How to get to the Apartment
Car ferries also go to Caen, Cherbourg or St Malo from Portsmouth. Cherbourg is accessible from Poole and Roscoff from Plymouth. The car journey from Bagnerès to Bigorre to Caen takes just over 9 hours,
from Cherbourg just over 10 hours, from St Malo 8 and a half hours and from
Roscoff just over 10 hours. Look at
www.brittany-ferries.com for information about these ferry journeys to France.
To plan your journey once in France, go to either http://maps.google.co.uk, www.mappy.co.uk or www.viamichelin.co.uk for directions.
By Plane
The three closest airports to us are at Pau, Tarbes and Toulouse.
Pau Pyrénées Airport (www.pau.aeroport.fr) is only 80.5 kilometres (by toll road) from our apartment in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and the journey by car takes an hour. Air France (www.airfrance.co.uk) and Cityjet (www.cityjet.com) fly there from London City Airport. Also Flybe (http://www.flybe.com/) have 2 weekly flights in the summer months from Southhamton. Toulouse-Blagnac Airport ( http://www.toulouse.aeroport.fr/en/) is 155 kilometers away, the car journey takes about 1 hour 40 minutes. Several airlines fly into Toulouse. Easy Jet ( www.easyjet.com) from London Gatwick and Bristol; FlyBe ( www.flybe.com) from Birmingham, Jet2 ( www.jet2.com) Belfast, Edinburgh and Leeds Bradford; British Airways ( www.britishairways.com) from Gatwick. Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées Airport ( http://www.tlp.aeroport.fr/en/voyageur/) is only just over 21 kilometres away and a car journey takes about half an hour. You can now fly to this airport once or twice a week from London Stansted with Ryan air (www.ryanair.com) and from Manchester with bmibaby (http://www.bmibaby.com). Apart from that, Air France is the main airline that flys here, but there are seasonal and occasional charter flights from Great Britain so it may also be worth checking the airport website.
Hire car is available from all of these airports. For a list of car hire companies for
- Pau Airport click on http://http://www.pau.aeroport.fr/en/passenger-services/rent-a-car
- Toulouse Airport click on http://www.toulouse.aeroport.fr/en/shops-and-services/rent-a-car
- Tarbes airport click on http://www.tlp.aeroport.fr/en/traveller/access/transports.html#voiture
By Train
You can catch the Eurostar from London St. Pancras to Lille where you can change to the
TGV heading to Toulouse. The total journey time can be as little as 8.40 hours.
Or you can take the Eurostar to Paris and then the TGV to Tarbes. This will involve
travelling across Paris as the Eurostar arrives at Paris Nord and the trains to Tarbes
leave from Paris Montparnasse 1 Et 2. The journey from Paris to Tarbes is about 6 hours.
For details of both journeys click on
www.eurostar.com.
From there choose Travel Information and then Timetables.
There is a bus service to Bagenères-de-Bigorre from Tarbes. Go to http://www.ter-sncf.com/Regions/midi_pyrenees/fr/. Then click on 'Fiche Horaire', and then in the space for 'Recherche par Ligne' select '934 Tarbes - Bagnères - La Mongie' and when it is displayed click on '934 TARBES-BAGNERES-LA-MONGIE'.
