French trains make no sense, in a similar fashion to their pools (see pool post). The actual trains themselves are fine and fast blah blah blah. But they are extremely confusing.
When we took a trip to Rouen we agonized over buying the right tickets on the stupid train app that’s not intuitive to use. We paid about 20€ round trip for this trip, overall not a bad price. We waited the entire trip for someone to come and check our tickets. No one did. You’re able to just hop on the train, not having to scan anything to get through the turnstiles. We were perplexed and annoyed because we didn’t even have to pay for the tickets and had essentially wasted 20€.
When we went to the Chateau du Chantilly, we left Paris on the RER but came back on some regional train that looked the same as the regional train. We decided not to get tickets and see what happens. No one came to check for tickets again!
So Jessica and I figure to ourselves that we can pretty much go on a regional train for free because no one ever checks if you’ve actually paid to be on the train.
Cue to today. On a whim we decide to head to Giverny since we know how to get there. We get on the train easily, no turnstiles and no one checked for tickets when we got on.
We’re on the train for about 20 minutes before we see them. Train attendants. We are shocked. When they get to us we do the only reasonable thing and pretend to be asleep so they might skip past us. They don’t. Jessica is shook ‘awake’ and it’s panic time. She asks us for tickets and we just whip out our navigo passes asking if they will work. She says they will to Giverny! It was perfect – until the way back.
We get on the train at Giverny, perfectly at ease knowing our navigo passes will work. We’re on the train for half an hour this time before we see a train attendant coming. We are calm and confident in our navigo passes. He gets to us and I pull my navigo out and his face immediately turns to a mixture of disgust and confusion.
He takes it from me and repeatedly ask if the card is mine. I say yes and he goes “you cannot use these to Vernon-Giverny.” WHAT. We are confused. We are shooketh. This makes literally no sense and neither of us know what to do in this situation. We inform him that on our way here we were able to use our navigo passes, but he keeps telling us that is not possible.
He has to call his coworker over because we both look like idiotic tourists and he needs help explaining it. He proceeds to mansplain (mostly in French) where our passes do and do not work. I ask if we can pay now and he tells us yes, but only in cash. I get out cash and turns out we actually cannot use cash, so card it is. Astounding.
French trains in theory are great, but in practice they need to be much clearer about ticketing and costs, especially for the know-nothing tourist.
I guess the 20 euros is for peace of mind? Could you imagine not buying a ticket and sitting somewhere as people continuously enter the train looking for their seat- when it could be your seat? That’s real fear factor right there.
Lily and I went to Giverny on Sunday and absolutely no one checked our tickets the entire time. I was freaking about getting these tickets for a WEEK!!