Thursday 20th September

Ernie gave us lift to Beaune station where we were to catch the 930am train to Dyjon arriving at 9.48 allowing 19 minutes for us to find the next platform and move all our bags to the Paris bound train leaving at 10.07am.

Well our 930 Dyjon train did not arrive so we jumped on the next one 16 minutes later at 9.46am which made it impossible to get our connecting Paris bound train. We had 3 train conductors working out what to do but in the end the one that could speak a little English said get on the 10.24am Paris train on platform A and explain to the conductor you need seats.

We arrived in Dyjon and ran to platform A but found it only had a local train on it. Turns out it was platform I ( we misunderstood the accent mistaking A for I).

Finally got on train with 2 minutes to spare and sat on the fold down seats at the carriage door area. The conductor asked us why we were not sitting in our allocated seats and we managed to communicate with him that was because our allocated seats were on the earlier train. He was very helpful and found us 2 other seats after about 15 minutes.

This train is hi speed and we were in Paris by 12.30pm

Our Eurostar train was at 4.15 pm from Paris de Nord station but we were at the Paris de Lyon station . Using our now high skills in speaking French we succeeded in getting tickets using the Metro(underground) for about 4 Euros and finally arrived at Paris de Nord and were ready to get on train to London with 3 hours to spare so a long wait was had.

Eventually arrived at St Pancras London about 530pm UK time and walked to our hotel (about 10 minutes).

Eventually had dinner in Pub next to hotel. Cath cod and chips and I had Cottage pie and chips plus of course a glass of Pinot Grigio and pint of Guinness. Knackered after day of trains so in bed by 9.20pm.

Hope this all makes sense.