limone or Cuneo, and visit the hillside village of Saorge on the relatively frequent bus.
Friday:
0835 Saltaire to Lyon 2000 via London and Lille. A boringly reliable journey, apart from discovering we were at the wrong biometric passport gate at St Pancras. The ES wasn't quite full in SP, the single-deck TGV was after CDG Airport, and was a few minutes late throughout "owing to a delay from another train."
I used the 90min at Lille to book TGV top-deck reservations which you can't do on the Interrail or Belgian sites. The clerk in the very quite travel centre was most helpful; I discovered he didn't have access to the "choose-your-own-seat" facility but could only book by type of seat, but thatcwas fine.
I then decided to test the ticket machine. Easy to make a reservation, much more problematic booking an actual seat:
I asked for 2 side-by-side and got seats across the aisle from each other; 2 facing each other got random seats at opposite ends of the coach.... anyway I succeeded in the end!
BTW the Ibis Styles at Lyon PD has loads of rooms overlooking the station
Saturday:
0906 Lyon-Marseille then 1157 Marseille-Nice and a 20min connection up to Breil arriving at 1600. Another straightforward trip? Not!
We got to Marseille on time and discovered that there had been an "accident involving a person" in the suburbs and the route to Nice was blocked. Still, we found seats and coffee, while chaos reigned around us. TGVs from Paris came in and waited - and waited - as did passengers for Paris, as trains from Nice were obviously being held back! There were regular announcements, but they were unintelligible owing to the sound system or speaker (we both have decent French).
At 1230 a chance look at the screens revealed 2 RRBs had been organised to Aubagne, where presumably there would have been a connection to Toulon, but after looking at the queue we decided against, as we had no idea whether we could get beyond Toulon any quicker than by waiting for the delayed 1157 which was expected to be +120 at that stage.
Eventually a platform was announced, the train arrived from Nice nearly 4h down (oops! the platform side doors were mostly locked, which rather horrified us - the train wouldn't have used any offside platforms en route so no-one had noticed! Doors unlocked, passengers released and we boarded, the doors closing announcement was given and....30min later we left, 3h 23 down, and made our way to M-Blancarde where a Ouigo and one of the Paris TGVs were sat in platforms.
Complication - Wales v Portugal at 1745 in Nice, and plenty of spectators on board (we stopped at the new Nice-St-Augustin near the stadium so any TGV passengers had been told to change to us. I have to say the onboard staff were excellent at explaining the arrangements, but they still missed the 1st half
Back to Blancarde - we were 1st out and went on the single "slow" line which had been the first to open, past the scene where the last of the orange army was leaving - and were promptly overtaken by the TGV which then delayed us a bit more as it divided at Toulon for Hyeres.
Final arrival at Nice was 3h 50 late, partly caused by more passengers cramming on. That said, we had found one of the two 1sts in the 8-car TER of rehashed Corail stock behind a BB22XXX, so the journey itself was pleasant enough.
Nice Ville was - not surprisingly - heaving So all we had to go was grab something to eat (Cafe Paul on the station forecourt did the trick) and catch the 1909 to Breil. Oh no! Cancelled owing to an object on the line near Sospel.... probably a tree or a small landside, it had been a stormy afternoon. Anyway, the following 1943 (why are there two trains within 35min, you may well ask?) was announced and ran pretty much to time, crossing a punctual service train and an ECS en route, no doubt the result of the disruption. We reached Breil 4h 55 late, which ranks as the worst delay I have ever experienced! No fault of SNCF, of course....
Anyway, I had plenty of time to work out how to buy the new 7-day pass valid on all public transport in Alpes-Maritimes. I'll post the details separately on the International subforum.
EDIT: the delay compensation is worth EUR24 - agreeded with little fuss by Eurail.
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