The TGV From Paris to Nice

Connections in Philadelphia were short but our party of four, and more importantly, their bags arrived together. Lou and Sandy had arrived earlier, their connection was through Charlotte.The entire group arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport without incident and connected up at the baggage claim area. The only slight delay was the extremely long line for US passports getting through immigration. We made our way to the SCNF/TGV station at the airport and waited for our train and track to be announced. We picked up bottled water and baguette sandwiches for lunch on the train.

[/caption] I borrowed the path from another blog to get the entire route. On the track’s loading platform, we found the graphic depicting the order of the cars on the train; we were all assigned seats in Coach 16.  The graphic also depicted the point on the platform where we should stand to get into the right car.  All very civilized! Our car ended up being a double-decker and we were all seated together on the top level near the center. At 11:43 AM (right on time) our train departed for Nice. Shortly after leaving the station tracks, we entered the Mediterranean high speed line (LGV Mediterranee) to Marseilles and accelerated. The sense of movement does not seem that fast – until the train enters a tunnel with a woosh! or passes another train going the opposite direction on the adjacent track. Along the way, we stopped at Marne where there was a slight delay to deal with an onboard traveler’s emergency. The countryside streamed by as the allowed top speed of 186 MPH was maintained much of the way to our next stops: Valence at 2:10 PM, then at Avignon in southern France where a new TGV-only station sits on the city’s outskirts at 2:37 PM. After Avignon, high speed resumed to Aix-en-Provence TGV station, where we arrived at 3:03 PM, then Marseilles where we arrived at 3:25 PM. A Google map search indicates Paris to Marseilles highway mileage is 776 km. (481 miles). The estimated driving time is 6 hours 57 minutes. Our train did the journey in 3 hours and 40 minutes. From Marseille the train used conventional tracks at 70 to 80 MPH between stations. After stops in Toulon at 4:20 PM, Les Arcs Draguignan at 4:58 PM, St. Raphael at 5:15 PM, Cannes at 5:43 PM and Antibes at 5:54 PM, we arrived at the Nice station at  6:15PM. Google shows 932 km or 575 miles from Paris to Nice with an estimated driving time of 8 hours and 21 minutes. We made it in about 6 1/2 hours.  We took no photos of the group: after traveling all night we looked a little rough around the edges and decided to wait until we took a shower.

The Hotel Vendome in Nice

After a harrowing ride out of the parking garage with our Renault Espace down a narrow exit ramp, Mike, our driver, negotiated Nice’s one way streets to our destination, Hotel Vendome at the corner of rue Alberti and rue Pastorelli.  It is a quaint hotel, with great architecture and a short walk to the old-town area.   After showers and freshening up, we strolled down to Chez Freddy for a seafood dinner.  Le Menu consisted of your choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert.  Appetizer choices were mussels, crab and shrimp salad, melon and ham, prawns, salad nicoise and fois gras.  We all choose either John Dory or skate for entree.  Dessert choices included chocolate mousse, creme brulee, ice cream, tarte tatin,  and fromage blanc with honey and a coulis.  We ate dinner al fresco, under the stars our first night in France.

A short walk along the almost deserted beach ended our evening before we returned the hotel to end our first and second day of travel.