Everyone’s heard about the recent Eurostar mishaps, trains breaking down in the tunnel, people not being able to travel home before Christmas and all of the apologetic media statements from Eurostar staff to the general public. It looked like a bit of a disaster on TV (that’s what the news is for after all), was I the only person to think that actually it might not have been that bad to spend a couple more days in Paris?

I was due to be travelling home from Paris on the 20th December, the day after the trains stopped working. Fortunately, due to massive media coverage, I knew about the breakdown a few hours after it happened. It was clear that my train wouldn’t be leaving the next day either, so rather than spending my day at Gare du Nord queueing and trying to travel home I settled into the idea of spending another night in Paris.

I know that for some people this wasn’t the most ideal scenario, but for me, spending a day visiting the Louvre and walking through its snowy gardens rather than sitting on a train seemed a great alternative. I could probably endure one more day of visiting the sights of Paris, taking pictures of the snow covered Notre Dame and wandering the Christmas markets in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower’s impressive nightly lightshow. I’ll just sit with my vin chaud and French cheese and wait for Eurostar to pick themselves up. The immense news coverage of the situation meant that it wasn’t necessary to go to the train station either. In the morning of the Monday 21st I turned on CNN and it didn’t look too positive for my train to be leaving then either, unless I wanted to line up for a very long time at Gare du Nord. Nevermind, today sounds like a good day to head out to the antiques and art market in Saint Ouen which I initially wanted to go to but didn’t think I would have time to visit. An extra day in Paris means that I had time to visit somewhere new, where I picked up a bargain canvas of the Paris skyline, as well as having time for night time river boat cruise down the Seine to see Paris at its best – sparkling with lights.

The next day I had a flight arranged with British Airways to fly back to England, I wanted to be home for Christmas after all. The Charles de Galle airport is not exactly the most entertaining place to spend a few hours, even for an airport, and especially when it was full of people trying to get home for Christmas. After doing the usual, coat off, belt off, change out of pockets, shoes off, x-ray, shoes on, change all over floor, belt back on, coat on shuffle through security, I settled down on the not very comfortable overcrowded plastic chairs for a wait. A long wait. A wait that went on forever. I whiled away the time by finishing my book, leafing through all of the promotional magazines that I could find, picking at plastic wrapped and overpriced sandwiches, and trying to nap amidst the crying babies whist using my squashed up coat as a pillow. Finally, after many delays, the happy yellow “BOARDING” sign of hope flashed above the exit and everyone scrambled towards the doors, passport in hand and trying to push their way to the front without seeming too impolite after a very long wait.

And there we waited again, like school children waiting to be allowed outside to play in the snow, boarding passes in hand, under fluorescent strip lighting and with frayed tempers. And we waited. Why were we waiting? I could see the plane; I could see the staff milling about. Let’s get on the plane! Then I received a call from home telling me that the London airports were closed due to snow, unfortunately the airport staff don’t seemed to have received the same call as they know nothing about this other than we hadn’t received permission to board the plane yet. In fact they didn’t know that the flight was cancelled until it was pointed out to them that the once big yellow ‘boarding’ sign of hope was now a big yellow ‘cancelled’ sign of despair. We received the message that we should return at about 6 a.m. the following morning and they would try and get us on another flight the next day.

The options seemed to be to either sleep on the plastic chairs and hope that the snow would clear enough for flights to go the next day, to battle with the hundreds of other people here to get a hotel in the area, and then come back at 6am, or to go back to Paris and get on the Eurostar. It didn’t take long to decide. I heard that the Eurostar would be re-opening and people with Saturday or Sunday tickets could travel the next morning, so I got back on a train to Paris and stayed near the train station, getting good night’s sleep on a bed rather than a chair, and headed down to the station at around 8 a.m. I lined up for roughly 10 minutes and was allocated a seat on the next train, which left at 9.30 a.m. I was back in London roughly 3 hours later after stopping at Ashford and Ebbsfleet. Now I see why everyone gets the Eurostar to Paris rather than flying. It was far more preferable that spending a night on the floor of the Charles de Galle airport, or trying to get to the airport for 6 a.m. Instead, I chilled out with a train full of people who were unusually chatty for public transport and happy to be on their way home.

Whilst I’m sure that this wasn’t such a great experience for everyone else, my extended trip to Paris gave me an opportunity to do things that I didn’t think I would get time for. When I did want to come home I found getting through the Gare du Nord station was very easy, and the staff were very helpful, and was a far more pleasant experience than I had at the airport. They also had a buffet of hot and cold drinks and snacks for the waiting customers and came around with regular updates. The journey was easy and I was informed about what was going on regularly. It was unfortunate that the breakdown was over the Christmas period when so many people were travelling, but for me, there are not many places better to be spending a few unexpected days in than Paris.

Posted in: Paris | Author: Heather