Sex on wheels - and it lasts for three hours (Eurostar)

Member Name: Walli10

Product:	Eurostar
Date:	17/05/01 (280 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast and efficient

Disadvantages: Still a bit pricey

Fog In Channel, Continent Cut off... so ran a famous newspaper headline a half-century ago or so. And yes, there are still people who'd put it that way, as the rest of Europe cut adrift from this tiny island of waning significance on the edge of Europe.

But at least these days, there's much less excuse. For now we have the sleek, shining glory that is the Channel Tunnel Eurostar service to show us, in its chic and efficient manner, just how easy it is to do the continental.

Now, the Eurostar service has I think copped a fair amount of flak from problems with the tunnel in general. As far as I can tell, this is pretty unjustified. With the exception of one horrible journey home when storms flooded the whole of Northern France (not something even the railway services can really be held accountable for), I have nothing but praise for this very well run service.

The first myth to deal with here is that the Eurostar is extortionately expensive. Not true. Ticket start at £70 for a return - considering the alternatives, very reasonable. And if you're under 26 and/or can travel midweek, the deals are even better. Of course you can fly for less, about half that price - if you just include the ticket. But add on airport taxes, the cost of getting out to Heathrow and then finding your way into Paris from Charles de Gaulle airport and all the drinky snacky things you'll buy on the way, and I think you'd be hard pushed to do the trip for less than the Eurostar ticket. Plus it'll take you a lot, lot longer and be a much less pleasant journey.

For this is the true joy of the Eurostar. Not only is train travel essentially more civilised than going by plane, it is also much more convenient. The Eurostar will take you smoothly from the centre of London (Waterloo station, in zone 1) to the centre of Paris (the Gare du Nord), just a few minutes on the subway from some of the main sights. A day trip to Paris on the Eurostar
? No sweat. By plane, it would be a nightmare.

Other pluses: the trains are clean and efficient, the service excellent and the staff, especially at the English end, very friendly indeed. I once had cause to travel back on the Eurostar with a disabled friend who had an asthma attack just before boarding: they whisked us through normal proceedures, found a wheelchair and someone to push it, someone else to carry our bags and apologised profusely for not being able to upgrade us to first class. And - how's this for service - they then sent a fax to London telling them to meet us with another wheelchair, which the London crew did, to the point where Paris had informed them of our seat numbers so they were waiting by the right bit of the platform when the train pulled into the station. If anyone's had better service than that from an airline I'd like to hear it.

There are another few useful things worth knowing about Eurostar: they sell gift vouchers, which make ace presents: my mum gave me a ticket's worth two years ago and it was one of the best presents I've had in years. All their timetables are available on their website, as are booking facilities and even details of how to book onward journeys if you want to transfer to another train to go elsewhere in France. You can of course book tickets there too.

In short, I really cannot recommend them highly enough. Personally speaking I've only done the Paris and Lille runs, but my mum, who's another fan, has been to Brussels too and says it's just as good. There's nothing like being able to collapse on to a clean, comfortable, smooth train that will whisk you home to London in just three hours... it beats hanging around in an airport any day. The only hitch generally comes when you hit the English side of the tunnel - its embarrassing but true that this super-smooth train will whizz through the French countryside, but on the English side will be forced to tr
undle at half the speed over our sub-standard tracks.

In short, the only way in which it falls short of perfection, in my view, is that there are currently no through trains to elsewhere in Europe. The day you can get a sleeper from Waterloo straight through to Rome, all my travelling prayers will have been answered.

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