France - Websites for train Paris-Cherbourg

Bonjour,

We will need to take a train at Saint-Lazare toward Cherbourg and will get off at Carentan. Which website is good for discount tickets? Would it make a different in price when we purchase the tickets?

Merci!

If you want to go there by train, there is the SNCF website (http://www.voyages-sncf.fr). It should have the cheapest available fare and no transaction fees. Unfortunately, there is no English version of this website.

You can go to a travel agent website like expedia.fr

You can also use:

http://www.tgv-europe.com/en/train-ticket

and select 'Great Britain' for the collection country. You will then be given the option to continue on RailEurope (no!) or stay on tgv-europe and pay in Euros (yes!). You can then choose with withdraw the ticket from a French machine or station or, depending on the ticket type, print at home.

This is the same booking engine as SNCF above.

I tried this website but for very small stations like Carentan, you are redirected to voyages-sncf.com.

You can also use:
http://www.tgv-europe.com/en/train-ticket
and select 'Great Britain' for the collection country. You will then be given the option to continue on RailEurope (no!) or stay on tgv-europe and pay in Euros (yes!).

I was able to follow through and it is still tgv-europe ... but if I select US then I have rail-Europe at the end. The different prices are follows.
35.6E (transfer) / 41.3E (direct) / $63

There is 8 min. to transfer between trains at Caen. Is this timeline sufficient with luggage and a toddler? Thanks.

For under $10 per person, I'd opt for the single train service - if you have to change platforms (and I don't know the answer to this one), a toddler and luggage would definitely be hindrances.

The diff. in cost was not a factor but we preferred depart late morning (11:45) instead of mid-late afternoon (16:10).

We would go with the first if we know 8-minute transfer is doable for us. If it is not than we have to go with the second one although departure time is not preferred.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Though Caen is not a huge station, I don't know how many platforms it has nor whether the inter-platform traffic is overhead or underground, nor how convenient it is to transfer platforms. Googling for information and checking with The Man in Seat 61 (http://www.seat61.com/index.html) don't reveal much in terms of what you want, I am afraid.

(You can e-mail The Man in Seat 61 from this page (http://www.seat61.com/email.htm).)

I hope someone who has actually transferred at Caen can help you. At the risk of sounding boringly consistent, I'd opt for the nonstop unless I had knowledge I could 1) transfer burdened with luggage and infant in under 8 minutes or 2) build myself a "buffer" and take a longer period of time to make my transfer (I believe there are something like 15 trains per day to Caen?)

The diff. in cost was not a factor but we preferred depart late morning (11:45) instead of mid-late afternoon (16:10).

We would go with the first if we know 8-minute transfer is doable for us. If it is not than we have to go with the second one although departure time is not preferred.

I don't know Caen station, but at TGV stations in Le Mans, Rennes or Nantes 8 minutes is sufficient to change trains. I don't expect Caen station be more complex. However, be prepared to use stairs. In case your incoming train is late have your ticket stamped by the "controleur", so you can just use the next train from Caen, even if it would be more expensive.

I have found a photo from inside Caen station here: http://medias.lepost.fr/ill/2011/02/26/h-4-1946601-1298728927.jpg

It looks like there are not many platforms, so you would need to walk down the steps, (although I cannot see in the photo) many stations now have lifts, so you might first look for a lift. But then you will probably have a very short walk to the departing platform and up the steps. Assuming there are two or more adults, eight minutes should not be a problem.

I checked the train schedule and considering the Cherbourg regional train is the "natural extension" of the Caen InterCity train there is a pretty high chance that it will be a cross-platform transfer, in this case you won't have any stairs.