Taking the High-Speed Train from Paris to Lyon: A Ride on the TGV

“The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station.”

~Paulo Coelho

We must have spent an hour at Galeries Lafayette Gourmet, trying to decide on a packable lunch for our train trip from Paris to Lyon. Each booth seemed more tempting than the previous one as we wandered the three-story food hall extravaganza, finally opting for baguettes with brie, tomatoes and hummus. We added the sandwiches to the tote bag we’d received from Le Cordon Bleu for transporting our macarons and were ready for our train ride south.

The TGV – train à grande vitesse – is France’s intercity high-speed rail service that can run up to 186 miles per hour. Our train would be leaving from Gare de Lyon in the 12th arrondissement, one of six railway stations in Paris, and would take about two hours to reach Lyon. Tauck had made ticket arrangements and would be handling luggage transfers from our Paris hotel to the riverboat docked in Lyon. Herb and I had ridden Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen last fall from Kobe to Kyoto and were curious how this French counterpart would compare.

Gare de Lyon

I was looking forward to experiencing Gare de Lyon almost as much as the train ride itself. Originally constructed in 1849, the station was redesigned in the Belle Époque style for the 1900 World’s Fair by architect Marius Toudoire. A beautiful clock tower anchors one corner of the station. Trains arrive and depart from two simply-named halls – Hall 1 and Hall 2. Platforms for RER trains run underneath the main lines.

Gare de Lyon has an open, airy feel and is easy to navigate. Shops and food stands line both halls, and a historic French restaurant called Le Train Bleu looks out from an elegant staircase in Hall 1. I was enchanted by the murals that decorate the upper level of a wall in the ticketing gallery. Looking like old postcards, they depict scenes from Monte Carlo, Nice and other destinations where passengers leaving Gare de Lyon may be traveling.

On the Paris TGV

Our ride on the TGV was smooth and efficient. Like the Shinkansen, it never felt as fast as I’d imagined we were traveling. The images of the countryside sailing past my window, however, let me know that this was not a slow ride! I did manage to get a few photos that were not a blur, mostly idyllic country scenes of green and golden grasses, distant white sheep and charming-looking houses with reddish-brown roofs.

When we arrived in Lyon, buses were waiting to take us to the ms Emerald, our home for the next week on the Rhône River. I knew I would need to readjust my thinking from the grandness of Paris to a slower pace, smaller cities and warmer weather. But I found that the train had already helped me change my focus. Like a bridge leading from one destination to the next, this brief ride on the TGV was the perfect way to clear my mind and look forward to the next adventure.