France 2016 update: train tickets

Well, we just purchased our train tickets using the Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) website. SNCF (or "snick-eff" as we call it) is the French railway company and their website is easy to use. After looking at a couple of other websites devoted to buying European train tickets online, SNCF seemed to have the best fares.  (The website is in English and Spanish as well as French, of course.)

Why purchase train tickets before arrival?

You need a reservation on the train so be prepared to decide on which train you want and where you want to sit -- that's right you can also choose your seat and whether you want to be upper or lower decks.

You can also print out your tickets before you leave home or send them to your phone.  Pretty cool.

Now, all we have to do is to make that 4:07 (1607) train. . . . As it stands now, we arrive in Paris at about 1pm Wednesday (1300 for you right-thinking folks) and have about two hours to get through passport control, find our luggage and get to the TGV station located in the lower level of Terminal 2. Waiting for luggage at CDG has always been time-consuming, for us at any rate. In fact, the last time we were there the luggage didn't arrive from London until the next flight so0 we had to wait a couple of hours.

Fingers crossed. . .

Oh, and speaking of choosing seats, even though we don't leave for Paris until next Tuesday, we received an email from British Airways giving us the opportunity to pay them more money in order to choose our seat right now. And we can even order our meals early. How thoughtful of them.

Right. No thanks.