Provins Travel Forum

We will be in Paris in late August and I'm interested in travelling to Provins for a day trip. I believe I can get there by rail. Does anyone know if that is true?

We speak no French. Once we arrive in Provins, would we be able to figure out how to get to the tourist information center? I can't find any helpful information in any of the guidebooks. We found it easy to navigate in Paris last year but we used maps.

I would appreciate any information anyone can offer about travelling to Provins. My travelling party is two adults and a 13 year old boy. The idea of a medieval town sounds delightful.

You can take the train from Gare l'Est

"* En train
- Gare de l'Est à Paris vers gare de Provins.
Cartes SNCF : Carte orange, Mobilis et Paris Visite (membre partenaire), 6 zones."

from http://www.provins.net/

here is a link to a nice map but it doesn't seem to show the location of the tourist info office
http://www.provins.net/images/pdf/vhvbprovins.pdf

I am interested in visiting Provins too. Here is essentially a similar map to that above and it does show the tourist office which is quite a ways from the train station. Assuming north is the top of the map, it is on the far west side near the parking lot
http://provins.net/images/pdf/brochure-provins-uk.pdf

Strange to say, but it is quite a pity that you are coming by train and not by car. To reach the visitor's center on foot, you will need to enter the old medieval city by a street that will take away a part of the magic of this town. Unless you'd like to walk a few more. If I were you, I would first walk to the Visitor's center, avoiding the old ramparts. Don't even cast a quick look at it before seeing the introducing movie and listening to the additional explanation, which you will get in the visitor's center. It's essential for your visit. To get "gripped" by a certain Medieval feeling :-) you just NEED to walk into the town through the main gate behind the Visitor's center! The link from previous poster Katy, to the map of the old town, is excellent. You can visit the website of Provins to plan your visit: http://www.provins.net/ There is an all-in ticket available including several visits and shows. A few are rather droll, however they are all interesting. Take out one day to see Provins, if your day starts early. You might also like to check out the Provins pages on VT.

Provins is very nice, lots of medieval activities and UNESCO buildings recognise. its my wife's area,no French is ok, try a few kind words and you will be fine.
you go by rail from Paris Gare de l'Est, of course, I take the car, which is always better. But doable by train is ok, walking is one of the highlights of your trip to France, seeing all first hand before your eyes. I have some photos on my VT Provins page, but needs more I know ::)
you will enjoy the visit.

How kind of you to reply, I appreciate your time. The links you provided gave me a lot more information than I had been able to gather.

Thanks for your help, I hope we are daring enough to take the trip!We are novice travellers and just stuck to Paris the last time around.

Thanks again.

Janice

Be brave and go for it - what can really go wrong other than getting on the wrong train or off at the wrong station? It really does look like a beautiful place and worth the adventure. Just keep your sense of humor - you can laugh about it later if you are not able to laugh about it when it happens. I still get a great laugh out of trying to take a rental car back to the Florence airport! It seems like such an innocuous thing but believe me we managed to turn it into an adventure that lasted a couple hours. The memory of it made me decide to bring a GPS system with me this year.