Royal Kingston upon Thames

We ordered a taxi to drive us to the French town of Hendaye for our train trip. Boarded the TGV and set off exactly on time. Very few on board but it's filling up tout suite!! Its a double storey train and has no stops after Bordeaux. We read the food on board is bad so we attempted to bring some fruit etc. The train travels at over 300kph so the scenery flashes by. Very smooth ride. Surprisingly, we got onto the train and found our seats ourselves and went all the way to Paris with no one checking our tickets!
On arrival in Paris we had to catch the metro over to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar to London. Unfortunately the train went straight past the station we wanted and stopped at the next one. Gare du Nord underground was closed for renovation. We had to walk back about half a km to the main train station. By the time we got there and went through check in and immigation for the UK, we we called to board and were off again. Eurostar also zoomed along at over 300 kph and went through the channel tunnel.
Arrived in London St Pancras International about 5:40 then had to get 3 more local trains to get to New Malden where we were staying with friends of Pat (Gary & Sue). Our hosts picked us up from the station then plied us with drinks and food before sending us off to bed for a well earned sleep.Read more