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.

After an enjoyable couple of nights in Corrour, followed by a less enjoyable journey south via a combination of train and rail replacement minibus, we were back in Edinburgh ready to start the penultimate leg of our journey home.

The middle of April saw us heading to London ready to begin my fifth trip to Scotland of the year. This one would be starting with an overnight journey onboard on one of the UK’s three sleeper services, Caledonian Sleeper’s ‘Highlander’ to Fort William.

Following a couple of days based in Newcastle to complete some more Exploring the East Coast, I had decided to make my way back south by a slightly more unusual method. As such I headed from the Tyne to the Wear and to Sunderland station to begin my journey to London with Grand Central.

Having already had plenty of trips with LNER up and down the East Coast Mainline (ECML), I decided it was time for another as I headed to Newcastle for a couple of nights to explore some more of the East Coast. Thanks to a discount (more on that later) I was travelling in first once again and was hoping to try out the ‘Dish’ menu that I keep missing out on.