I have been given a two-day break at a luxury hotel in Lyon and wonder if anyone has experience of drive-on train services to the area?
I live in the Midlands, am keen to take the car - a MINI Clubman - so that I can fill it with wine on the drive back but am reluctant to drive both ways because of the time.
The French Motorail service from Calais to Avignon seems one possibility, or is there a better idea?
Any suggestions will be MOST welcome; thanks!
David
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Not the sort of response you're looking for, I guess, but when I looked (admittedly a good while ago) the car-on-train service was very expensive. I guess it depends on who is paying! I would say the luxurious way to get to Lyons for a two-day break would simply be Eurostar etc (did it once and it really was impressive). Lyons would not be my choice of a place to drive in.
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Hi,
Two suggestions.
1. Drive to France, leave your car in Calais and catch the train to Lyon. You can then fill your car with wine on the way home.
2. Drive to Lyon. Its only 6 hours from Calais and quite difficult to miss as the main Mediterranean motorway passes straight through the middle!!
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It probably shows my age if I say that no motorway existed the last time I was in Lyon - so the drive-there-and-back option seems a good idea. BTW my stay will be in a Chateau just outside the city and I have no plans to drive into it!
(There would be no point in parking at Calais as I'm planning to visit vineyards around Beaune and see my favourite winemaker in Champagne on the way back; NOT just do a booze cruise to Calais supermarkets!)
Thanks for the suggestions!
David
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Not sure you can go Calais to Avignon. Nearest station to Calais is Lille - though I might be misreading this website
www.voyages-sncf.com/guide/autotrain/accueil-autot...l
Prices don't seem that bad from a quick glance - again, I might be wrong.
Also look here
www.raileurope.co.uk/trade/specialist_trains/Auto_...p
www.seat61.com/Motorail.htm
Last one has route shown Calais- Avignon
Google "auto-train" for more websites
Phil
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I've been on a train with the car to Lyons. It was called the "car sleeper express". I went with my mum and dad in 1957 in a Standard Vanguard. We then drove to St Rafael and stayed at a camp site.
My dad took all the food with him, including treacle pudding, he didn't trust foreign stuff.
The other people on the site came and watched us eating bacon and egg at breakfast, it must have been the smell that attracted them!
How much wine can you get in a Mini? IMO it's not worth the effort of bringing booze home these days.
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That takes me back - a Vanguard eh? I remember doing a similar trip, driving all the way, in my dad's Jowett Javelin!
I hope there'll be enough room for some wine cases in a Clubman! (The plan is to just buy a few cases of good stuff at vineyards that don't supply supermarkets, here or there!)
David
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I don't think the car train runs to Lyon. Don't think it runs much at all to anywhere any more in fact. Maybe Lille to Frejus or somewhere on the Med?
Passenger trains to Lyon will surely require a change of trains and station in Paris?
Don't leave a car in Calais, surely the scrotes and idle would-be emigrants to the UK will strip it clean?!
Easy drive from the Channel ports to Lyon. And you go through the Champagne region - even better for stocking-up the wine cellar!
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Easy drive from the Channel ports to Lyon. And you go through the Champagne region - even better for stocking-up the wine cellar!
Yup!
Calais directly to the hotel outside Lyon; then back via the Maconnais, Cote de Beaune, Cote de Nuits and fill any empty spaces in Champage - I hope!
David
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unless your hotel has confirmed parking, I would not drive into Lyon - horrendous traffic flows and virtually nowhere to stop , let alone park . Pleasant enough city for a 2 day break, though not enough hotel beds for the passing visitor .
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TW my stay will be in a Chateau just outside the city and I have no plans to drive into it!
I think that a Chateau will have confirmed parking !
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We took our Westfield on a few "Grand Tours" Even took it on our honeymoon, we booked ahead at series of "Chatuxes" ;-)
Some of them had very fine restaurants and all had extensive and mostly eye wateringly expensive wine lists. Quite a treat though at the end of a days driving.
We often arrived somewhat bedraggled and fly spattered. At one particularly posh venue we arrived so late as to have to go straight into dinner. Our appearance raised a few gallic eyebrows but I like to think they merely saw us as eccentric....
Other years we did the same or similar trips on the cheap but that one was huge fun. Parking our little motorised bathtub next to the most exotic of machinery we took a little comfort in the knowledge that on those roads it could have blown the doors off most of them...
tee hee !
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Speaking of fly spattered, a friend of mine put his car on a drive on train and remarked on how strange it seemed to find dead flies on his rear view mirror glass and back window on arrival
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