The Journey Home

Saturday 19th January

Sadly, there was no skiing today, in spite of the beautiful weather and all the lovely snow. This is what we left behind.

We had to leave the apartment by 10, and our taxi arrived a little later to take us down to Bourg St Maurice. Getting Eurostar home is a little complicated if you don't want to get up at stupid o'clock to catch the ski train home. I said I didn't, and now I'm sorry. We had booked the TGV to Paris Gare de Lyon, meaning we had to cross Paris to Gare du Nord for Eurostar. But we also didn't know that, because we were booking on the Eurostar site, we wouldn't be allowed to return via Aime, where we left the train on the way to the resort; the reason for this is that Aime has no passport checking facilities which is necessary if you are boarding Eurostar direct to London. So we also weren't allowed to board via Aime, even though we didn't need passports checked because we were travelling by TGV, not Eurostar direct to London. And so we had to get an expensive taxi to Bourg St Maurice, rather than the inexpensive public bus to Aime. And then the TGV stopped in Aime about 15 minutes after it left Bourg St Maurice!

Anyway, it was a nice drive down the mountain from La Plagne to Bourg St Maurice, with good views of the snowy hillsides as we wound our way down the hairpin bends to the valley floor. 

This isn't a very good photo; I had to take it through the taxi window, and there are too many reflections.

The TGV was comfortable and modern, and was about ten minutes late in Paris. Parisian stations are not well endowed with legible signs, so it took us a while, trailing luggage and the huge ski box, to find the taxi rank. The taxi was swift across Paris, and soon we were wandering Gare du Nord, where the signs are, if anything, worse. There are no signs for Eurostar; the signs, up a huge flight of stairs, are for London Hall! Fortunately, a kind man in the station showed us where to find a lift, and we were able to go through passport control and security.

There were speed restrictions in northern France because of the falling snow, so our train was late arriving at St Pancras, making it difficult to get back across London in time to catch our last train home. Fortunately, we managed it - just - and there was just one taxi waiting at Oxted station, so we arrived home after 12.30 and fell exhausted into bed, without unpacking or anything.