It's only one more day to go!
I had previously posted about the flight itinerary, which covers the flight for the beginning and the end of my trip. Now as promised, I will tell more about the weekend itinerary. So far, I had only planned for five weekend trips out of Nice. The remaining weekends will be most likely spent in Nice or the nearby cities and villages.
1. Paris, France (8-10 April 2011)
For this trip, I will ride the famous TGV (the French high-speed train and the fastest conventional train on Earth). It's a direct train between Nice and Paris. For the outward journey, I'm riding 1st class as the price for the 1st class at that time was cheaper than that of the 2nd class! Sadly, this might be the only time I will be riding 1st class, since all my other train reservations are for the 2nd class, which most of the time are cheaper.
When purchasing the ticket for the return journey, I wanted to buy the iDTGV train (an extension of TGV train, but different interior design), which departure time would be at 17.42. However, apparently, for that kind of train, for non-European credit cards, only American Express could be accepted. As I didn't have one, I had to choose the earlier schedule.
For the accommodation, I will stay at Le Village hostel (located at Montmartre) in the 4-bed mixed dorm with private bathroom.
2. Florence, Italy (15-17 April 2011)
For this trip there will be several transfers using trains. First I will take a TER train (French regional train) from Nice to Ventimiglia, Italy. Then I will take an Italian Intercity train to Genoa, and then change to another Intercity train to Pisa. From Pisa, I will have to take an Italian Regional train to Florence.
The return journey will be on the same route, but I chose to stay longer at Pisa, as I wanted to check out its famous leaning tower. The other difference is that the train from Pisa to Genoa will be by a Eurostar City train, which is better and faster than an Intercity train.
For the accommodation, I will stay at Archi Rossi hostel in the 4-bed mixed dorm with private bathroom.
3. Venice, Italy (6-8 May 2011)
For this trip, there will be also several transfers using trains. First I will need to take a TER train from Nice to Ventimiglia.T hen I will take an Intercity train to Milan, and then change to a Eurostar City train to Venice.
The return journey will be on the same route.
For the accommodation, I will stay at Casa Alloggi Gerotto Calderan in the 6-bed mixed dorm with private bathroom.
4. Cinque Terre, Italy (13-15 May 2011)
For this trip, there will be also several transfers using trains. First I will take a TER train from Nice to Ventimiglia. Then I will take an Italian Intercity train to Genoa, and then change train to Monterosso by another Intercity train. From Monterosso, I will still need to take a Regional train to Manarola.
The return journey will be on the same route
For the accommodation, I will stay at 5 Terre hostel in the 6-bed same sex dorm with shared bathroom. Of the five villages in Cinque Terre (literally means "Five Lands"), I will be staying in Manarola, which is the second village from the east.
5. Paris, France (20-22 May 2011)
For this trip, I will ride a direct TGV train again. I previously wanted to take the Lunéa night train (which provides sleepers and will arrive in Paris at 07.00), but the fare was not that much different compared to the combination of day train plus hostel bed. When purchasing the ticket for the return journey, how stupid of me, I waited one day after the schedule was released, and I lost the cheap ticket for the departure time that I wanted. Therefore, I had to take the earlier departure time to get the cheaper fare.
For the accommodation, I will stay again at Le Village hostel in the 4-bed mixed dorm with private bathroom. This is the cheapest hostel with good quality that I can find. Although it's a bit far from the center of Paris, it's very close to a Metro station.
The only remaining tickets mentioned above that haven't been bought are the Italian Regional train tickets in Italy (because they can't be bought online) and the French TER tickets returning to Nice (except for the Venice trip, which had been bought). All other train tickets had been bought online. French train tickets were bought via TGV Europe website (if you fancy using website in French, you can use SNCF website, which I always use to check the price because it's updated faster), while Italian train tickets were bought via Trenitalia website.
I decided to buy the ticket far in advance to get the promo fares. French train tickets are expensive. On the contrary, Italian train tickets are cheap. But they can be much more cheaper if bought in advance. The schedule and reservation for French trains are available up to 90 days in advance. When the schedule for new date is published, there are usually PREM fares (the special promo fare for French trains), which are always sold fast. All the Italian non-regional train tickets mentioned above are bought using the Mini fare (the special promo fare for Italian trains).
If you noticed, there are quite a lot awful of long train trips. The longest of all is for the Venice trip. But I figured that even though I will only have one full day, and probably plus half a day in those places, I'm okay with that. As long as I can visit those cities, see it with my own eyes, and smell its air, I will be happy enough and I don't mind the long train journey. The only problem will be to take the same long train journey back to Nice.
Don't forget to read tomorrow's post which will be the last post of the series. Til tomorrow!
UPDATE: read the last (ninth) part here.
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