Paris to Montpellier Question

Re transportation: Flying may be faster, although if you factor in time to go through security, it may be about the same. Flying would probably be cheaper.

On the other hand, the TGV would be a truly French experience and you could actually see some of the countryside as you zip down to Montpellier.

In other words, there are pluses on both sides. You need to decide which means most to you. I would vote for the train, but I like to see the sights and I like trains.

I strongly recommend you add three more phrases to your French. Learn "please," "thank you" and "where is the bathroom." With what you already know, this will get you through. ALWAYS start your conversation in French, even if all you say is "Pardon." All they need is one word and they will know you can’t speak French. If they are able to speak English, they will. If they don’t switch to English, they probably either can’t or are very uncomfortable doing it. In that case, they usually find someone to help.

Another great phrase is "I have a problem." The French love to solve problems and that will really get their attention . . . and usually solve your problem. I suspect your daughter can help you with these. You don’t need to spell them, just speak them.

For answers to your other questions, please share with us how long you will be in the Montpellier area, what you have for transportation and some of your interests. It is a gorgeous area and you are going at a pretty good time of year so you have many options.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Sorry . . . forgot. If you haven’t already discovered it, go to the Home Page on this site (Click on the blue and red France.com above) and on the right side of your screen are a list of button links, Hostels, Airfares, Rail Travel, Car Rentals, etc. Click on both Airfares and Rail Travel to check times and prices for your Paris to Montpellier travel. You can also check car rental prices if you plan to rent a car in Montpellier. (If you are staying more than 17 days, don’t rent. You can lease for less and I can give you web info for this.)

There are also hotel links for cities other than Paris on this site, so check them too.

Thanks for the reply. My wife and I are rather excited even though it’s a few months out. My French does include "merci" and "pardon," but I’ll be adding toilet and such very quickly – and I’ll be adding "I have a problem."

We’ll be flying into Paris on a Saturday noon and will fly out the following Saturday at noon. At the moment, we’re looking at leaving Paris sunday evening and coming back to Paris thursday evening – travel schedules permitting. The time in between will be spent in and around Montpellier.

The first hurdle is the figuring out the transport issue. We’re leaning toward the train for the reasons you mentioned.

In looking at train info online – costs & schedules – I’m getting more and more confused about what to take, which type of ticket to buy, where to buy and when.

The TGV seems the way to go, but I’m not sure which deal is best. Tickets seem to be priced at about 260Euro for four days of travel – which I don’t know if we’ll use or not. 2 days for sure, and possibly one other if we head toward Nice or elsewhere. Is that a wise purchase or could the money be better spent differently/more efficiently?

Sorry for all the ?, and I’m sure I’ll have more.

I’m not familiar with current train fares but you mentioned four days of travel. Did you check plain old point-to-point from Paris to Montpellier? It seems like that would be cheaper.

Since you only have a few days, you probably won’t want to go to Nice. That’s an adventure in itself. Why not take your limited time and enjoy the Montpellier area? If you want a couple day trips, visit Sete on the coast. It’s got a lovely port and is right on the Mediterranean. Then you could visit Arles, the most quintessentially Provencal city I know. There is also Aigues-Mortes, a completely walled city. It is a major tourist trap but that doesn’t take away from its interest. We always like to walk the ramparts. You have great views of both the town and the surrounding area including huge mountains of salt that is gathered there.

Nice is pretty far away and you’d waste a lot of touring time getting there and back. Why not save it for a future trip when you can take time to enjoy it? It is a very large city with an amazing number of things to do and you won’t do much in one day, especially considering the distance involved.

Check a plain old 2nd class round trip ticket from Paris to Montpellier and see what you get. If it seems excessive, check flights because the airport in Montpellier is conveniently located.

I think I just voted for spending the money more efficiently, didn’t I?

Whatever you decide, have a great time. It is an absolutely beautiful area of the country.

Merci.

Those are some useful ideas. I really appreciate it.

Hi, I spent a month last year in France, two weeks in Montpellier. I would recommend travelling to Montpellier as soon as you arrive in France, if the train schedule is appropriate. It is expensive and time-consuming to travel into Paris, although at least you are on the weekend and not in rush-hour traffic. The train (TGV) station is right at CDG airport. I bought the SNCF four-day travel pass as it was worthwhile for the Paris-Montpellier and return alone; I used it the other two days but for limited travel around the Cote-d’Azur which is not expensive. It is my recollection that I paid about $300Cdn (not Euros) Check the sncf.com site first to find out if there are any PREM’s, which offer greatly reduced fares. Otherwise, if you call the Rail Europe # they will be able to advise which is the best option re buying a four-day pass or individual tickets.

I loved Montpellier and plan to return again this year. I don’t really have any recommendations which your daughter will not already have for things to do actually in Montpellier. My favourite thing was just walking around the city, Place de la Comédie, the markets, the old part of the city with its wonderful shops, the place Peyrou, etc. Carcasonne and Collioure were places of interest to the west and south-west of Montpellier but not sure how long to get there by train as we rented a car. For a future trip, I would definitely recommend renting a car and driving to Provence via the Gorges du Verdon (Grand Canyon of France) and seeing the wonderful sites Provence and the Cote d’Azur have to offer. My favourite place visited last year? St-Rémy de Provence (closely followed by Montpellier!)

Enjoy your journey!

Hi there: my husband and I have just joined visitfrance.travel and were interested to read your inquiries about Montpellier as we too our going to visit our son there this May (from Toronto). – He’s there for 3 years, doing his entire degree. We saw him two years ago but didn’t get too much sightseeing done. So we are interested to know how your trip went? We’ll be flying in to Paris and after 3 days, going to Montpellier by train.

Our trip went well except for something major going wrong every day. That said, we had a wonderful time. We were there and Paris during the demonstrations so it was interesting.

We didn’t get out of Montpellier when we were there – which was for three days – because we spent most of that time visiting with our daughter and her friends. That said, we stayed at Hotel du Palais which is in the medevial part of the city. It was quite fine and I have no complaints. One of our mistakes was not to confirm our reservation, so when we arrived, we had no rooms… sort of. They had them reserved under my first name and not my last but we didn’t know that and it didn’t get resolved until we got back home. But they resolved it just fine. It’s location is near a patissierie where we picked up fresh baguettes every morning – by fresh, I mean almost hot to the touch.

We also ate at two wonderful restaurants – Le Petit Jardin, which is down the street from du Palais, and Isabellas (I think). Le Petit Jardin is a two star but the food was wonderfully fresh. I don’t eat seafood ever, but there I did and enjoyed it. At Isabellas we had my daughter’s birthday dinner and had a wonderful piece of veal and a duck salad that was great as well.

On a daily basis, there are many patisseries and brasseries to choose from and none stick out in my mind – mainly because they were all fine and I had no bad thoughts.

Shopping in the medieval city is more fun than at the Polygone mall, but each was enjoyable. My wife discovered a wine shop that was exclusively Languedoc wines and the shop keeper spoke well enough that my wife picked some nice wines.

Things to keep in mind for Montpellier. The city itself isn’t all that much of a site-seeing town. The medeival part is fun to walk and browse, but watch where you step. The Place de Comedie is pretty plaza and is a good place to get your bearings for the town. Antigone is fun too look at, but not much is happening around the New Arch. The tram system is a little overrated, imo, but it does connect you from one end of town to another. They are currently working on a second line. If you are coming there after Paris, it may leave you underwhelmed.

We enjoyed our stay quite a bit. We did not get to the Sea because A) it was cool when we were there and B) the day of hte Protest was the day we had planned, so it all went up in smoke. The fun of Montpellier was just walking the streets and finding new things around every corner – a store here, a chapel there, the university there. However, less English is spoken there than in Paris, which is probably understandable. Everyone was quite friendly, even though I and my wife mangled the language something fierce. We did work on saying "Bon Jour" and "Merci" whenever we entered an establishment and left. The other popular phrase by us was "Parlez vous Anglais?" The restaurants were very good about translating the whole menu to us, and in return we left a pretty good tip. I do mean the whole menu, so I felt very comfortable showing appreciation for their working so hard. We tried hard to be courteous and let our daughter lead the conversations when possible. Just that little bit of etiquette seemed to help everywhere we went. Also a bit of a cultural tidbit – Montpellier is land of 3 kisses for a greeting rather than the expected two. If your not ready for that, it can be a bit of a surprise.

If I went back again, however, I would try to spend a day or two outside of Montpellier such as at Nimes and the aqueduct and also at Carcassone. I do think we missed a bit and our daughter has confirmed that much as well.

The TGV ride from Paris was wonderful. The countryside is beautiful and you see the range of it. Near Lyon, if the sky is clear, you will be able to see the Alps. That contrasts with the rolling hills around Paris and the slightly more rocky landscape as you get closer to Nimes and Montpellier.

On our way there, security helped us through Gare de Lyon due to what I expect was our exceptional ability to look like tourists (for some stupid reason we took a large hardside that I regretted having every footstep I took) and then on the way back, protests had our train putting in at Gare de Bercy rather than at Gare de Lyon (which meant a little jaunt to Gare de Lyon to get a taxi because no one was expecting the arrival at Bercy). I heartily endorse the TGV as the way to travel.

I hope that was of some help.

JL

Great trip report. Thank you so much. Glad you enjoyed the trip. I did think about you as we watched the protests on tv.

When is your next trip?

I enjoyed reading your comment. I am planning on going to Montpellier to take a two week French course at the Accent Francais school. So, any info about the most economical way to get to Montpellier from Paris and also what to do arond Motpellier would be welcome.

SalB

The train would be your best option. Here's the French railroad site in English.

http://www.voyages-sncf.com/dynamic/_SvHomePage?_DLG=SvHomePage&_CMD=cmdHomepageUK&WB=HP

It wasn't working the other day so you may have to use the French rail site which is http://www.sncf.com

Since you are studying there, I assume you can read the French and the latter web site might be easiest for you.

Montpellier is a university town so you will have plenty to do. You can also type the city name into the VT search window above and get specific information.

Enjoy your trip.