Hi! My husband and I are planning on visiting Caen and the Normandy beaches before our trip continues to Belgium. We are planning to travel by train from Caen to Brussels. We will be arriving from Caen at the Paris St. Lazare station and leaving for Brussels from Paris Nord. I’m wondering how long we should allow for the transfer between these two stations. Would 50 minutes be enough, or would 1 or 2 hours be better? The Die Bahn rail site lists 50 minutes for the transfer but I’m wondering if that would be enough, for two people who may be a little slow at figuring out where we should be as we have never traveled in France. Please let me know what you think. Thank you all for your help!
Tish
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3 Comments On Transfer between Paris St. Lazare and Paris Nord
ftdavis: My advice is to plan on the extra time. The first train may be a tad late. You may also not be familar with some of the nuances of a foreign train station. The extra 70 minutes is good peace of mind. You don’t need (extra) stress on a vacation. Donerail
Good advice, especially if you don’t speak French. A little extra time will buy you peace of mind. That always contributes to a more relaxed vacation!
They are close together on the map but there isn’t a direct line between them. The easy way, of course, is to take a taxi. The two stations are so close together that cost would be minimal and you wouldn’t have to worry about time.
However, you can check various itineraries at http://www.citefutee.com/informer/anglais/index.php# and they will give you connections and a map you can print.
The choice they listed first was to go to RER line A (Auber) in the direction of Marne-la-Vallee Chessey and go only to Chatelet-les-Halles. There you walk to RER line D and take it in the direction of Goussainville to the Gare du Nord. Supposedly this takes 23 minutes (if the trains are on time and you don’t get lost).
There were other options but you can check them on the RATP Metro web site I gave you above. If you want to check ticket prices, etc., the main page is http://www.ratp.fr and it is full of information. Scroll right to get it in English.
Thank you both for your advice! I’m sure we would rather include a little extra time to help keep our stress at a lower level so that’s what we will do.
We were planning to take public transportation, but we will consider the taxi since the stations are close together. The website you listed is great–I probably will print off the information before we go in case we end up deciding to use public transportation. Thank you again!
Tish