Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast where it's coming to you from a really unusual transport interchange on a pretty unusual form of transport. I am at Eke-en-Provence, a TGV station, that is in the deep south of France, very close to Marseilles Airport. Indeed, it's much closer to Marseille Airport, I believe, than it is to Aix on Provence. But that's not a problem for me because I've just flown in to Marseilles Airport on Volataea and therefore I am transferring to a fast train to Paris.

What's unusual about this fast train is that it is a Wego train spelt,

O-U-I-G-O, and course pronounce we go as in we go and there are many of us waiting to go to Paris sort of

this is the budget brand of SNCF the French Rail Company and they have decided that they want to, as it were, attack

the low-cost airlines and what they are doing is going for the budget market.

So my ticket cost a mere 11 euros.

That's £10 for three hours of rail travel going almost 500 miles. I've booked it a

couple of weeks in advance and it's the sort of booking that you might make thinking, well,

if the flight's late I will have to just jettison that but of course you don't mind. But my goodness,

the rules are strict. I'm in the

queue now, I've been told get yourself a picnic because you're not going to be able to get

anything on board. But there's about 20 people in front of me in the queue and time is ticking

away because this is not like your average train where you get there 30 seconds before it goes

and jump on board oh no they say very strictly you have between 40 and five minutes to check in

and they've got a proper kind of gate where they're going to check your baggage and

everything more on that in just a minute and if you're less than five minutes there you're not

getting on the train and guess what the next one is going to cost a million pounds i exaggerate

only slightly yes i've got my usual backpack only because that's the best way to cope with all the various

problems that you get with the trains. The planes in particular, Voltaille, it's compliant

with them, it's even compliant with his air and line air and easy jet. So that's quite straightforward.

And I would be able to bring along a small

wheel-along bag, but for anything else, well, you have to pay an extra five euros, and they will

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