- It's been a while since I rode on the Eurostar,
so I figured I'd come and have a ride on it today
to see how it's changed post-COVID,
and what it's like to ride on Eurostar,
since, obviously, we had all the restrictions
since the whole kind of COVID situation.
So here at Paris is Gare du Nord,
home of Eurostar, of course,
and we're going to head across to London St. Pancras
on our way home.
Big thanks to Blinkist for sponsoring this video.
They're running quite a reduced timetable
on the Paris to London routes at the moment,
just three trains a day,
and they're only changing it
and letting you know about a week in advance,
so make sure you keep an eye on that
if you do book with Eurostar at the moment.
Don't forget, all tickets are changeable
at the minute as well,
so you can just move them around as you need,
but I have just managed to change it back an hour
from my original departure at nine o'clock to 10 o'clock.
I do really enjoy traveling through Gare du Nord.
(soft hip-hop music)
It's always been a place
that really captures the romanticism of rail travel for me,
where you could just hop on a train
and end up anywhere in Europe.
And of course, one thing you do have to do at the moment
before you travel to the UK
is to fill in your Border Force form,
which is something that, of course, I've forgotten to do,
so I'm going to have to do it now, before I head through.
There's actually a sign here
reminding you before you go through passport control.
Let's do it now.
The passenger locator form for the UK
is a little bit long-winded,
but when you've completed it a few times,
it gets a lot quicker,
and it took about five minutes for me to complete it today.
(announcer speaks in French)
Form completed, it was time to head through to departures
and find out just how different
the Eurostar experience is these days.
(turnstile beeps)
British citizen.
Merci, thank you.
Boarding the Eurostar at Paris is pretty efficient.
You clear both the French and the British border
at the same time, going through the French one first.
After the French side,
you show your completed passenger locator form,
and proceed to the British border.
- Check the date, my friend.
- [Noel] Uh, yep.
- Give it to the office in London.
- Yep, perfect, thank you.
Finally, there's a really straightforward security point
where you drop your bag on the belt,
and just collect it at the other side,
no need for taking out liquids or electronics.
The whole process takes just a few minutes,
and you're sitting in the departure lounge,
ready to board the train.
It's all fairly straightforward then here at Paris,
just pretty similar to how it was before.
You go through the French border patrol,
then you go through the British passport control,
and through security.
They did check my form,
which they do tend to do on arrival in the UK anyway,
but they've check my form at this end,
and I've got a little bit of paper
that I have to give to Border Force
when I arrive in London
to say that they've seen my form,
my entry to the UK form.
Other than that, really, exactly the same as before,
just a lot quieter than normal.
The departure lounge was fairly quiet,
with just a few departures today,
and sadly the coffee shop, was closed,
meaning the vending machine was getting a little bit
of hammer today.
Ah-ha.
Sadly, my camera decided to pack up
just as we started boarding,
but it was fairly straightforward,
and we were soon on board
and pulling out of the station, heading for London.
I was traveling in Standard Premier today,
which gives you a meal on board,
but you don't get the lounge access
that you get in Business Premier, which is a lot pricier,
so, for me, it's not worth the upgrade.
(tone chimes)
(man speaks in French)
As we pulled out of Paris, it was time for breakfast.
It's a simpler fare,
but no different, really, to pre-COVID service.
Nice French breakfast to start the day, yes.
See, I am as big a fan of planes as anyone,
but for me, you can't really beat the Eurostar
the whole convenience factor.
For me, especially living just off the East Midlands Line,
it's a direct train from St. Pancras,
so, for me, coming from Paris is essentially
just an extension of London
thanks to the Eurostar.
It's great, no hassle at all,
you can have a nice breakfast on board as well,
and within a couple of hours of leaving Paris,
I'm in London and connecting to my homeward train.
So I was just talking to the hostess,
and the train's actually really quiet today,
but she said that, lately,
the train's being really busy between London and Paris,
and it's been, like, sold out every single day
for the last few days,
so that's a really good sign, I think,
that things are picking up a little bit on the Eurostar.
I always find it a surprisingly long trip
from Paris to the coast compared to the English side.
We wound our way through the French countryside,
passing loads of beautiful views
and some lovely, quaint farms along the way.
Before long, we slowed down
and passed through the Eurostar terminal at Calais,
meaning that we'd soon be entering the Channel Tunnel.
So there we go, inside the Channel Tunnel
under the English Channel, leaving France behind.
Next stop, England.
I always find it incredible
how you can get a 4G phone signal
40 meters underneath the sea.
Pretty cool, isn't it?
That 4G signal wasn't really needed, though,
because, with just 20 minutes inside the Channel Tunnel,
it seemed like a perfect opportunity
for me to try out Blinkist.
By the time we entered England on the other side,
I'd had time to listen to all of the highlights
from one of over 3,000 non-fiction books
condensed into less than 15 minutes.
Blinkist takes a non-fiction book,
condenses it into a 15-minute chunk,
and lets you read or listen to it
just like a podcast.
They've got over 14 million active users,
and you don't even need data to use it.
You can access all the titles while you're offline,
ideal for me when I'm flying
or just going through a regular non-4G tunnel.
I really enjoyed "The Art of Travel" by Alain de Botton.
It teaches you how to stop seeing travel as a chore,
and enjoy it for what it is,
allowing you to appreciate once again
the beauty and wonder of travel.
The first 100 people to go to blinkist.com/noelphillips
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The trial's completely free,
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So there we go.
20 minutes after leaving France, we're back in England.
That never stops being cool.
Welcome home.
One thing I love about the Eurostar
is how you can leave behind the countryside
of Northern France, passing little Citröen vans and farms,
and just 20 minutes later, emerge in England,
and be passing places that look and feel just like home,
small housing estates, the M25.
They might not seem like much to many people,
but after a long trip away,
I think there's really nothing better
than the familiarity of home appearing so quickly
and so suddenly just outside the window.
If you are enjoying this video on the Eurostar,
don't forget to check out my previous video,
taking the Caledonian Sleeper from London all the way up
to Glasgow in Scotland.
The link's on the screen now.
We pulled into St. Pancras
and joined the long line to enter the UK.
Merci, au revoir, thank you very much.
There's no passport checks or anything at this end,
as we've done them all in Paris,
and, within few minutes, you're in the main concourse
at St. Pancras with the UK at your fingertips.
My ride back to England today cost me 120 pounds.
So there we go then,
back here at London St. Pancras.
Five minutes after getting off that train,
ready to get on my train back home north.
Really enjoyed that, and to be fair,
things seemed pretty normal on the Eurostar
during their obviously challenging times
they've got at the moment,
My little Border Force thing they gave me in Paris,
well, they never asked for that here.
You just walk straight through,
although they did have lots of staff on, I guess,
so I'm imagining that they pull people aside randomly
to get those off them, but other than that,
quite a nice little ride over
on the Eurostar back to London,
and I'm heading home now to go and get some rest.
So, I hope you've enjoyed this video.
Let me know what you think to it
down in the comments below,
but in the meantime, as always,
thanks for watching, take care,
and I'll see you next time.