Tag Archives: Eurostar

DAY TRIPPING: Escape from Paris

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First of an occasional series

chateau_chenonceau

©Mihai-bogdan Lazar | Dreamstime.com

Starting today, we’re going to look periodically at some excursions that can take you beyond big cities and major tourist destinations, none of which need take up more than a day. We start with Paris.

Actually, we start by evacuating Paris.

The most visited city in the most visited country in the world. The City of Light. The city of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Seine and Notre Dame. I love Paris.

So why am I trying to get you out of it?

As wonderful as this city is, the only way to fully appreciate France is to tear yourself away from the gravitational pull of Paris, if only for a day at a time.

The French road net is fine for short jaunts, but France’s fabulous high-speed rail network puts most of France within a three-hour train ride from Paris.

The most common day trip is out to the Chateau de Versailles, about ten miles to the west, built back when French royalty considered Paris too ugly, nasty and rebellious to deal with (and it really was!). The palace itself is sheer visual overload and the equally ornate gardens behind it cover more ground than a lot of French villages.

Don’t even try to see all of Versailles in one day. Even if you succeed, you’ll kill yourself.

You can get there easily by rental car, local RATP bus or trains. I’d recommend the suburban RER-C5 express train that deposits you at Versailles-Rive Gauche, the closest train station to the palace.

TIP: Go early or late — not only in the day, but in the seasons. Versailles draws about 3 million visitors a year. Do the math.

BRIDGE OR PALACE?
Rather skip the tourist crush at Versailles? Head south instead to Chenonceaux in the Loire Valley and check out the Chateau Chenonceau, seen above. Neither as big nor as gaudy as Versailles, but just as mind-blowing.

Is it a bridge built to look like a palace, or a palace disguised as a bridge? The builders of this 600-year-old mansion could’ve taught today’s rich and famous a few things about pimping one’s crib.

From Paris, Chenonceaux is two and half hours south via local trains, less than an hour and a half via the TGV.

If art is your thing, head about 45 miles west of Paris to the village of Giverny, and pay a visit to the garden that Claude Monet immortalized on canvas.

You take a packaged tour there, drive there directly yourself, or take a train to nearby Vernon, then grab a taxi or shuttle bus for a short, pleasant little drive across the Seine to Giverny.

Now, when you return to Paris and see Monet’s works hanging in the Louvre, you’ll see them in a different light — the same light that Monet himself saw when he painted them in. You’ll never look at his art, or anyone else’s, exactly the same way again.

Farther still to the west is Normandy, on the English Chanel, and a little more than an hour from Paris by rail.

The D-Day landings here led to the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis in World War 2, and the people who live here haven’t forgotten — even if they have a cemetery sitting above the site of Omaha Beach to remind them.

It bears the graves or more than 9,000 Americans soldiers, most of whom died on that one day.

While there, check out the pleasant country towns and villages that you can explore by rental car, to not mention the seafood (I personally can vouch for the oysters) and some of their famous cheeses, including familiar names like Camembert.

Normandy is the one region of France that doesn’t produce a single well-known wine, but what it lacks in grapes, it makes up in apples — including “hard” ciders and a serious apple brandy known as Calvados. You won’t die of thirst.

In nearby Brittany, also on the Channel coast, you can check out Mont St. Michel, the monastery built on the tiny island that you can hike to when the tide is out.

WHERE THE WINES ARE
All told, there are ten major wine-producing regions in France. Within the regions are scores of terroirs, unique French vineyards producing some of the greatest wines in the world.

Many of these vineyards welcome visitors, complete with wine-tasting lessons. Depending on what time of year you arrive, they may even let you get involved in the winemaking process.

From north (nearest to Paris) to south, you’ll find these wine regions in France:

  1. Champagne
  2. Loire Valley
  3. Alsace
  4. Chablis
  5. Cognac
  6. Burgundy
  7. Bordeaux
  8. South-West
  9. Côtes du Rhone
  10. Languedoc-Rousillon
  11. Provence
  12. Corsica

Any of the first seven are easy day trips. Eight through Eleven may be doable if you manage your time carefully and are prepared to return to Paris fairly late at night.

Only Corsica, being an island in the Mediterranean, is out of the question.

With French wine goes French cheese — somewhere between 350 and 400 different varieties from 17 regions all over France. Road trip!

Speaking of food, the good folks in Lyon would like you to know that their city, not Paris, is the real capital of French cooking.

I’ve been to Lyon. They have a case. Time from Paris via the TGV: two hours and change.

If you’re in Paris around Christmastime, jump on the TGV Est and head to Strasbourg to experience a European Christmas market in the city where the concept was born.

Time: two hours and change.

ESCAPE FROM FRANCE
Want a brief break from France altogether? Head north on the Thalys high-speed train. In less than two hours, you’ll be in Brussels. Less than three and you’re in Amsterdam.

I can’t conclude without a little irony. We’ve been talking about day trips out of Paris, but high-speed rail has turned Paris itself into a day trip…from London.

And that’s perfect, because London — or rather, beyond London — is where we’re headed next.

TRAINS: There’s something about a train (station)

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One of an occasional series

Hamburg central train station | © Greg Gross

The aspects of rail travel that make it a vastly more pleasant experience than airlines begin before you board.

In one of her columns, Benét Wilson, our Aviation Queen, described her vision of the perfect airport, so I tweeted a question out to the IBIT family: “What would your ideal airport look like?”

The first answer I got back was immediate and to the point: “A train station.”

Anybody who thinks the traveling public’s displeasure with air travel these days doesn’t run deep just isn’t paying attention. But the comment made me think back to the travel I’ve been doing, mostly in Europe, for the last decade.

I’ll go with train stations, too.

This has nothing to do with wistful nostalgia for a bygone era. Not only does rail travel seem a lot more efficient, but the whole experience is just a lot more intimate and reaffirming to your spirit, in ways that air travel hasn’t been in many years.

When you walk into one of Paris’ seven inter-city train stations, you’re met by vaulted ceilings and a panorama of platforms just a few steps from the station entrance. Indeed, it seems to be that way with many stations throughout Europe.

I’ve yet to hit a train station that required a series of lengthy moving sidewalks to get you swiftly and comfortably to a waiting train.

The other thing you don’t see in European stations is lots of places for waiting passengers to sit. It took awhile for me to realize that this was not a design flaw. Most people know to just show up a few minutes before their train departs, board and go.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof station

Berlin Hauptbahnhof station | © Greg Gross

No need to show up hours in advance to check luggage and go through aggravating security checks, just to twiddle your thumbs in an overcrowded and mostly uncomfortable departure lounge. No need to wait in another line at the gate for your turn to board. In fact, there is no gate. The First Class and Coach passengers all walk down the platform at the same time, and everyone boards at once.

There’s something refreshingly egalitarian about that.

When you look around at the crowd gathered beneath the big board that shows each train, its platform and its scheduled boarding time, you realize you’re surrounded by fellow travelers and tourists. The locals already know the routine. They’ve got it down.

Market, Grand Central Terminal, NY

In reality, these are more than just train stations. They are transportation hubs. In Europe, they are often connected to a subway line. Exit the subway train, walk a short distance or take an escalator up, and you’re on the platform. If you’ve timed it right, your train is already there, waiting for you.

The classic European train station has an upper level from which you can scan all the platforms at once, watch the trains come and go. In most cases, there will be shops and restaurants up there, as well.

The eateries these days are often of the sadly familiar fast-food variety, but there are some notable exceptions, especially in Paris.

In the Gare de Lyon station, you’ll find a resto called Le Train Bleu, The Blue Train. It’s more than a hundred years old, having opened two years before the Wright Brothers flew. People go to the station just to have dinner here. Take a look and you’ll know why.

While Paris rail stations are an elegant, if efficent, tribute to a bygone era, Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof may well represent the future for the modern railroad station.

Kiosk clock, Grand Central Terminal, NYC

"The Clock," Grand Central Terminal, New York

Basically, it’s a huge glass house of trains, with a couple of levels of retail and food outlets above, and rail lines that literally criss-cross underneath. Easy to find your train, comfortable in most any weather, and holding enough retail therapy and and dining options to make it a destination in itself.

Think I’m weird waxing wistfully about train stations? Then check out the handful of grand railroad terminals that have survived right here in the United States.

Visitors go to New York’s Grand Central Terminal to do their grocery shopping before taking the subway home, or just to have their pictures taken under “The Clock.” Government workers and travelers alike share lunch tables in the food courts of Washington DC’s beautifully restored Union Station. Couples hold weddings and filmmakers make movies at Los Angeles Union Station, an art deco masterwork listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

And nearly a half-century after failing to protect it from the wrecking ball, New Yorkers are still bemoaning the loss of the original Penn Station.

The British took exactly the opposite approach with their St. Pancras International station in London.

When the public objected to plans to raze the old Victorian-era rail station, they gutted, modernized and refurbished the hell out of it instead. The 800-million pound price tag drew howls of protests — until folks saw the results.

It’s now a gleaming terminal or multiple rail lines, buses and the London Underground subway system. It also is the terminus for its new High Speed 1 and the Eurostar, aka the Chunnel Train. and like the world’s other great train stations, people go there just to be there.

And when was the last time you heard that said about an airport?

Gare du Nord, Paris

Gare due Nord, Paris. Metro subway downstars, inrter-city trains and the TGV upstairs. Slick.

Text and images buy G. Gross unless otherwise noted

TRAINS: The TGV

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Third in an occasional series

TGV Est train, Paris

TGV Est train at Paris CDG airport, bound for Strasbourg | © Greg Gross

If Amtrak is all you’ve ever known when it comes to passenger trains, you are not ready for what awaits you in France.

The letters TGV stand for Train à Grande Vitesse, which is French for “high-speed train.” When your top “cruising” speed is 186 mph, the name fits.

Some time before year’s end — if it hasn’t happened already — the TGV will carry its 2 billionth passenger. After almost 20 years of that kind of popularity, some of these trains are starting to show the strain. But even on their worst day, they’re still light years ahead of nearly every train we have here in the States.

(The one exception, the Acela Express, is a modified TGV, and our lousy tracks limit the train to half the speed it’s capable of. LIkewise, the Chunnel Train, which connects Paris and London via the Channel Tunnel, is a modified TGV.)

The high-speed TGVs are express trains. The regular Corail Téoz trains are more numerous and make more stops. Between the two of them, there is virtually no part of France you can’t reach by rail.

The TGV resembles those sleek, jet-powered racers you see on the Bonneville Salt Flats. It looks fast even when it’s not moving. Even its logo looks fast. Unlike the Bonneville racers, though, it’s pretty quiet. You can hold a conversation without raising your voice.

The ride is extremely smooth. You can walk the aisles without fear of being thrown into some stranger’s lap (although if the stranger’s cute, that might be viewed by some as a drawback).

For those of us who must be plugged in wherever we are, there are electric outlets at every seat, and even a special section where you can use your cell phone without disturbing your fellow passengers. Very civilized.

Of all my trips on the 1,000-mile TGV network, the most impressive was the one between Paris and Strasbourg, the capital of France’s Alsace region.

No need to slog all the way into central Paris from Roissy CDG airport. The airport has its ow train station. Just follow the signs to the elevator, then go down a couple of floors to the SNCF ticket office to buy your ticket or validate your rail pass.

(NOTE: The Sheraton has a sleek hotel directly above the train platform, with a nice lobby bar to kick back in until your train arrives. Just leave your luggage cart outside.)

Ten minutes before your train departs, head down to the train platform. Your ticket shows your seat number and your car. An electronic billboard on the platform shows the position of each car on the train. Find your car and step on board. Drop your bags in the vestibule. Find your seat.

That’s it. You’re off. In a little over two hours, you’re in Strasbourg.

And a lovely couple of hours it is.

CLICK ON THE MAP TO ENLARGE

The gently rolling plains of the French countryside roll by your window — fields of wheat and flax, grazing cows, clumps of woods. You pass small villes, compact clusters of homes with steep, red-tiled roofs and the single church with its spindly steeple at the center of it all, pretty as a postcard. Each one invites you to stop for moment to take a few pics or even break out brushes and canvas and start painting.

But these are local rail stops, which means you won’t be stopping, nor even slowing down through these picturesque little towns.

Blink twice and you may not even see them.

When you arrive in Strasbourg, you arrive in the heart of the city, with your bags already in hand. No waiting at the baggage carousel. No long, cramped, expensive ride into town.

Stress? You left that at the airport.

For the die-hard railfan, the TGV lacks a few things. There is no true dining car. Most TGV runs are too short to treat 500-plus passengers to a formal sit-down meal. There’s are snack cars, but they tend to be pricey and sell out early.

You’re better off bringing your own goodies with you. It’s easy enough to find some a baguette and some cheese, or some quiche or croque-monsieur sandwiches being sold in or near most stations, with some Badoit, Saint-Géron or some French mineral water to wash it down with.

And it’s not as if you can’t find a good bottle of wine to enjoy on the train. This is France, remember?

Likewise, there are no sleeping compartments. When your train is cutting travel times by half or better nationwide, there’s no need for cozy berths.

Technology giveth, and technology taketh away.

What you lose in romance, you gain in saved time, saved money compared with airlines, and a travel experience vastly more pleasant than flying.

I’ll make that trade anytime.

The 4-1-1
TRAIN: TGV Train à Grande Vitesse
OPERATOR: SNCF Société Nationale de Chemins de fer Français (French National Railroad Society)
SERVICE AREA: France, with connections to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom

You can buy TGV and Corail Téoz tickets at any French train station or online before arriving in France. If you’re planning on visiting multiple cities or multiple countries, a rail p[ass might save you money, but check carefully. Depending on your travel plans, just buying your tickets for each leg of your journey might be cheaper.

TGV railcars come in two classes, First and Second. Within each class are two categories. The differences have to do with minor amenities, not major differences in comfort level. Unless you’re Yao Ming or a sumo wrestler, the legroom and hip room will be more than adequate. Really, the only reason to travel First Class on a TGV is that, unlike the airlines, it’s actually affordable.

All that JAZZ!

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If you love jazz and long to travel, are you ever in luck. Every year, hundreds of the world’s best travel destinations also just happen to host some of the world’s best jazz festivals.

Jazz is one of the few cultural creations America can truly call its own, a lively, soulful, passionately expressive style of music that has spread and is respected the world over.

Why then does it seem that people in other parts of the world have more respect for jazz than we do? These, it’s all about rock, country and hip-hop.

Among black kids in particular, jazz seems to be thought of as old folks’ music. When you consider that it was black America that gave jazz to the world in the first place, there’s something especially sad about that.

These days, you often have to hunt for a good jazz station on commercial radio — and in much of America, you won’t find one. Were it not for Internet radio, a lot of Americans might never hear a jazz broadcast.

In your typical music shop, the jazz section will be among the smallest in the store…and you may have noticed it shrinking over time.

AMERICAN MADE, RESPECTED WORLDWIDE
But jazz was more than just America’s first homegrown cultural artifact. It also was America’s first cultural export, and it has spread just about everywhere.

Outside the United States, there is no generation gap when it comes to jazz. It’s as popular with the young as it is with their parents, and new waves of jazz musicians around the world are pushing it forward.

What does all this mean to you as a traveler?

It means that if you want to pack your bags and see the world while you listen to some of its greatest jazz artists in the world — old and new — at the same time, you have a delightfully dizzying array of destinations from which to choose.

All over the world, virtually any time of the year. Straight ahead jazz, Dixieland jazz, “smooth” jazz, Latin jazz, acid jazz, and everything in between. It’s all out there for you.

TOO MANY TO COUNT
My first plan for this blog entry was to count up all the major jazz festivals around the world so you could have your own list of options. When I got to a hundred with no end in sight, I stopped.

Your best bet is to choose a region and pick a season, then do a Web search on your chosen destination along with the term “jazz festivals.” Unless you’re contemplating a vacation in Antarctica or North Korea, you’ll probably find at least one.

One? Between them, the United Kingdom and France at least 30.

Theoretically, you could easily do a summer jazz fest in Britain one night, then hop the Eurostar train under the English Channel the next morning and catch one somewhere in France the next.

After stopping for a leisurely lunch and a kir in a Paris cafe.

Equally short rail runs could take you to major jazz gatherings in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria.

Denmark? Norway? Sweden? Russia? Ja, ja, ja and da. Finland? Jep! Montreux, Switzerland and island of Malta. Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Europe is awash in jazz.

Not in the mood for Europe? What about Asia or the Pacific? China. Japan. The Philippines. Thailand. India. Indonesia. Hong Kong. Australia. New Zealand.

Prefer to stay a just closer to home? The Caribbean is dotted with gorgeous destinations — and jazz festivals. The Dominican Republic, Aruba, Jamaica, Barbados, Anguilla, Trinidad & Tobago, Cuba.

Want to catch a major jazz festival on the Mother Continent? The Cape Town Jazz Festival in South Africa has got you covered.

If you’ve got some favorite jazz artists, and a part of the world you’ve always wanted to see, the odds are pretty good that at least one of them is playing in festival in at least one of those places in any given year.

GO CLUBBING
If the timing of your vacation won’t allow you to hit the big jazz fests — and given the number of options you have on both side of the Equator, that’s frankly hard to believe — the world’s great cities also are home to many of the world’s great jazz clubs. Especially London and Paris.

Paris, in particular, has a love affair with jazz that goes back to the days of World War 1, when black American soldiers and expatriates introduced it to them, along with gospel music (and you’ll find festivals in Paris for that, too).

For black Americans, Paris is as much the City of Sound as it is the City of Light.

At these varied festivals around the planet, you’ll hear the best jazz artists on the planet — not just the established superstars of the music world, but local and regional greats, up-and-comers whom you might never hear if you had to rely strictly on American commercial radio.

The only downside to that is that your monthly budget for music may go drastically up. But really, is that such a bad thing?

So when you’re ready, start packing, pick your destination, and go take a listen to the sound that America gave to the world!

Thinking of trains

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Fellow writer and traveler Jools Stone of Scotland is a man after my own heart, which is to say, he loves traveling on trains as much as I do.

Jools has put together great list of valuable rail travel sites, especially for riding the rails in Europe. You’ll find it on his blog, He Thought of Trains.

If you’re one of the millions of travelers who’s seriously looking at passenger trains as an alternative to the nightmare that flying has become, do check out Jools’ list.

As you read this, Jools is presently in Paris, having arrived there today via Eurostar, better know as the Chunnel Train.

Why do I talk about trains v. planes so much? Because I’m an ardent believer that when it comes to travel, the journey matters as much as the destination, and “getting there” should be an affordable part of the fun, not an expensive ordeal that makes you wish you’d stayed home.

My last major train trip was this summer, between Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam via the Thalys, which is basically the northern European version of the French TGV. The Thalys trains are starting to show their age, but they still offer the best combination of speed and comfort between Paris and points north.

My last train trip period was earlier this week on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, hands down the best way to travel between Los Angeles and San Diego. This is especially true in on summer weekends, when the southbound traffic on Interstate 405 becomes a descent into auto hell.

More on the Surfliner, including a video, in a later post.

Hamburg on ICE

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A daytrip to Germany’s second largest city is the pretext for checking out Germany’s fastest train.

hamburgstn

Hamburg central train station

If you read this blog, you know I’m a wholly unapologetic train nut. So when I recently visited Germany, there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to check out the ICE train.

ICE stands for Inter-City Express. It’s Germany’s high-speed passenger train, Deutschland’s answer to the French TGV. Having traveled on the TGV and two of its variants in Britain and Italy, I was anxious to see how Germany’s version of high-speed rail travel measured up.

Inter-City Express. Photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com

Inter-City Express. Photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com

My test run was a daytrip from Berlin to Hamburg, a distance of 158 miles, or 221 kilometers if you want to go totally European. An Amtrak train typically would take about three hours to make that trip — presuming it wasn’t delayed by a freight train or a breakdown.

Time on the ICE train: one hour, 40 minutes. Smooth.

My friend and fellow rail enthusiast Carl also has tried both systems and prefers ICE to the TGV. We’ll compare notes later, but based on my ICE run, I can’t agree. In fairness, I have to note that the Berlin-Hamburg ICE train seemed to be one of their older trainsets, while the last TGV run I made was on their Paris-Strasbourg line, their newest, with trainsets to match.

Having said that, the TGV’s ride seemed a lot smoother and quieter than the ICE train. Inside, passenger comfort was no contest. Rode first class on both trains, if only because mere mortals can actually afford first class on a train. Legroom on both was lovely, but the TGV first-class seats were more like big living-room lounge chairs that you could just sink into. By comparison, the ICE first-class seats were okay, but that’s all. Not even the “rich Corinthian leather” could make them more than just average. On the TGV, these would’ve been in second class.

hamburg

Either of these trains blows Amtrak off the rails, and both are working to bring newer, even better models on line. I can’t wait.

What? Hamburg?

Oh yeah, Hamburg.

Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany after Berlin, the largest city in Europe that isn’t a national capital. It’s also one of the biggest ports in the world.

This place is even greener than Berlin, if that’s possible. They know that in Hamburg because someone apparently went around and actually counted the number of trees. (I’ll take their word for it).

The area around Lake Alster will widen your eyes with its cool, green beauty. Huge, white, ornately decorated homes surround the lake amidst all those trees, looking like giant white wedding cakes. Hamburg has a lot of consulates, and not surprisingly, a lot of them are here. Lots of joggers and cyclists around the lake, and rowing enthusiasts on the lake itself. There’s a fountain that shoots a single geyser of water out of the lake at one end.

Lake Alster, Hamburg.

Lake Alster, Hamburg.

Hamburg is laced with canals, so this city may have more tour boats than tour buses. Hamburgers (really, can I call them that?) will tell you that their city has more bridges than any in Europe — including Venice!

My bud Walt, who’s been just about every place, tells me that Hamburg weather tends to be cold and miserable for all but a few months of the year. If so, then late July is the time to be here.

Like a lot of European cities, it has a grand central square that coincides with the location of its historic old city hall. But as I said, this is a port city, and the construction cranes in this town all seem to be pointing toward an effort to make Hamburg’s harborside the focus of city life. Major redevelopment is going on near the city’s cruise ship terminal — offices, apartments, the works. Should look pretty inviting when it’s all done.

The tour buses make a point of taking you through the red-light district. Prostitution is legal here between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. The district itself, though, seems to lack the relative gentility of that in Amsterdam. Then again, at 11:30 in the morning, all the working girls were off-duty, so who knows?

This was also the part of the city where one of Europe’s bigger musical acts got their start. You’d know who it was even if the tour bus guide didn’t tell you. The big, cartoonish yellow submarine sticking out of one of the marquees is a big giveaway.

That’s right, the Beatles.

Hamburg’s population is very diverse, lots of people from Turkey, North Africa and the Middle East, which gives it a unique flavor — or as the kids might say nowadays, “flava!” You could book a flight from here to Istanbul or Tehran with no problem at all.

The whole of Scandinavia is just a short flight or a ferry ride away.

On the down side, Hamburg has issues with poverty, drugs and crime. It was the only time on my trip in Germany that I was told of no-go areas for tourists.

I don't care that they're only sold in Europe, that they're actually made in Italy, that BMW doesn't sell them anymore. I want one!

I don't care that they're only sold in Europe, that they're actually made in Italy, that BMW doesn't sell them anymore. I want one!

Even so, I’d go back to Hamburg again. I like the multicultural flavor of the place. There’s lots to see and enjoy here.

And yes, it would be an excuse to give the ICE train another shot!

High-Speed Rail: What We've Been Missing

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Ever wonder what it’s like to experience travel on the great high-speed passenger trains of Europe and Asia? If you blink, you may miss it.

TGV train in Gare de Lyon station, Paris

TGV train in Gare de Lyon station, Paris

American travelers who experience high-speed passenger trains elsewhere in the world almost always come home with wide-eyed, rapturous tales of wonderful trips…and an even lower opinion of Amtrak than they had before they left home. I’m not here to dump on Amtrak, but to give you an idea of just how high the rest of the world has set the bar for high-speed rail travel.

Cheap to build, maintain, run? Not a chance. So what do you get for all those billion of euros, yen and so on? You get the best passenger trains in regular service in the world. They’re fast, safe, comfortable. They run on time.

And people use them — close to 100 million a year on France’s TGV and more than 150 million a year on Japan’s Shinkansen alone. In both countries, rail operators have had to resort to double-decker cars to keep up with demand.

Having used them in Britain, France and Italy, I can see why.

My first experience on a high-speed train came courtesy of Eurostar, aka “the Chunnel Train.” London to Paris via the English Channel Tunnel in 2003.

Back then, you boarded the train in Waterloo station in the heart of London. The security screening via metal detectors was somewhat reminiscent of airport security, but still not nearly as onerous. Once through the detectors, you simply walked out onto the platform, boarded your coach and found your seat.

A little under three hours later, you left the train at the Gare du Nord in Paris, a brief taxi or Metro ride away from your hotel.

In between was a ride so smooth and quiet that if you closed your eyes, you weren’t quite sure you were moving.

Oh, you were moving, all right, at speeds up to 186 miles per hour. But you didn’t really start moving until you hit the tunnel and came up on the French side. Back then, the British tracks weren’t really ready for high-speed operations. The French, on the other hand, were good to go.

I actually found myself wishing at times that the train would slow down a bit so I could see more of the French countryside that was flying by on either side.

The following year, it was back to France, this time for a run from Paris to Lyon on the TGV. The letters stand for “Train a Grande Vitesse, which is French for “high-speed train.”

To someone grown accustomed (make that resigned) to California traffic, there’s something uplifting to the soul to lean back in your comfortable, high-backed seat and gaze languidly at the passing scenery — while blowing past all the cars and trucks on the nearby highway.

Smug, moi? Guilty as charged, Your Honor — and I loved every minute and mile! Also, totally unstressed.

But what about the luggage-laden mobs in the airports at either end of my trip? Didn’t I feel just a hint of remorse, just a twinge of sympathy on their behalf?

HELL to the no!

These trains have no real dining cars. When you’re zipping across country at speeds up to 186 miles per hour, who has time for a sit-down meal? Then again, when you can get sinfully good croque-monsieur sandwiches and quiches to die for in the train stations or from nearby shops, who needs a dining car?

(Speaking of food and trains, the Gare de Lyon station in Paris has a restaurant called “Le Train Bleu,” The Blue Train. When it first opened, the Wright Brothers hadn’t flown yet. Click on the link — and prepare to be blown away. Just peeking through the doors makes my wallet hyperventilate.)

But the best experience of all was the December visit to Strasbourg in the Alsace region of eastern France.

Naturally, you first have to fly in to Paris at their Roissy CDG airport, then make the grinding hour-long trek via shuttle or taxi to the Gare de l’Est train station to catch the TGV for Strasbourg. Or so I thought — until my friend Walt informed me of a design feature at CDG I hadn’t heard about.

“There’s a train station right in the middle of the airport,” he said. “You can get your train right there.”

Incredible. Walk down a couple of terminals, take the elevators down three floors and you’re there on the train platform. The French national rail company, SNCF, has an office one level up sell you a ticket or take care of any questions about your Railpass.

A few comfortable hours after hitting the airport, you’re were in Strasbourg. No budget-busting cab ride. No getting crammed into a shuttle van. It’s almost surreal.

Eurostar Italia in Italy — not to be confused with the Eurostar train that runs the Chunnel — is almost as fast and just as good. It almost feels as if you’re riding some city’s rapid transit system, except that your darting all over the country in a matter of a very few hours. You can get up and down the Italian boot in less time than it takes some folks to commute between Santa Barbara and San Diego.

Measuring Amtrak against systems like these is like comparing a Model T to a Maserati. It’s just not fair. Nor is it Amtrak’s fault, not when they’re running on technology roughly a half-century behind the rest of the world and are at the mercy of freight companies for the very tracks they run on.

You have believe that America can do better.