The best way to travel any distance in France is by rail. The TGV trains are reliable, comfortable and very reasonably priced. From Paris to the South is quicker by rail than by air.

There is only one rail company SNCF – their website can be confusing, but booking and printing tickets online is not difficult. If you click on the English flag on their site it takes you to the European TGV page which is different from the main SNCF service.

We have also found that their online service is limited if you are planning to explore France by rail, for example, on some routes you can get to a place, but according to the computer there is no return route.

Eurail enables you to buy tickets before you arrive in France, but you will pay more.

The nearest rail station to us is Agde – this is a mainline station and is only twelve minutes drive from our house – the drawback with arriving at Agde is that there are no car rental services nearby. We can arrange to collect you from the station if you give us notice.

The next mainline station along the line, 15 minutes from Agde, is Beziers, this is a larger town and ther are several car rental offices on or near the station, but they are not open 24/7 so check times, again we can meet you and help.

Montpellier is the largest town the capital of our department, Herault, about 45 minutes from us and this has plenty of car rental places, but not all are close to the station, some  say only 500 meters from the station (more like 3km) and are several tram stops away and hard to find – Montpellier is also not easy to navigate through especially if you have just arrived, so we recommend Beziers or Agde

Any problems, contact us.