Getting ready for London

I checked the Eurostar train ticket to London, and the price was range between $250 - $300 Euro round trip per person. I thought that was expensive. I remembered that the local tour offered a One-day Liberty Tour to London. Liberty tour means they book the round trip train ticket for you from Paris to London and once you arrive in London, you are on your own. The price is much cheaper than buying the tickets on our own. After calculating the cost, I decided to go with the liberty tour option.

Our Eurostar train departed at 8am on Sat, which means we had to once again get up at 5am and be at the tour office at 6:45am to be bused to the train station. The train station in Paris is called Gare du Nord, and boy it is a magnificent station!

On the way to the train station, we were given a package including our train tickets, London local map, hop-on hop-off bus tickets and River Thames cruise tickets. The tour guide reminded us not to miss the return train; the tickets were not changeable, neither refundable, so make sure to be at the station on time and come back to Paris.

The station, unlike others I have been, is huge and considered as an international station. It is so huge, it felt like an airport to a point. After passing through the security check, we reached the customs, both French and British customs. I thought it was kind of fun to depart from Frence and 3 steps later arrive in UK.



The train ride was about 2 and half hours long. The highlight of the ride was going through the longest undersea tunnel in the world, which took about 20 minutes. Feel anything? It was dark, of course, and I felt some air pressure in my ears. Europstar’s average speed is 185 miles per hour. It doesn’t look as new as the train I saw from its website and pamphlets, but it’s a comfortable journey.