International train tickets for summer travel on sale in France

Train tickets for the summer season are now on sale in France, and include a number of international destinations across Europe.

High-speed routes to countries including Spain, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland are available.

The tickets currently cover the period between May 23 and August 26, and can be booked through the official SNCF Connect website.

A new batch of tickets on sale from March 27 will add extra seats for international routes running until September 1.

Some tickets to certain destinations in Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and Germany (including those run by the Eurostar Group) were already available for the summer season.

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New route added and existing ones amplified

A new route has been added which sees trains running from Bordeaux to Stuttgart (Germany), as well as a return of last year’s Bordeaux-Frankfurt line.

For the first year, only five direct trains will run between Bordeaux and Stuttgart, with tickets starting from €84.

However, these are only set to run on certain weekends during the summer period.

Elsewhere, three trains will run each day in each direction between Paris and Barcelona from July 6 to September 1.

In the early summer period – between April 27 and July 6 – two trains per day will run on the route during the week, and three at the weekends.

Tickets start from €149 one-way, although return tickets can be purchased for around €240. If you have a railcard, further reductions are available.

There will also be a return of the Marseille – Lausanne (Switzerland) route between June 29 and August 26.

Tickets to Italy (via the Alps) will be available at a later date in March, although the journey will combine both high-speed rail and a bus, due to last year’s landslide in the Maurienne Valley.

Read more: Watch: landslide closes major train route from France into Italy

Many trains run daily between Nice and Ventimiglia along the Mediterranean coastline, which are local TER services that do not need to be booked in advance.

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