Having made most of my trips to Scotland via the East Coast Mainline during 2023, a work trip in September provided the opportunity to try out a different route and see what Avanti West Coast (AWC) was offering via the West Coast Mainline. Having headed down to London on a Thameslink service, I made the short walk through the back streets from St Pancras to Euston, arriving around half an hour before my 1130 departure was scheduled to leave.

Having arrived in Paris the day before on a TGV from La Rochelle, we’d spent the evening and morning exploring the city of lights a bit more before heading to Gare du Nord ready to start the final leg of our journey home. Just a few weeks before the Thalys brand disappeared, our journey from Paris to London St Pancras was with the original Eurostar onboard one of their newer class 374 e320 trains.

After an enjoyable couple of weeks in France, it was time to begin our journey home and so we once again found ourselves at La Rochelle’s main station ready to catch a TGV to Paris. La Rochell has a spectacular station, originally constructed in 1922, however it is now much too grand for the level of service offered, with at best a two-hourly service on routes serving the station.

Having had a few days to settle into our holiday accommodation and explore some of the local area, we had decided to spend a day visiting Bordeaux, the closest major city to where we were staying. Having had a nightmare drive around the city’s ring road on our way down from Bordeaux, we had chosen to travel into Bordeaux by train and so just after 0800 we were at the station waiting for the TER.

Having enjoyed just over 24 hours exploring the French capital, it was time to continue our journey to the coast and so we headed to Gare Montparnasse, Paris’ gateway to the Atlantic coast and South-West of France. We were going to be travelling onboard an SNCF TGV in 2nd class as we made the journey from Paris to the port town of La Rochelle.

For our summer holiday this year we were heading down to the Atlantic coast of France, not far from Bordeaux. However, rather than head to Gatwick, Luton or Stansted and fly out to Bordeaux, we decided to let the train take the strain and so we started our holiday with a night in a London hotel and an early morning walk over to London St. Pancras International.