|  Intercity coach services in France
Foreign
visitors are sometimes surprised to learn that France - unlike the UK,
the USA, Spain or many other countries - does not have a coordinated
intercity express bus or long-distance coach network. For instance, to
travel from Paris to Montpellier or Bordeaux, the natural reflex in France - for those not wanting to drive, students, young people, the elderly etc. - is to take the train, not the bus. There are plenty of cheap offers on the trains, and it is so much faster ! Check out the Rail Europe site which offers discounted train tickets and Interrail passes for rail travel across Europe .
This is not to say that there are no bus or coach services in
France; international services with destinations in France are run by a
number of companies, the most important of these being Eurolines ,
which links a number of towns and cities in France with major cities in
other European countries. From the UK, details are available on the
National Express website.
Within France, coach services tend to exist only on a regional level;
most French cities have an "autogare" or a "gare routière" - a coach
station - with regular services within the region, and sometimes
further afield. Bus services most frequently cover routes for which
there is no train service, and are sometimes run by the SNCF, the
French railway operator. These services appear in the railway timetable.
One region with good and extensive intercity coach services is the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur
(PACA) region, with routes linking Marseilles, Avignon, Grenoble,
Nice, Briancon and other cities. Further information on services in
this region is available on Info-LER website. Links to services in other regions can be found on the France-week-end.com website, though this is in French and the information is not always very easy to find.
The reason for the lack of intercity coach services in France is not
hard to explain; it is simply that the train services are generally
good, fast, and not expensive; and with all sorts of discounts
available for frequent travellers, over-60's, couples, families and
students, people use the trains.
Planning a visit to France ? If so, don't forget to bookmark About-France.com:
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