From Novara To Paris
These pictures give a glimpse of my journey from Novara to the Gare du Lyon in Paris.
These are a few observations.
The Route
The trip took twelve minutes short of seven hours.
But some of the scenery was excellent.
It should also be noted that there is only one train per day and I’m not sure it runs every day.
As the pictures show, the Milan train joined uip with another train en route and this meant an incredibly long walk at Gare du Lyon.
Choosing A Seat
I paid £54 on loco2.com for a Standard Class ticket.
I should have paid the extra nine pounds for a First Class ticket.
But make sure you have a window seat.
Milan To London In A Day
The arrival time of 13:19 in Paris, means it is possible to go from Milan to London within a day.
I estimate that a direct service between London and Milan going via Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport, Lyon and Turin would take about ten hours.
But then the French and the Italians are building a Turin-Lyon High Speed Railway, which could knock a couple of hours from the journey time.
As it passes Roissy, it would be an ideal route for masochists!
Conclusion
I’m glad to say, I’ve done this trip, but next time, I come back from Northern Italy, I’ll spend a night in Geneva, Lyon or Paris.
From Barcelona To Paris
The TGV between Barcelona and Paris took six and a half hours.
Sadly, I didn’t see any flamingos this time, as I did in From Madrid To London in 2014.
This journey illustrates the good and the bad of double-deck trains.
You may get a good view, but getting in and out is a nightmare, as everybody travels with enormous bags and have to take them up and down the stairs.
London To Karlsruhe Via Paris
I took Eurostar and a TGV to Karlsruhe, using these trains.
- Eurostar – St. Pancras 08:19 – Paris Nord 11:47 – £115 from Eurostar
- TGV – Paris Est 13:55 – Karlsruhe 16:25 – £69.19 from Voyages SNCF
I took these pictures on the way.
Note.
- I bought both tickets on-line.
- Premium Economy in the new Eurostar trains is more cramped than the old ones.
- Eurostar’s Premium Economy gluten-free breakfast more than filled a hole.
- Paris Nord to Paris Est is just a Metro.
- I took a diversion via Republik, which was a good place to wait in the sun.
- I stayed in the Schlosshotel in Karlsruhe, which was one of several acceptable ones by the station.
I could probably have done the journey cheaper by flying, but it would have had more hassle.
The 2024 Summer Olympics
The venue for the 2024 Summer Olympics, will be decided on the 13th of September this year.
The candidate cities are Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris.
Could President Trump be the man who actually decides, which city gets the Games?
His Welcome to America policies could be all Los Angeles needs to have a failed bid. Would any Muslim country vote for Los Angeles.
I have worries too about the Budapest bid, as the current Government there isn’t that popular in parts of the EU.
So does that mean Paris is a shoe-in? But what would be Marine Le Pen’s view?
I suppose Riyadh could make a last-minute bid!
Building Railways In The UK Is Easy
I have just read this article on Global Rail News, which is entitled French Senate approves Lyon-Turin rail link.
That sounds easy until you read this from the Wikipedia entry.
Test drilling found some internally stressed coal-bearing schists that are poorly suited for a tunnel boring machine, and old-fashion Drilling and blasting will be used for the short corresponding sections.
It is not going to be a simple tunnelling job. It is more akin to some of the eighteenth and nineteenth century tunnels through the Pennines. Except that the tunnel will be 57 kilometres long and modern explosives are better.
It will carry a lot of freight, in addition to passengers from Paris and Lyon to Northern Italy.
But I doubt, I’ll ever be able to take a High Speed Train from London to Milan, as I’ll be long gone before everything is completed.
By TGV Est From Strasbourg To Paris
This was a two hour twenty minute trip on the top deck of a TGV on the LGV Est, which is one of the fastest lines in Europe. It cost me around £57 for the nearly 400 km. And that was a walk-up fare. London to Newcastle would probably cost me about £121 booked off-peak at a walk-up.
The train was regularly cruising at just over 300 kph.
Still Remembering Charlie!
I passed through Republic and took these photos in the square, that I visited soon after the atrocities a few weeks ago.
I haven’t changed my stance, that there was nothing that could excuse the murder of the staff of Charlie Hebdo.
A Quick Crepe And Then The Eurostar Home!
I’d booked myself on the last Eurostar back to London and I just had time for a crepe and some cider at Cafe Breizh, near the Metro station of Saint-Sébastien – Froissart, which is just two stops south of Republique on Line 8.
A Quick Crepe At Cafe Breizh
I made the mistake though of trying a new route to the Gare du Nord using Line 4. It didn’t take any longer but I spent twenty minutes finding my way to the Eurostar terminal, as the signage from that line was poor to say the least.
Of the three direct Eurostar destinations that I have used in Europe; Brussels, Lille and Paris, the French capital’s terminal seems to have been designed with the sole purpose of persuading passengers, that they are better off staying in the city. I can’t wait until direct services to Marseilles start!
A Diversion In Paris
As I had some time in Paris, I went to look at their first tram-train line, T4.
I didn’t ride the tram-train, as it was very crowded and I couldn’t find out how you bought a ticket.
But as it appeared the tram-trains were the same as those in Mulhouse, it was an experience I could pass.
The trams run from Bondy on RER Line E to Aulnay sous Bois on RER Line B.
My Second Paris Transport Day Ticket
This is the second ticket that I used to get a day’s travel in Paris.
My Second Paris Transport Day Ticket
The first one fell apart when it rained, so I had to exchange it for another.
Paris has a system called Navigo, which is very much the same as London’s Oyster. But Paris doesn’t seem to offer contactless payment with a bank debit or credit card and I can’t find any plans for them to do so.
Surely, every public transport system in the world should be moving towards contactless bank card ticketing.
Paper ticketing for transport is so nineteenth century.
I know I like the UK’s orange credit-sized rail tickets, but then they fit everybody’s wallet and are understandable by everyone and the newest ones are computer readable, by your standard scanner.
I suspect that Londoners planning a weekend away, will look at the ticketing in their possible destinations and might choose one where contactless bank cards can be use as tickets.
If I was a world dictator, one of the things I’d do is make all buses, trams and trains accept contactless bank cards as tickets. It must surely create lots of jobs in tourism, as people would travel more, if they knew that when they ended up in say Tokyo, Helsinki or Belgrade, all they needed was work out the map of the trains and not bother with the ticketing.
