Adrien Kunysz, Wed, Sep 22 2021 21:49:53 CEST
The TGV takes a bit under six hours to take you from Nîmes to Colmar, including a 40 minutes change in Lyon. The first leg is barely over one hour long, which is part of why I didn't notice that stop until after the train left the station. No further stop until Paris. So, there I was heading at 300 kilometres per hour in the wrong direction.
Following enquiries to the guard and the internets, the best way to make it to Colmar at that point was to get off at Marne-la-Vallée – home of Disneyland Paris – take the metro to gare du Nord and get back on track with another TGV towards Strasbourg then a local train to Colmar.
According to OpenRouteService, the straight line distance between Lyon and Colmar is about 320km, while it is 400km to Paris and another 375km from there to Colmar. In the end, I made it to Colmar only two hours late and 100€ poorer. Not bad for over almost 500km of detour, including the RER and metro across Paris.
On the other hand, one might wonder why the direct Lyon-Colmar train takes so long.