Best means of travel (air/train) to a Languedoc village
 

It won't be possible to answer your question without knowing which village you'll be staying in. :)

Ah, thank you, does this help? Says nestled close to center of the lively village of Capestang.

So, Béziers airport is very easy, but doesn't do domestic flights. You can fly there quite easily from London, but not Paris.

Toulouse, Perpignan and Montpellier airports all have flights to CDG, and are about 1h30 from this area.

From CDG, there are a few trains to Montpellier. From central Paris, there are many more to Montpellier and a few through to Narbonne and Béziers. Somewhere around the 3h30 mark from Paris-Montpellier, 4h from CDG, and about 4h30 from Paris to Beziers or Narbonne. Of course, there may be onward connections to your village.

Narbonne to Barcelona is 2h by train; Girona is even closer (1h20), but you're not going to get any long-haul flights into there.

https://en.oui.sncf/en/ is the place to find out about train connections. Be sure to distinguish between central Paris and CDG airport. Note that not all of the cheap train fares for June have been released yet.

I don't know how lively I might call Capestang. You should be able to reach Béziers relatively easily and then probably taxi which you should arrange in advance.

Taxi : « Capes’ taxi » +33 6 03 87 05 88.

Thank you all for the information. So we'll fly into CDG. Stay two nights in Paris.

We'll then either train or fly toward the house located near Capestang. Not sure if train or plane is way to go...yet.

Then, if I understood correctly, MPL is about an hour and a half from Capestang? So either train or taxi to MPL (not sure which is best...yet) to fly out of MPL to CDG (instead of trying to fly out of Barcelona). From CDG, jump on a flight back to EWR.

For whatever reason, I think maybe my brain is making this planes, trains, and automobiles scenario more complicated than it should be. Thanks again all, appreciate the feedback.

I had a similar situation figuring out the best way to get from the Costa Brava in Spain to the area near Annecy, just south of Geneva. Difficult to parse out the differences between flying and taking the train because either one involved a bunch of steps. I ended up making a spreadsheet comparing the two, listing out each step for either option going door-to-door, including travel time and cost for that leg- I even added in some cushion time for arriving at the airport or train station. I didn't realize it before I did this, but Excel/Google Sheets allows you to format data as a unit of time, and you can add and subtract in hours:minutes.

Turned out that driving to BCN and flying was about 90 minutes faster and $120 cheaper. The train takes a long time because you have to switch over to a much slower east-bound train once you get north of Avignon, and that wait plus the slow train made it longer. EasyJet having a cheap nonstop from BCN-GVA made that method faster, and booking well in advance the tickets were cheaper than the train.

We have a house between Montpellier and Capestang, so I do that exact trip several times a year.

For several reasons, I usually take the TGV directly from CDG to Montpellier and then just rent a car at the Montpellier train station. I usually fly United from Dulles to CDG, and therefore arrive in Terminal 1 at CDG. Because I am usually carrying a bunch of extra stuff to take to our house, I don't want to deal with the hassle of changing airlines and rechecking my extra baggage or getting into Paris and taking a TGV from Gare de Lyon.

If I were traveling lighter, Air France has several flights a day from CDG to MPL. If I wanted to stay for a couple of days in Paris at the front end, I would probably just take a train from Gare de Lyon to Montpellier.

In either case though, I definitely want a car while there. Rentals are not hard and not expensive. I have never tried a taxi, but they are available.

PM me and I would be glad to discuss all of this with you.