by Liz Allen

Created on: September 20, 2010

The train journey by Eurostar from St Pancras station in London to either Paris or Brussels takes  little more than two hours. It is of course seen as a more environmentally friendly way to travel than by air and is becoming more and more popular. Trips can be booked through Eurostar's website and packages including hotel rooms, car hire and travel insurance come at competitive prices. The earlier you book, the lower the price is likely to be. For Paris, Lille and Brussels, there are plenty of departure times to choose from. In summer, Eurostar offers a direct service through to Avignon; other destinations include Cologne and Amsterdam.

After you make your bookings on their website, Eurostar send you an email confirming your reservations and giving details of your journeys plus the hotel if you have booked it through them. You need to have this email with you when you travel, as well as the credit card with which you made payment for your trip. At the Eurostar ticket office at St Pancras, you can use a machine to print out your tickets,  or you can go to the counter to request them. If you have booked a return journey, tickets for this will be issued at the same time. The number of the carriage and the seat is clearly shown on all tickets.

If you have time to spare at St Pancras, there are cafes such as Costa Coffee and Le Pain Quotidien serving drinks and snacks. Le Pain Quotidien also offers hot lunches and salads at prices ranging between £10 and £12. If you are pressed for time and want food for the journey, Marks and Spencer's Simply Food is situated just before the Eurostar check-in area. There are two buffet cars on the train itself, but you might prefer to have refreshments with you rather than having to wander through several carriages. Among many other shops at St Pancras are Hamleys, Foyles and W H Smith.

The tickets advise passengers to allow a minimum check-in time of thirty minutes before the departure of their train. It could be, however, that the check-in area is chock full of endless queues. There never seems to be a particular queue for a particular train. Eurostar officials sometimes have to walk around, asking if there are any passengers for  trains to Brussels or Paris that are leaving in the next twenty to thirty minutes. These passengers are then sent to a shorter queue at the far end of the check-in area. This won't take long to pass through, but then you have to join up with another queue of passengers

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