The Eurostar and TGV trains: Our Experience Traveling from London to Lyon

From Lonely Planet

Maybe this will be about learning French. After all, that's what this blog is about. However, if you haven't had the opportunity to travel to France and use your French it's a good idea to know what it might be like and what the travel experience itself will be like.

My first trip to France 28 years ago consisted of...
Popping into Amsterdam Schiphol via 747 on a direct flight from Minneapolis,
 "over-nighting" in a hotel sans English and then boarding a train early morning at the Central station,
arriving at the Gare du Nord, Paris and finding my next hotel via taxi to stay overnight,
starved until I found a Vietnamese restaurant whose host spoke many languages including English,
found my way by taxi to the Gare de Lyon, Paris
and boarded the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) to Lyon.

It was a bit traumatic. I really didn't know what I was doing. None of my taxi drivers knew any English and didn't realize I really didn't understand their French ("Why would you go to France if you didn't know some French?" was their thinking I believe.). I also had a terrible case of jet-lag which didn't make me any too sharp in any language.

Well, France has changed a lot in almost 30 years. It's very possible to find people who want to speak English to you... but it still isn't most of the taxi drivers in Paris. So keep learning your French. It will pay off.

I'd like my readers to know about the travel option of taking the Eurostar train to connect with the fast speed trains of the TGV system of high speed trains. Why take the trains? Personally, if I never have to travel through Heathrow Airport, London again it would be fine with me. All travel in airports these days seem to require a rather high level of endurance to get from one gate to another. Throw the security and passport control into the mix and it would be helpful to get into a physical training program 6 months prior if you are over 50 years old. 

Heathrow pushes all these parameters to the limit... and coming back to the U.S. through England (which most routes seem to require) means a security check at your departing city (e.g. Paris) and another slog through an incredibly slow and difficult security check at Heathrow. My experience is that younger and more agile sprinters are able to get to the head of the line (although they are penalized by running up the escalators). Maybe they have improved on this second security requirement since the Olympics but I doubt it.

Eurostar at St. Pancras Station, London

On this trip we avoided a second exposure to Heathrow by adventurously trying out the Eurostar which leaves St. Pancras Station, London and uses the tunnel under the English Channel ( "Chunnel") to get to France and on to Paris. We flew a daytime American Airlines flight and stayed in London for our first couple of days just to get past jet-lag and enjoy London, which was having a fabulous few days of wonderful fall weather.

Then we departed on the Eurostar and connected with the TGV in Paris to get to Lyon that same afternoon. One would think flying would be faster, but with all of the hurrying to "wait in line" of modern flights the train was almost as efficient. And, surprisingly the cost of the flights would have been about the same as our train trip; so viva la France et viva le train.

TGV at Gare de Lyon

I write "almost" because a change to the TGV required arriving at one station and leaving from another. The normal time allotted for this is 1 hour.  We planned 2 hours and made to the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyon in about 1 and a half hours. So much for thinking we'd have lunch at one of the restaurants there... but we didn't miss our connection as others, we overheard, did. Sandwich jambon bought at a counter came to our rescue. (Conversation with Parisian taxi driver in French whose taxi has a McDonalds Golden Arch advertisement on it:  Jokingly “Do you ever eat at McDonalds?” Driver: “No, I never eat pork.”)


As for the actual experience on the trains, both were very comfortable. I really appreciated the special decorating of the restroom near our seats. One could  sit and enjoy the pastoral pictures of black and white cows in a green field on the walls. This served to act as an anti-claustrophobia treatment for me as the room was actually smaller than some in airplanes. It was so clean and cute, though, that I didn't mind.

Airport and train station at Lyon, Saint-Exupery

Leaving Lyon we flew Iberian Airlines with a change of planes in Madrid. (Avoiding Heathrow) Lyon has a lovely gem of an airport... modern and the security line and check was short, fast and within a few steps of the gate area for departure. One can take the transit train out to the airport in about 45 minutes from Gare de la Part Dieu (very central city). OK, the service of espresso and croissant at the airport took a little longer at the gate than you'd find at Starbucks, but it was very good. We left so early in the morning that the train service wasn't running yet. Our taxi driver arrived at our hotel promptly at 5:15 AM. He could speak English rather well but enjoyed talking to us in French which was like a tutoring session for me. I loved it.