caravanman
Engineer
A TALE OF TWO CITIES…
Being keen to continue my local travel mini-adventures, and spotting a reduced price deal on the Eurostar service, I jumped at the offer!
(Well, at my age it wasn’t a very high jump, more of a slight twitch, but you get my drift…)
Living in Nottingham, 2+ hours north of London, I booked my connecting train from here to allow plenty of time to “check in” at St. Pancras station in London itself, which is the UK Terminus for the Eurostar service.
There are various options here in the UK with advance purchase local tickets. One can obtain discounts, but are then obliged to travel only that particular train. Higher priced tickets offer more flexibility, but oddly, I seem to be allergic to paying higher prices…
The local timetables altered a week after I bought my ticket, and I received an email alerting me to check for any changes to my Nottingham train departure time. I did, and noticed that my train was now about 15 minutes earlier.
Long story short, (this is short?) it transpired that my train time had not altered, and I mistakenly boarded an earlier train that my ticket was not valid for! Happily, the person checking tickets was in a good mood, and accepted that I had made a genuine mistake, so let me travel without any surcharge.
I do love St. Pancras station! Lovely arched canopy, ancient ironwork still doing a great job today.
Poet John Betjeman has a statue here too, a supporter of trains and a campaigner to preserve St. Pancras when threatened with demolition, back in the day.
One has to wait to enter the Eurostar section of the station, and are only admitted with enough time to pass through the security scanners, and passport controls for both UK and France just before your train is due to depart. The previous departure to mine was delayed, so there were many people crammed into the waiting area. Quite unpleasant, with people even sitting on the floors, due to lack of seats.
Our train was finally called, so up the escalators to platform level. Sad to find that I had a rear facing seat, but that was offset somewhat by being seated at a table.
St. Pancras station is to the north of London, so in some ways an odd place to start out towards the south coast from. The original Eurostar terminus was Waterloo Station, in south London. The Eurostar ran on mostly conventional commuter track from the tunnel up to Waterloo station, so had to observe regular track speeds. In order to speed things up, a complete new high speed line was constructed from St. Pancras which opened in 2007.
Whizzing along backwards through miles of tunnel under London is not as much fun as one might think, but we were soon out in the daylight again, before entering the Channel Tunnel itself.
This train made no stops between London and Paris. There were a couple of stations built in the UK for the service, but it seems Brexit and the new passport checks rendered them obsolete!
I had been to Paris previously, but had always travelled onwards from the Gare du Nord by metro. On this trip, I was staying in the area near the station. Gosh, quite surprised to find myself in “Little India”! Many Indian restaurants and businesses of all types, a busy and thriving environment.
I walked to my accommodation, a nice purpose built hostel, without getting lost for once! Happily I was assigned a lower bunk bed, and was told that breakfasts were included in the price, which I hadn’t realised. A nice “green” hostel of interesting construction, they opened the common areas to the wider community for board games, music, and so on. They even had a bar, so what’s not to like…
I had no real objective to achieve on this short visit, it was just nice to experience life away from home for a few days. Next morning, after breakfast, yes, coffee and croissant, I walked up to the Sacre-Coeur church for the views over Paris. Gosh, all those steps were a challenge! When I was last here, the touts were all selling Eiffel Tower statuettes and similar. This time all they were pushing were “love-locks”. Every metal fence outside the church was festooned with these padlocks! Lots of romance in Paris, it seems…
I grabbed a distant view of the Eiffel Tower from up here, that’s near enough for this visit.
The Montmartre area adjacent is very lively, lots of stalls with artists selling their paintings, and folk sitting at pavement cafes, happily people watching in the sunshine.
I walked down to have a look at the Moulin Rouge Cabaret building, but unfortunately the iconic windmill decoration atop, fell down in high winds, a couple of months ago!
When planning the trip, I watched a youtube channel called “Les Frenchies” to remind myself of how to obtain Paris metro tickets, and for other tips. By coincidence, I noticed the couple who run it nearby when at the Moulin Rouge and said hello, when they had finished filming.
A slow walk back to the hostel, a pint or two before bedtime, and that was my day out in Paris!
I was up early the next morning, and enjoyed sitting in the hostel garden area while the world around me woke up.
Another coffee and croissant breakfast, check out, and a slow walk back to the Gare du Nord for my return journey.
I do like the continental station destination boards, the names just sound so exotic, compared to those back home!
Similar situation in Paris, one has to wait to pass into the Eurostar area, then bags are scanned and passports checked. There are automatic “E-gates” in Paris for the passports, but none yet in London. Much less crowded in the waiting hall also.
An interesting French guy as seating companion on the return journey, so the time passed quickly.
The journey down from Nottingham cost me £19, but the ticket back would be £35, as it was getting towards the expensive rush hour fares time of day. Bright idea, I will book a coach from Victoria Coach station back to Nottingham instead at a cost of just £10. I can use my old folks bus pass to catch just one bus from outside St. Pancras station all the way to Victoria.
That was the plan and it worked well until I remembered just how convoluted the route was, how
s-l-o-w the bus moved, and yes, I managed to miss my coach. Next coach to Nottingham is in 1 hour, fare is £25! I am not quite sure what lesson I have learnt from that experience, but once my humiliation fades I am sure I will draw the correct conclusions!
The normal Eurostar fares are quite high these days, I was delighted to travel to Paris and back with a sale price for only £35 each way. The need to be at the stations so early nowadays to check in, and the overcrowding, did take a little of the shine off the experience, but it still made a great mini-adventure!
Link to Eurostar High Speed Line Construction info:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/sep/30/transport.world
Being keen to continue my local travel mini-adventures, and spotting a reduced price deal on the Eurostar service, I jumped at the offer!
(Well, at my age it wasn’t a very high jump, more of a slight twitch, but you get my drift…)
Living in Nottingham, 2+ hours north of London, I booked my connecting train from here to allow plenty of time to “check in” at St. Pancras station in London itself, which is the UK Terminus for the Eurostar service.
There are various options here in the UK with advance purchase local tickets. One can obtain discounts, but are then obliged to travel only that particular train. Higher priced tickets offer more flexibility, but oddly, I seem to be allergic to paying higher prices…
The local timetables altered a week after I bought my ticket, and I received an email alerting me to check for any changes to my Nottingham train departure time. I did, and noticed that my train was now about 15 minutes earlier.
Long story short, (this is short?) it transpired that my train time had not altered, and I mistakenly boarded an earlier train that my ticket was not valid for! Happily, the person checking tickets was in a good mood, and accepted that I had made a genuine mistake, so let me travel without any surcharge.
I do love St. Pancras station! Lovely arched canopy, ancient ironwork still doing a great job today.
Poet John Betjeman has a statue here too, a supporter of trains and a campaigner to preserve St. Pancras when threatened with demolition, back in the day.
One has to wait to enter the Eurostar section of the station, and are only admitted with enough time to pass through the security scanners, and passport controls for both UK and France just before your train is due to depart. The previous departure to mine was delayed, so there were many people crammed into the waiting area. Quite unpleasant, with people even sitting on the floors, due to lack of seats.
Our train was finally called, so up the escalators to platform level. Sad to find that I had a rear facing seat, but that was offset somewhat by being seated at a table.
St. Pancras station is to the north of London, so in some ways an odd place to start out towards the south coast from. The original Eurostar terminus was Waterloo Station, in south London. The Eurostar ran on mostly conventional commuter track from the tunnel up to Waterloo station, so had to observe regular track speeds. In order to speed things up, a complete new high speed line was constructed from St. Pancras which opened in 2007.
Whizzing along backwards through miles of tunnel under London is not as much fun as one might think, but we were soon out in the daylight again, before entering the Channel Tunnel itself.
This train made no stops between London and Paris. There were a couple of stations built in the UK for the service, but it seems Brexit and the new passport checks rendered them obsolete!
I had been to Paris previously, but had always travelled onwards from the Gare du Nord by metro. On this trip, I was staying in the area near the station. Gosh, quite surprised to find myself in “Little India”! Many Indian restaurants and businesses of all types, a busy and thriving environment.
I walked to my accommodation, a nice purpose built hostel, without getting lost for once! Happily I was assigned a lower bunk bed, and was told that breakfasts were included in the price, which I hadn’t realised. A nice “green” hostel of interesting construction, they opened the common areas to the wider community for board games, music, and so on. They even had a bar, so what’s not to like…
I had no real objective to achieve on this short visit, it was just nice to experience life away from home for a few days. Next morning, after breakfast, yes, coffee and croissant, I walked up to the Sacre-Coeur church for the views over Paris. Gosh, all those steps were a challenge! When I was last here, the touts were all selling Eiffel Tower statuettes and similar. This time all they were pushing were “love-locks”. Every metal fence outside the church was festooned with these padlocks! Lots of romance in Paris, it seems…
I grabbed a distant view of the Eiffel Tower from up here, that’s near enough for this visit.
The Montmartre area adjacent is very lively, lots of stalls with artists selling their paintings, and folk sitting at pavement cafes, happily people watching in the sunshine.
I walked down to have a look at the Moulin Rouge Cabaret building, but unfortunately the iconic windmill decoration atop, fell down in high winds, a couple of months ago!
When planning the trip, I watched a youtube channel called “Les Frenchies” to remind myself of how to obtain Paris metro tickets, and for other tips. By coincidence, I noticed the couple who run it nearby when at the Moulin Rouge and said hello, when they had finished filming.
A slow walk back to the hostel, a pint or two before bedtime, and that was my day out in Paris!
I was up early the next morning, and enjoyed sitting in the hostel garden area while the world around me woke up.
Another coffee and croissant breakfast, check out, and a slow walk back to the Gare du Nord for my return journey.
I do like the continental station destination boards, the names just sound so exotic, compared to those back home!
Similar situation in Paris, one has to wait to pass into the Eurostar area, then bags are scanned and passports checked. There are automatic “E-gates” in Paris for the passports, but none yet in London. Much less crowded in the waiting hall also.
An interesting French guy as seating companion on the return journey, so the time passed quickly.
The journey down from Nottingham cost me £19, but the ticket back would be £35, as it was getting towards the expensive rush hour fares time of day. Bright idea, I will book a coach from Victoria Coach station back to Nottingham instead at a cost of just £10. I can use my old folks bus pass to catch just one bus from outside St. Pancras station all the way to Victoria.
That was the plan and it worked well until I remembered just how convoluted the route was, how
s-l-o-w the bus moved, and yes, I managed to miss my coach. Next coach to Nottingham is in 1 hour, fare is £25! I am not quite sure what lesson I have learnt from that experience, but once my humiliation fades I am sure I will draw the correct conclusions!
The normal Eurostar fares are quite high these days, I was delighted to travel to Paris and back with a sale price for only £35 each way. The need to be at the stations so early nowadays to check in, and the overcrowding, did take a little of the shine off the experience, but it still made a great mini-adventure!
Link to Eurostar High Speed Line Construction info:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/sep/30/transport.world
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