For a heady blend of futuristic and nostalgic, take your time catching a high-speed train from Paris's Gare de Lyon, writes Elgy Gillespie
UPSTAIRS AT THE Gare de Lyon railway terminus, in Paris, a dozen pointy-nosed double-decker TGVs are lined up like greyhounds poised for the starter's pistol. An incongruous sight beside the elegance of their beaux-arts surroundings, they could hardly look more sparkling or futuristic, or further from the sooty rail travel of yesteryear.
Blue, white and silver stripes have replaced the industrial TGV orange of September 1981, when the first train à grande vitesseburst the two-hour barrier for getting from Paris to Lyons, bringing the Mediterranean to within four hours of Paris and changing French rail travel - all rail travel - forever.
Oh, the romance of it. True, Gare de Lyon sporadically fills with moody soccer fans or hungover trippers. Things are not always perfect in this best of possible worlds, but the TGV fleet embodies the renaissance of rail. The main attraction, of course, is that you can leave the beating heart of one great city and arrive quickly and comfortably at the heart of another. No more long waits on a dispiriting runway on the outskirts of nowhere.
Marseilles is a soothing three hours from Paris and seven and a half hours from London, with a simple change of train at Lille. Paris-Rheims is a 45-minute journey, Paris-Geneva is down to three and a half, Paris- Frankfurt takes less than four hours and Paris-Zurich four and a half (with the last part on ordinary tracks). One TGV recently reached almost 575km/h (357mph) on the Paris-Strasbourg route, during a journey of just two hours 20 minutes.
In the arrivals hall of Gare de Lyon, 1901 elegance survives amid the crowds and luggage carts. Green rooftop girders swoop above the double-storied portico of the Le Train Bleu, a bar-restaurant with an unmistakable blue neon sign, and an affordable brasserie below. Arched windows beckon; lace valences flutter. Inside, the endless zinc bar and marble-inlaid sconces woo you to the embrace of deep leather banquettes for a plate of oysters, confit de canardor, at the very least, a baba of rum-drenched cake and cream.
A warning to wallet-pinched travellers: France is still a lot cheaper than Dublin, but if you're watching your euro you'll need to opt for Le Train Bleu's afternoon tea or Kir Chablis (blackcurrant-tinted dry white wine), then wrench yourself down to departures.
Back in the day, blue- jacketed porters would let you know when it was time to go down to the departure hall. Now you wait under electronic information boards while stand-and- deliver espresso stalls refuel you with caffeine and French tartines, or open sandwiches.
Picnics? On-board cafe-bars with drinkable wines are more than adequate, but French families often bring food. They chat to other passengers, they swap magazines and photos, they run cartoons on their laptops to keep les gosses (the kids) amused. Because they have booked seats online, they have been able to request seats near (or perhaps away from) other cyclists, dog-lovers or families with small children. They can recline their seats, order meals, check Nasdaq online or snooze in first-class isolation.
TGVs cover more than 1,500km (930m) of France at average speeds of 300km/h (185mph), and this will increase to 342km/h (212mph) on the soon-to-open high-speed line to Bordeaux. With a €3.4 billion TGV-Est Strasbourg connection leading on to Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and new routes on the way, hundreds of millions of Europeans are being served by high-speed trains. It's the way to go.
See www.tgv.com
On the right track: five French cities you can visit by TGV from Paris
1 Three hours from Paris. The seven-year-old Paris-Marseille TGV route whisks passengers to the city's downtown St-Charles Station in a blur of speed-blended poppies, sheep and postcard villages. It is a journey as easeful as the wine and brie-on-baguette from the bar.
At St-Charles the well-run baggage facility ( consignes) stores luggage, and the tourist office supplies maps, tickets, brochures, colourful badinage and more.
Should your legs fail you, a small but user-friendly subway is there to spirit you downhill to the Vieux Port. See www.marseille-tourisme.com.
2 Montpellier Three and a half hours from Paris. Montpellier is a student Mecca - its frisky, adolescent mood has drawn medical and science undergraduates here since the Middle Ages. With a population weighted noticeably towards the young and restless, it's a city that has grown enormously over recent decades.
The heaving centre of Montpellier is Place de la Comédie, with its white paving slabs, seas of tables and awnings, and crowds of youths indulging a healthy passion for wandering the cafes by night.
Named for its ancient rococo theatre, Place de la Comédie is known as l'Oeuf (the Egg) to locals because of its oval shape. In a graceful 17th-century pavilion, you can locate the syndicat d'initiative, its helpful tourist office, with its large and fine free maps. See www.montpellier.fr.
3 Two hours from Paris. Straddling the Rhône and Saône rivers, Lyons takes full advantage of their bridges, banks and walkways, making this an idyllic city for strolls or cycle rides.
Place Bellecour fills the peninsula between the two rivers, and its surrounding streets glow with swanky boutiques and shoe shops. Its neighbouring squares and pedestrian streets are a few minutes' walk north of the elegant Gare de Perrache - more central than the ultramodern TGV stop at Gare de la Part-Dieu, in the commercial district - and its pavements ring with the sound of street musicians. See www.lyon.fr.
4 Three hours from Paris. If you're partial to St-Émilion claret, to locally made Lillets (don't worry, it's a wine aperitif) at quayside cafes, to gastronomic glories behind immaculate 18th-century facades overlooking the River Gironde, you can find them all in this dignified city tucked among Aquitaine's wineries.
There's no getting away from full-bodied reds around here. Bordeaux is encircled by the great wine houses of history, including Châteaux Lafite, Margaux and Rothschild.
Mocked by Victor Hugo as "Versailles added to Antwerp", but praised by Henry James for its "discreet appeal to wine-lovers", Bordeaux has just been freshly repainted white to mark its tenure as this year's Unesco World Heritage City. See www.bordeaux-tourisme.com
5 Strasbourg Two hours 20 minutes from Paris. The first time I visited this border city by train, it took more than four arduous hours and felt like the set of The Lady Vanishes. Now TGV-Est takes less than two and a half hours to reach the city of tarte à l'oignon, choucroute and similar pleasures that make the trip worthwhile. Like Bordeaux, the Alsatian capital is a centre of the wine industry and has revived its trams ( www.cts-strasbourg.com), with five lines that zigzag between the ancient and modern city centres, taking in all the cultural hot spots. See www.ot-strasbourg.com
Go there
Perhaps the easiest place for Irish travellers to start a TGV journey is at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, which Aer Lingus (
www.aerlingus.com) and Air France (
www.airfrance.ie) fly to several times a day from Dublin, Cork and Belfast. All of the French destinations of Aer Arann (
www.aerarann.ie) - Bordeaux, Brest, Lorient, Nantes and La Rochelle - are cities on TGV routes. You could also fly to London and begin your rail journey with Eurostar (
www.eurostar.com), which offers through fares to all TGV destinations.
How to get going
You can book tickets online at
www.tgv.comor, if you plan to begin your journey in London, through
www.eurostar.com.
Gare de Lyon, in Paris, handles journeys to Provence. Gare de Montparnasse and Gare de l'Est cater for western and eastern cities.
If you're flying to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, you can board your TGV at the airport station.
Ordinary SNCF trains are walk-on, but TGV journeys require a seat reservation. You must then composter votre billet (or time-stamp your ticket) in an orange machine at the platform.
Fares for double-decker TGVs do not always cost less than the cheapest flights, but many travellers are happy to fork out from about €50 to Lyons, say, for the ease of stepping off the train and into the city.