My wife and I are taking a trip to France in June...for a cruise down the Rhone .... Being "train-knowledge-deficient" Americans, we know nothing about how any of this works...

We arrive in Paris at 9:15am on a Saturday and need to make our way to Gare de Lyon... to catch a train to Chalon-Sur-Saone... (frankly, I'm as excited about the high-speed train as the cruise!)

As I understand it, we need reservations for the high-speed train ... so my question is whether anyone can give me an idea how much time we need to plan for retrieving our luggage, making our way through immigration, finding the train station at CDG, doing whatever paper work/ticket buying is needed and making our way to Gare de Lyon for a connection to Chalon?

We plan to get some France Saver Passes (seems the best net price for a few days of train travel). We will be taking the train back to CDG a week or so later from Avignon.


Thanks in advance for any responses.