Trip 49

January 15, 2025

We left Dallas about 4:30pm the day before and arrived in a very foggy Paris at 8:15am. Surprisingly, with only carry on luggage, it took us over an hour to walk from Terminal L (Air France) , go through immigration and then to terminal 2 to buy an RER ticket to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar to London. Whew ! It was about 30 minutes to Gare du Nord on the RER, with just one stop between CDG and Gare du Nord.

The ETIAS terminals were in place; the much delayed European system may finally be implemented later this year. We had plenty of time, as the Eurostar did not leave until 1:30pm. Since we’re headed to London though, we applied for the ETA for the UK at the beginning of January (went into effect 2025/01/08) , which was a simple process. Entry for Eurostar is not allowed before 2 hours before departure, so we sat around before being allowed into the security screening and immigration area. Since your passport is linked to the ETA, you scan your passport as part of the immigration process.

Departure of Eurostar was on time and we travelled about 90 minutes before reaching the coast and the Chunnel. It’s about 20 minutes under the Channel , and then you’re in the UK. We’ll be reversing this route sometime next week when we transit back to Paris. Arrival is in one of my favorite train stations in London- St Pancras International.

Due to gaining an hour crossing the Channel, we arrived in London’s St Pancras International just a bit over an hour after leaving Paris. St Pancras is used for international travel; St Pancras has an interesting name history.

It’s “froggy” in London as well as about 40°, and combined with the late afternoon arrival, it’s already a bit dark. We took the Tube to the nearest stop to our hotel, which looks out over the Thames River.

Even though we’re arriving around 4pm, the room isn’t quite ready, so we waited in the hotel bar and had a complimentary drink while we waited. The hotel is in an area that we’ve not spent much time in, closer to the Battersea Power Station (which is a ways out on the river) .

The area has quite a few high rise condominiums and still, some surviving older buildings. Our hotel is about 20 stories, but 16 of those are dedicated to hotel rooms , with the top floors for condominiums. Had we been much higher up, not sure we would have seen anything of the river tonight, but we had a nice suite with a river view (£1000 a night if we were paying). We’ll be moving tomorrow, but enjoying the view for now.