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Saturday train fares

Parigi

100+ Posts
For our trip to Nice in June, we had signed up with SNCF for the ticket purchase opening alert, which informs us immediately when the tickets for our travel day are available.
To our dismay, when the alert came, we found that the Saturday fare was much more expensive than we thought, at 189 euro 1st class, although the June period is not a special peak period like Xmas-new year or Easter, etc.
So we checked the fares for the day before and the day after, and found the fares aremuch lower. If we take the train on Friday, the fare is 100 euro less, which amounts to a reduction of more than 50%.
First, we asked our Nice landlord if we could arrive one day early and leave one day early. His reply was yes !
So we changed our reservations, and are saving 400 euro for the 2 sets of round-trip stickets.
Btw, this is the second time we encountered prohibitive fares on a Saturday, and resorted to changing our itiinerary by one day and saving a lot.

Conclusion:
1. Try to avoid renting from Saturday-to-Saturday rentals if you have the choice.
2. If you rental is obligatorily from Saturday-to-Saturday, try to leave earlier and return later.
For example, whenever we go to Provence or Ardèche, we always spend 2 days in Burgundy on the way down, and 2 days again on the return (usually around Vézelay for 2 days, and also Cluny for 2 days)), breaking up the long day's driving and enjoying the beauty and good food and wines of Burgundy. What not to like?

(Now the Oscar, the Nobel, of all 1st-world problemes: What oh what to do with tihs windfall? I'm like the late Alice Trillin on this: don't think of the saving of 400 euro as a saving. Think of it as a credit. Think of it as money already spent. Where oh where should we claim this "credit"? Am thinking Mirazur in Menton during our stay, and the new Train Bleu on our return home… What would you do?)
 
(Now the Oscar, the Nobel, of all 1st-world problemes: What oh what to do with tihs windfall? I'm like the late Alice Trillin on this: don't think of the saving of 400 euro as a saving. Think of it as a credit. Think of it as money already spent. Where oh where should we claim this "credit"? Am thinking Mirazur in Menton during our stay, and the new Train Bleu on our return home… What would you do?)

Well, Parigi, since you've asked us a question, and no one offered a reply, I will do my best to try and answer....

First of all, I never thought I'd see Alice Trillin's name mentioned here. I once read her essay on her perspective on living with cancer. I have read and seen a number of articles and documentaries on the subject, as I have lost people close to me to cancer, and have tried in the past to try and understand the subject more. One of the best I have seen is in Hebrew, so I can't even recommend it here. Something in the matter of coping with cancer has always been strange to me. Trillin's essay also pointed this out. It is quite interesting to me to see how people decide to deal with health problems - I believe this shows, in many ways, what a person's true outlook on life is. You could also say that I think it is good to ponder serious questions that you can be thankful, in the meantime, that you don't have to deal with personally...

But all this was a bit beside the point....which was what to do with an unexpected windfall of substantial monetary weight (if I understood you correctly)...

On the morning of our first day on our first trip to Italy, in 2008, we left our small hotel in Torino and started the stroll to the metro. After a few minutes of walking, I suddenly spotted a bill of 50 euros on the sidewalk. I was with my wife and two daughters, who were already sputtering with delight at the find. So naturally, the money was saved to promote a bit of splurging at a nice dinner we had a few nights later in the Piemonte countryside.

But if I were alone? The pressures of kin selection are less forceful...and I usually contribute "windfalls" like this to a friend, who is doing selfless voluntary work in the most depressing places in the world. Like the shipment costs I save if someone brings me a product from abroad.

And BTW, after re-checking my scant knowledge on Alice Trillin, I ran across an article eulogizing her, in which she was described as a "a do-gooder who insisted that a twenty-dollar bill found lying on a Greenwich Village sidewalk must be turned in to the lost-property desk at the neighborhood police precinct".
 
Hey, Nancy...

I say, that along with Alice's found money philoshophy, think about what Calvin T's advice would be.... !

Enjoy,
Karen
 

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