Paris flight info?

We plan on visiting my daughter in Besancon--flying from Ontario, Canada--what is best/cheapest route to go?

Should we fly to Switzerland, rent car and drive to Besancon? and then fly home through Paris?

Acquaintance made suggestion of flying out of London, England and taking train from France to do so?

should my husband drive in France or easier to buy rail passes?

thank you for any information --Can you tell we%26#39;ve only ever travelled in North America?:)

|||

I guess it all depends on how much the flights cost. Check how much it costs to fly from Ontario to Geneva (70km from Besancon) and to Paris.

A Paris - Besancon return train ticket shouln%26#39;t cost any more than about €100 per person and takes about 3 hours.

The London option doesn%26#39;t make any sense to me unless the flight is a LOT cheaper than flying to Paris/Geneva.

A quick search seems to show that you can%26#39;t fly to Geneva direct. In fact, you%26#39;ll have at least 2 stops (one in the USA and another in Europe) and it%26#39;ll cost about $900. You can get to Paris for cheaper with only one connection.

|||

Libera --

You don%26#39;t say where you live in Ontario - but it would be a good idea to check out Air Transat as well as Air Canada if you aren%26#39;t too far from Montreal. You don%26#39;t say when you%26#39;ll travel, but it%26#39;s a good idea to check the airlines web sites at least weekly, just so you don%26#39;t miss a seat sale.

I%26#39;m always in favour of taking the train - if you rent a car, whoever is driving gets to see nothing but traffic and road signs. The train is easy and pain free and everyone gets to see the sights. Additionally - you don%26#39;t have to park it.

Go to www.ricksteves.com - he has a downloadable file that will help you to decide if a rail pass makes any sense for you. Unfortunately. he can only ship rail passes within the US, so you%26#39;ll have to use a local travel agent if a pass is a good idea. Also, you can see the list of his guidebooks.

I would suggest that you check out your local bookstore or www.amazon.ca for his Europe Through the Back Door, and also his France 2006. Additionally, you might want Europe 101 which gives an excellent overview of European history and art.

The Steves%26#39; books will walk you through the ins and outs of trip planning and will help you avoid any major pitfalls.

Good luck.

|||

-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-

This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

Removed on: 8:18 pm, August 22, 2009