Hi,

I'm planning to visit England and France in mid April.

I can't for the life of me, figure out the info on the transit websites! If anyone is familiar with the railways in Europe, I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me how to book a ticket from London to Birmingham to Paris (stopover in Birmingham of 2 days or so).

Thanks!

Emma, have you tried the Rail Europe site?
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fa...ules/index.htm

It seems you will have to pick a round trip from London Paddington to Birmingham, travel from Paddington to Waterloo on the return, for the trip to Paris on the Eurostar. Punch in your dates, but make the reservations separate. Don't even try to combine Birmingham and Paris on the same ticket. This web site also gives phone numbers for help.

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Have a nice day flying United!
ChgoBob

Virgin West Coast trains to Birmingham leave from London Euston station. They leave every 30 minutes and take about 1 hour 45 minutes for the journey.

http://www.virgin.com/trains/index_cl.html

Eurostar trains to Paris leave from London Waterloo station. When you return from Birmingham the Northern Line of the London Underground will take you straight between the two. In Paris the trains arrive at the Gare du Nord. They depart every hour, half-hourly at busy times, and take 3 hours for the journey (plus one hour timezone change, so the schedule is 4 hours London to Paris and 2 hours coming back).

www.eurostar.com Click on "Fares" in the heading and it will explain the types and fares.

The way train tickets have gone in Britain the cheapest fares are only available to those who book further ahead than most people plan their lives. This is a bizarre fact of life, particularly on the Birmingham run where the trains are invariably half empty. My advice to visitors is not to worry about it too much, but go when convenient. The "walk-up" fares are cheaper after 9.30 am and avoiding 4.00 to 6.30 pm on weekdays. At weekends there are no restrictions.

For Eurostar to Paris there are also a huge number of travel companies offering various prices for Eurostar tickets; just surf the web for some. Beware those who want to take your money without giving precise train times (invariably the cheapest fares), because they tend to dump you on the 6.00 am departure from London Waterloo.

A serious alternative is the low-cost airline MyTravel Lite direct from Birmingham to Paris. they use Beauvais airport from where a bus takes about an hour to the centre of Paris. One way fares on April 15th (you say mid April) are currently �1.85, say $3. Yes, that's not a misprint. 3 bucks! (it's about 300 miles). And they're using new Airbus 320 jets. website is www.mytravellite.com

Wow! The airfare from Birmingham to Paris seems too good to be true.

What is the catch? Why would anyone pay $200 to ride the Eurostar if they knew of this alternative?

The catch? Nothing different from all other low-fare airlines. If you want that cheap fare, you may have to compromise seriously to get it.

For example, on Friday 11 April (selected at random) you could fly Birmingham to Beauvais for �113.40 one way at 0635 or �9.79 at 1955. There are no flights in between.

There is only one Saturday flight, at 0635 - but you can have this for �2.16. On Sunday you can fly at 0635 for �8.39 and at 1955 for �14.40.

Similarly, if you want to fly back from BVA to BHX on Monday, you can do it for �14.20 at 0920, and for �95.40 at 2240.

The Eurostar starts in central London. To get the really cheap fare from Birmingham, you have to go a long way backwards first.

Globaliser:

You don't have to go too far backwards if you are starting from Birmingham, which is what HeyEmma is doing for ths trip!

HeyEmma:

Just FYI, My Travel is part of one of the largest holiday airlines and tour operators based in the UK. Until last year they were known as Airtours. Traditionally they have taken tourists to the Mediterranean, and can be seen at Orlando most days bringing the Brits over to see M. Mouse. MyTravelLite is their first foray into low cost scheduled services, based at Birmingham.

True. But the question was "Why would anyone ..."

Actually, if one were starting from BHX and wanting to fly, there is the following choice of weekday flights on BA to CDG - 0630, 0840, 1410, 1630, 1745 - and a similar selection back again. Out at 1410 on Fri 11 April and back at 0920 on Mon 14 April scores a fare of GBP 47.90 + 34.00 = 81.90. AF flies the route, too. Not forgetting that when MyTravel Lite organised that publicity stunt a few weeks back, sending pax on AF, BA and itself to see who could get to the Arc de Triomphe fastest, BA and AF turned out to be faster - and the pax claimed to have paid lower fares than on MyTravel.