Getting to the South of France - Eurostar - Paris - TGV - hire car

[CharlotteBog]

Bon soir,

Me and my 2 sons have an airbnb in a small town about 60km from Montpellier in the middle of August.

I think we will get the Eurostar to Paris, stay overnight (didn't factor that the Olympics will be on but never mind....!) then get the TGV to Montpellier, where I'll hire a car for our duration.

We've done quite a bit of train travel across Europe (which puts our rail network to shame), but I don't know the south of France very well.

Is there anything I need to consider before I book anything?

The cost is about the same as flying, obviously longer, but much nicer and part of the holiday.

I don't want to take my own car over because I don't want to drive that far myself.

Indeed. I am getting excited about Lille now.

It sounds as if you really want to see a bit of Paris, so how about:

• get Eurostar to Paris early in the morning
• metro or taxi to Gare d'Austerlitz and leave your suitcases at the left luggage (consignes)
• spend the day in Paris; I would suggest going to Notre Dame, Musée d'Orsay, and wandering around the Tuileries. All pretty close to Gare d'Austerlitz, so you could walk if you fancied.
• dinner near Gare d'Austerlitz and then overnight train to Narbonne.

Ah, she's changed her mind now, but I was going to suggest something like this but seeing if they could get to see one of the Olympic road races !

(The other issue with that is that the Intercites de Nuit book up insanely fast at peak times 😬. )

Follow up:

I ended up booking flights after all that!
The trains looked like a pain at this time of year (Olympics, peak holiday time).
I had to change our dates a bit as DS2 had to be back for the first footie match of the season (team just moved up to Premier so a Big Deal).

So, we are off on Sunday. I found a flight early evening rather than early morning so I won't be broken before we've even started. Need to sort airport parking out though.......sigh.