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Rail Travel in France is there an interactive map?

  • 11 March 2023
  • 3 replies
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Hi there, first time traveller here.

Travelling around Europe with me two young children in Summer 2023.Just trying to get my head around how it all works!

We arrive in Cherbourg Port in June and would like to spend a few days with easy access to Mont St Michel. I went to the SNCF website and typed Cherbourg to Mont St Michel, thinking it would give me routes and options to get there.I quickly worked out it's not that easy lol!

I think input the next nearest biggest station Caen, and found a train that actually stops in Lison , which according to the rail map would be the place to change.Hiwever I can’t find any trains going out of Lison

I tried Lison to St Malo, nothing's there an easier way to work out my routes?

Many Thanks :-) 

Sinead

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Best answer by thibcabe 11 March 2023, 14:40

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Userlevel 7
Badge +10

There is no single source of an interactive routing planner. As you are finding you need to check several planners for effective routing and sometimes you need to jump from one to another. The good news is that you can use planners other than the Interrail offers, which are cumbersome, relatively crude routing algorithms and often incomplete on specific trains.

Also be aware that whilst many of the popular planners (OBB, Dbahn and Czech rail for example) are excellent for main lines across Europe, they all depend on the actual operator to supply their timetables, some of whom can be tardy.

I find the man in seat 61 very useful for advice. Also a quick search on Google for Mont St Michel shows this:

https://www.thetrainline.com/en/destinations/trains-to-mont-saint-michel

For French regional and local trains there are often regional sites with more detail.

https://www.regions-of-france.com/regions/lower_normandy/train-stations-rail-network

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Mont St-Michel is not easy to reach from Cherbourg so I wouldn't recommend Cherbourg as a base. St-Malo would be more appropriate

 

The train to Pontorson - Mont St-Michel leaves at 10:40 Mon-Fri, 06:44 Sat, 08:44 Sun always with a change in Lison : 3h journey.

From there there are buses to Mont St-Michel in itself.

I'd do this :

Ferry arrival

- TER Cherbourg - Lison 10:45 - 11:24

- TER Lison - Pontorson 11:41 - 13:40

Visit Mont St-Michel and then catch a bus to St-Malo ? It seems that there are no trains in the evening...

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

No interctive map, nor you will have an idea on how frequent the trains are running, but this map can give you a good look on how the train network in France looks like:

https://www.sncf-reseau.com/fr/carte/carte-reseau-ferre-en-france

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