Meeting Your Trip in PARIS
(on your way to Champagne)

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.

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?

Your trip departs from Paris on Monday morning. We assemble at our Paris office between 9 and 10a on trip departure morning.

We will send you details on reaching our office from the appropriate airport or rail station (or from one of our usual hotels) if you tell us by what means you are arriving in Paris..



2. Our ACCESS PACKAGE
as of January 1, 2008

We don’t really have one. All you need is a hotel night in Paris on Sunday night, to be in place for the trip start Monday morning.
If you would like to book it through us, there is a good chance that the trip’s coordinator will try to rally those in our usual hotel for a dinner get-together on Sunday night, but you will see all the same people the next morning, anyway, so what’s the rush.

Follow this link for options. Our usual Paris hotel is a centrally-located 2*, within walking distance of the Pompidou Center, Notre Dame, the Marais, and our office (where the trip meets). It offers excellent métro access: the ease of moving about town is key to enjoying a short visit. But it is a simple place, reflecting prices that are quite low for central Paris.

More upscale hotels are available, if desired (we also have a couple of less expensive ones, and guest apartments, but only for longer stays).

Our London “Access Package” offers a train from London to Paris. The first Monday morning Eurostar from London arrives Paris in time to join the trip. But its London departure is an unpleasant 5:30a.
The second morning train, at 6:30a, will do if you are an experienced cyclist, or are bringing your own bike.

Availability is normally guaranteed until 35 days prior to trip start (payment received by us). Within 35 days, availability must be confirmed, though we are pretty good at hunting down Paris hotel rooms. Some extra-cost options have higher prices if ordered w/in 35 days.

Options Offered at an Extra Cost (subject to availability)
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. 59€ 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 135€; 1st class tickets include meal service).
• If frequent flyer tickets bring you to another Euro capital, know that Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich and Geneva are all within 4 hours of Paris by train, their airports are linked to their city-center rail stations by direct shuttle train (the Amsterdam - Paris train actually stops at the airport). We are generally able to get discount tickets on these routes. London is only 2-and-a-half hours away. But getting from either London airport to the St. Pancras terminus of the “Eurostar” for the train to Paris is a bit arduous (by train or underground), or a bit expensive (by taxi).
• Paris airport train tickets, from Charles de Gaulle or Orly to Paris center. Follow this link for details.
  

3. TIMING Your Trip

You will not have time to visit Paris on Monday morning. It is, “on the bike and GO!” Allow for Paris tourism in the days prior to the trip start.


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 London. Trains are roughly hourly. The Eurostar is marketed like a plane: very different prices for different passengers occupying the same seats. Book early to be sure of obtaining discount fares.
  
  

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.