As I mentioned in my post of August 12th last year we are going to the south of France this May.
I was intending to delay booking this until the last possible moment - which for me was the 17th March to allow for the various booking windows to be open. But - I was idling away some time yesterday looking at accommodation options for Martigues (where we are heading for) and realised that several of the places I had considered were already booked up for our holiday dates. This set me into a bit of a spin - and I realised that I needed to get myself organised so as to find somewhere affordable & acceptable.
I had bought our Interrail passes in the sale last year so that wasn't an issue.
The other possible complication that I alluded to in August was travel insurance. Sacha - that's my wife - has a number of health conditions which makes getting travel insurance difficult (and more expensive than run-of-the-mill insurance). I'm wary of insurers - it's all very well looking at the headline price, but you need to consider the claims handling process - I've fallen foul of cheap car insurance, and learned about the pitfalls of travel insurance the hard way. Anyway - I managed to ger travel insurance in advance of booking this trip from Allclear Insurance at an acceptable price and they are aware of all our conditions. So - good to go.
We wanted an apartment for our 5 days in Martigues - not a hotel - as we want the flexibility to come & go as we please and a bit more space. I couldn't find any places that seemed to fit the bill in the area I wanted - so I've gone with an expensive, luxury place that seems to be relatively easy to get to. I hope it matches the reviews - and the price!
Having booked this I needed to look at the Ferry booking. We have decided to travel from Portsmouth to St Malo on the new Brittany Ferries vessel 'St Malo' which has just enetered service. Having got used to the luxury cabins on the North Sea crossings I've booked a Commodore cabin for this trip - it amost doubles the price, but it comes with a couple of perks such as breakfast in the room or the posh lounge (we will lower the tone!).
Next up was the Eurostar reservations for the journey home from Lille - I booked these through RailEurope - who didn't charge me a handling fee. It's a rip off charging so much on top of the Interrail price, but they are a monopoly (and to be fair we've always enjoyed out Eurostar trips).
I was unable to make the SNCF TGV reservations as the booking window isn't open yet. This is another con on the part of SNCF who seem actively hostile to Interrail. We are using some slower TER trains, but the TGV reservations seem impossible to avoid if you want to travel in a reasonable time.
Phew! Almost there. Hotels - we are stopping off in Lyon on the outbound trip and Lille on the way back - one night in each. Lyon seems particularly expensive - and I was torn between staying near the Part Dieu station (expensive) or in the old town (poor reviews) - in the end we've gone for the old town and will explore the metro. Lille was always going to be expensive for an overnight stay, and there was very little choice near Lille Europe - so we've gone for the Hilton. We've walked around Lille before and weren't impressed - so its unlikely we'll be venturing very far from the hotel that evening.
So, there's only the TGV reservations and a reservation on the home-bound English train to make. I'll book lunch at my club in London on the outbound day before we get the train to Portsmouth. I'll also start making my 'page a day' aide-memoir sheets so I can look at what we're doing and where we're meant to be when while we travel. I save these as PDF files to look at on my phone (although I'll be taking a Chromebook tablet with me for the first time this year).
You could argue - and you might be right - that the Interrail passes are overkill for this trip. Booking the trains separately might be as cheap or cheaper than the passes. However I've become used to the flexibility and 'security' of the passes in recent years. So - here we are.
It's a few years since we've been to La France Profonde - I speak french tolerably well - or at least I used to - but I suspect my listening skills might be very rusty. We will see how we get on!