Quote:
Originally Posted by Truckosaurus
Several in our group have used the trains in the past, either from Paris (having taken the Eurostar from London) or from CDG airport.
I all cases they'd arrange for their luggage and/or camping gear to be taken in cars by other people.
The tram from the station to circuit, and then either walk or get picked up by car, is easier than driving into town to collect them.
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i did it by plane and tgv, paris one way nantes the other. managed to pack a tent, bedding, one of the smaller fold up chairs from decathlon, clothes covering all eventualities, washbag and other nonsense and a totally illegal amount of battery packs for my phone into one slightly bigger than cabin bag and a personal item. relied on one decent bit of circuit dining per day for food and a trip to carrefour for everything else. on the way back i ditched the tent. compression sacks are your friend.
generally your TGV is about €35 one way, and your flight about €70 one way including a wheelie bag. can be done for cheaper. wise man packs bag that’s just about viable hand luggage but with zero intention of taking it on board - ask if you can check it in at the desk before going through security. never had an issue on BA or easyjet, ryanair do sell an option like that anyway limited to 10kg but i’d never suggest flying ryanair anyway
you can get a tgv or ter to nantes from le mans (1hr18 and 1hr28 i think, so just pick what works), and the airport shuttle bus is 9€ one way. i much preferred it to dragging stuff across paris on the rer-metro change, and that cdg-montparnasse ticket was 11.80€ i think so it compares well. easyjet flights to both cdg from non-gatwick airports and nantes were very affordable right up until a few days before departure.
wouldn’t recommend the eurostar - if it goes tits up your options are very limited since you can’t get transferred to a flight so you need to have a slush fund/air miles bucket to cover (and yes, that’s speaking from experience!), it’s very expensive for zero convenience and it gets very disorganised around le mans time of year very quickly.