Need Help Planning Vocation Trip To France

[Gabriela]

+ Hello ladies,

 

I'm trying to plan a trip to France to visit two communities, but I'm having a really hard time finding out train/bus schedules and station locations. Obviously the sisters are in the middle of nowhere, and I don't speak French, so all I have access to are these awful tourist travel websites that charge an arm and a leg for everything. I don't need to reserve tickets now, but I do need to know roughly what times I'll arrive in the nearest village to each house so that I can tell the sisters when to pick me up. (Won't have a cell phone when I get there...)

 

Can anyone help me with this? If so, please PM me.

 

Thank you, and God bless you VSers! :)

 

-curiousing

[beatitude]

I am also going on a vocations trip to France! :D (I am beginning to think you're my secret doppelganger - your life seems to parallel mine in very interesting ways sometimes.) I speak French and I'll help.

[petitpèlerin]

I just got home from France where I was visiting my community and friends. I lived there near them for two years, too. I speak French well enough to get by and I'm accustomed to travel on planes and trains in France, especially getting in and out of Lyon and around the areas nearby. If you have any questions about transport feel free to PM me. I wonder if my community is one that's on your list? If so I could definitely be of help since I've been to their priories.

[TheresaThoma]

Funnily enough I am also planning a (sort of) vocation visit to France.

Ask the Sisters they will have the best information about which stations to use etc. 

The trains/bus website is scnf.com and I have found that the French page is much more helpful than the other pages. Since you can't read French Google translate does a decent job. (if you use Google Chrome it will offer to do this automatically)

For around Paris http://www.ratp.fr/ is super helpful.

[TheresaThoma]

For some reason I think it would be super fun to find a common location and like leave a note or something there for the next person to find.....

[marigold]

For some reason I think it would be super fun to find a common location and like leave a note or something there for the next person to find.....

 

Exactly what I was thinking. Stealth Nun Run.

[TheresaThoma]

Or more like a nun run relay. :hehe2:

[domenica_therese]

http://en.voyages-sncf.com/en/

 

or

 

http://www.raileurope.com/en/index.html

 

are generally what I used for travel in France. France's railway system is extensive but sometimes spotty. I was able to get where I needed to go by a combination of some train transfers and a taxi. Using the internet and my understanding of Spanish I was able to cobble together enough French to google things like "bus from X_City to Y_City." It worked well. 

[TheresaThoma]

I really didn't like rail Europe for certain things. I bought a couple of things through them but for finding bus schedules and such the SCNF website was much better. 

If you are flying in and out of Paris and need to use their Metro system then the RATP website is really good. http://www.ratp.fr/en/ratp/c_21879/visiting-paris/

[Gabriela]

I just want to say thank you to everyone who offered advice here. I think I have a couple people who will be willing to look up timetables for me. I'm still waiting for station names from one community, but after several offers of help from Wonderful VSers, I'm feeling much more confident now that this isn't going to be a nightmare! ;)

 

THANK YOU ALL!

 

<3

 

:-*

[oremus1]

im going to france too!! which community/location? im goin to the Sisters of Bethlehem. there are some very good airport transfers. im doing that instead of trying to navigate the SNCF!!

if you can post the station names from / to, i am sure we can plot you a good journey.