Many ways to get to Le Puy

There are, of course,  a whole variety of different ways to get to Le Puy. One of them though, is NOT a direct flight from North America. One of the most common ways is to take a direct flight to Paris and the take  the fast train down to Le Puy. You do have to change trains at Lyon but it's pretty straightforward. Here is a typical weekly schedule from the Bonjour LaFrance website:

This is a typical weekly train schedule, subject to modifications, for:
Paris CDG to Le Puy en Velay
Train Number Departure Paris Cdg - dep. Change at Lyon part Dieu - arr. Train Number Lyon part Dieu - dep. Destination Le Puy en Velay - arr. Days TGD5110 TGB9828 08:30 13:58 10:30 16:00 TER89981 TER89982 12:06 17:06 14:23 19:11 Su, M, Tu, W, Th, F, Sa         Tu, W, Th, F, Sa

But if you have a few extra days and Paris seems overwhelming, there's always Bordeaux  where you can try the wine, or Bilbao where you can visit the Guggenheim museum, enjoy the wonderful Basque people and try the wine, or Valladolid (one of my very favourite places) where you can see visit what's left of the beautiful historic part of town and understand why the folks from Castilla and Leon are still upset about what happened to their city when they were being made part of Spain - and don't forget to try the wine. Or, of course you can land at Madrid, or Barcelona and go from there. But check out the train and bus schedules before you decide where to land. There are so many more wonderful spots to visit. From my experience people feel much more like being tourist before their caminos than after so you may want to think about that if you're planning an extended trip.

And about traveling around and being a tourist before or after your camino...Unless you're really uncomfortable without everything lined up and in place, it can be much more fun to arrange short trips when you get there rather than ahead of time. This doesn't apply of course if you have a lot of places you want to see and a short time to see them in. Trains and buses are extremely convenient and the people at the stations are expert at deciphering what foreigners want. A little tip though if you don't speak the language: write on a piece of paper the destination you want and the date you want to travel. They'll figure it out for you. Next post I'll list the trains and buses but you can google them of course.