Eurail pass and local trains, South of France

My partner and I plan to leave Rome by train on 1st May 2009, and need to be in Rieux Minervois in the Lanquedoc region by 5pm on the 2nd May. Is this feasible? We will be travelling on Eurailpasses, can we use these on local trains as well as on TGV? Where would be the best place to change from one to the other?

I know that Rieux itself does not have railway access but we will hire a car either in Beziers or Carcassone.

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated. We plan to stay in Rieux for a week, doing day trips by car, then revert to train to go to another area, probably somewhere near Mont St Michel, before going to Paris. Is it possible to travel to Barcelona by train or would car be preferable?

thanks in advance for any help.

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Your Eurail pass should be valid on local trains no problem.

I%26#39;m not quite sure what you mean when you say %26#39;Where would be the best place to change from one to the other%26#39;

but if you are planning to travel by train all the way from Rome, then Marseille is the obvious place to change for Beziers, Carcassonne etc as that its where most of the trains on that route begin their journeys.

Check train details carefully near the time as some trains Marseille - Carcassonne etc will require you to make a seat reservation even with a Eurail pass. Every time I have used that route the trains have been full.

There are currently two direct trains every day from Narbonne (France) to Barcelona but a day trip is impraticable owing to the schedules. The journey takes over 3 hours from Narbonne. If you have a car the journey is certainly feasible but would take about the same time for the 288km journey. Ask elsewhere, but I am advised that driving in Barcelona is not for the faint-hearted!

Hope that helps for starters.

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Many thanks for this. We are now thinking of staying overnight in Nice, and might end up hiring a car there. Wonderful quick response, thanks again!

Val

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We have now returned after a wonderful trip in France and other places. Our gite in Rieux was excellent, with a wonderfully friendly English landlady, and lovely Minervois views from the bedroom window. Highly recommended.

Our train travel in France, unlike our Italian experience, was almost troublefree and we were very impressed with the French train system. The only problem we had was a signals breakdown when we were waiting for a connection in Lyon, but we were assisted by the Information guy who found us an alternative and in the end a much better route which whisked us by TGV from Lyon to St Pierre des Corps (near Tours) in a couple of hours, and much to our surprise, via Paris!

Trains were always clean and comfortable, not crowded, and very smooth running. Impressive! Even the Metro in Paris was easy to use and trains although sometimes crowded, were never excessively so, and were very plentiful, usually with another train due in minutes.

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Good for you! I am pleased that everything turned out Ok.