An Olympic day trip: Paris 2024

Crossing the Seine by métro, August 2024

Paris is a very extravagant day trip from London, and I'd certainly recommend much more time there for a first-time visitor, but for those who've already been plenty of times then it can be a day trip. About a week before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, I noticed that there were still quite a lot of reasonably-priced tickets still available - including in table tennis, a sport that I do occasionally enjoy and am alright at. So, for €44.50, I bought a ticket to a Table Tennis Team Quarter-Final. 

There are plenty of ways of travelling between London and Paris - over the years, I've done all of them. The Eurostar is by far the best, but is expensive at short notice. Flights are usually relatively cheap, but price-inflated at Olympic time and an exceptionally poor environmental choice especially when the overall city-centre to city-centre price is the same as the train and the journey time is in practice slower by air. I've crossed between Dover and Calais plenty of times by ferry too, sometimes very cheaply, but the foot-passenger experience is really quite poor and involves spending a lot of time waiting to embark or disembark. Calais by ferry remains a very good day trip from London, but Paris is too far away to make it there and back in a day. 

Enter the coach. I've crossed the Channel several times by long-distance coach, none of which cost me very much - my personal best was €12 from Paris to London a few years ago. There are a few companies running between London and Paris, each of which sometimes uses the tunnel and sometimes the ferry. The journey takes most of a day, but there are also overnight journeys that are then very cheap and time-efficient ways of making the crossing while sleeping. I'm relatively lucky to be able to sleep while sitting down - I certainly wouldn't recommend this for everyone. 

Crossing Vauxhall Bridge on the coach

During the Olympics, all the coach crossings were by ferry. I much prefer the tunnel route as one is only disturbed once for passport formalities at the juxtaposed border and can then remain on the coach and sleep through as the coach drives off the shuttle train at the other side and all the way to the destination, but for whatever reason, nothing was scheduled through the tunnel. Nevertheless, a biphasic night of sleeping from London to Dover, waking up for the ferry, and then sleeping Calais to Paris was still enough sleep overall to be fine for a day of tourism. 

One of the nice things about crossing by coach is that there's no requirement to turn up an hour before a flight or a half-hour before the Eurostar: as long as you turn up at Victoria Coach Station before the doors close, you're fine. After a short suburban train from my South London lodgings after a full work day, I walked over to the coach station and found the bus stand about 10 minutes before the scheduled departure at 2000. The driver cursorily checks passengers' passports when boarding, then on departure from Victoria the coach crossed Vauxhall Bridge to proceed through Camberwell and Peckham and then followed the A20 all the way to Dover. I was able to sleep through virtually all of the journey through Kent. 

• 2000: Depart London Victoria Coach Station
• 2100: Crossed the Greater London boundary
• 2206: Pass Dover Priory station, where I usually get off the train to walk to the ferry port
• 2209: Arrive at Dover Eastern Docks

Moto Dover Eastern Docks: the service area inside the port

We disembarked for the minimal border formalities at Dover. There wasn't any UK exit check; we went straight to the French entry check and re-boarded the coach to proceed to the ferry waiting area. We had arrived over two hours before the 0035 ferry departure, so most of us went to the services area to at least use the proper toilets (the coach did have an on-board toilet, but that's always tiny). It was very much like a motorway service station, except with an unusual amount of Continental driving tat. I returned to the coach to sleep for another couple of hours. 

The coach in the Dover ferry waiting area

• 2222: Border control complete
• 0022: Coach embarks onto the ferry

As the coach was on a DFDS ferry, one of their perks is that all passengers get a meal voucher valid for any of the on-board restaurants or cafés. I like to go for an explore around ferries that I take, where noticed that there were a couple of cafés with sandwiches and such like, a servery with pizzas, or a proper canteen. 

Meal vouchers were handed out by the coach driver, covering a meal and a soft drink or tea/coffee. 

Of course I went to the canteen, where the queue of two coaches' worth of passengers was steadily growing. If I do this again in future, I'll go from the vehicle deck straight to the canteen where I could see other passengers from the same coach already eating. 

Garlic and herb roast chicken with mixed vegetables, chips, and 7Up. 

I don't normally eat such a substantial meal as a midnight snack, but it did mean I didn't need much breakfast. The roast chicken was quite good, too, and there were quite a few other options - I recall vegetarian pie and chips, Indonesian beef rendang with rice, or fish and chips. 

After the meal, all the sensible seating to sleep on had already been taken, but there were still a few other places to lie down. Once the ferry reached Calais, we re-boarded the coach where I slept from disembarkation all the way to Paris. 

Arrival at St-Denis Université metro station. 

During the Olympic and Paralympic period, many coaches didn't use the usual Paris Bercy coach station in the city centre. Instead, my coach terminated at St-Denis Université station at the end of Métro Line 13 - conveniently a direct metro ride to Porte de Vanves, a short walk from the Olympic Table Tennis venue at Parc des Expositions. 

A direct metro from the bus terminus. There were Olympic volunteers at the station pointing the way to the venue. 

I had plenty of spare time, so went for a walk around the local area and had an excellent café long and pain au chocolat for breakfast, and later an éclair: the proper coffee and proper bakeries are two of the best things about being in France. 

A worthy second breakfast. 

There was a brief ticket and security check before entering the Parc des Expositions, with a palpable sense of excitement all around. 

Attending the Olympics was very much a bucket list item. Worth it. 

There were several photo spots, including in front of the Olympic rings or while holding an Olympic torch, alongside food and souvenir stalls. The food looked reasonable, but souvenirs were really expensive. I bought a pin for €10, but plenty of others bought T-shirts for €30 each. 

It was then time to enter the arena. 

Paris has sensibly kept costs down by using existing venues: this one is usually an exhibition hall. 

There was a light-show on the tables while the audience entered the arena. 

There was an audience warm-up with a gentleman dressed as Pierre de Coubertin, and everyone cheered as someone dressed as the Paris 2024 Phryge mascot ran around the arena giving out high-fives. 

China vs. South Korea in the background; India vs. Germany in the foreground. 

On to the matches: in this session of two quarter-finals, the Chinese and South Korean men's teams played each other on the far table, while the Indian and German women's teams played on the near table. It was incredible to watch the world's best athletes doing their thing: the sheer amount of skill on display was amazing, and some of the rallies were spectacular with the players going all the way to the edges of their competition areas to keep the ball in play. On one game, the players were so evenly matched that the game went far beyond the usual 11 to get to two clear points: the Indian player eventually won 19-17 and later that match, though Germany still won 4-1 on matches overall. China won 3-0 on matches, but South Korea put up a very strong fight on each of those matches. 

The atmosphere in the arena was fantastic too: the nationally unaffiliated tended to support whichever team was behind, and there were several Mexican waves that went all around the stands with even the judges and officials joining in. 

Having started at 1000, the matches were finished at around 1230. I did consider going straight back to London afterwards to avoid another overnight, but that would be a waste of an opportunity to explore some more of Paris that I hadn't yet visited. First, I went for a walk around the local area and along the Petite Ceinture, recently reopened as a footpath and green corridor around the city. 

Petite Ceinture, a former railway line closed in the 1980s and now converted to a footpath around the city. 

Next, I decided to visit one of Paris's newer museums: the Museum of the Liberation of Paris, near Montparnasse. It tells the story of the uneasy run-up to World War II, the fall of France, the occupation period, resistance, and the liberation in 1944. One of the highlights was an augmented-reality tour of the bunker underneath the site, which was actually used by the resistance. For a history nerd, it was a fantastic museum - and free, too. It lasted me a few hours. 

My favourite exhibits in the museum were of French linguistic taunting of the occupiers. 

In the evening, I went for a longer walk around the local area and proceeded to cross the Seine by métro next to the Eiffel Tower - resplendent with its Olympic rings at the top of this page. Eventually, I made my way to the Chateau de Vincennes, from which my coach back to London would depart. I bought a few bottles of French wine to bring back from a local supermarket, as well as some saucisson. 

A fitting end to an excellent sporting day. 

There was even a firework display off in the distance while I waited. 

The journey back was straightforward, but as usual with the several times I've crossed back to the UK via Calais, one person was denied entry at the border. This delayed the bus for long enough that it missed its intended ferry and had to take the next ferry, arriving back in London around two hours later than scheduled. Another time I made this crossing, the coach arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal early enough to take an earlier shuttle and so arrived in London two hours early. It does vary greatly. 

Crossing the Channel at sunrise, with the White Cliffs of Dover in the distance. 

Even so, it was a chance to get some more sleep - and I did end up getting a full 7 hours sleep in total on the way back, albeit broken into several parts. Sunrise from the ferry over the English Channel with views of the White Cliffs of Dover was very scenic, too. 

Arrival at London's Victoria Coach Station

Finally, I woke up as the bus travelled through Lewisham on its last stretch through Camberwell and Vauxhall Bridge to arrive back at Victoria, still in time for me to do a full work day. All in all, an outstanding day out. 

Date: Wednesday 7th August 2024

Costs: £47.41 return coaches; £41.69 (€49.50) Olympic ticket; £32.91 local spending. 

Total door to door cost: £122.01