Now I’ve a whole spring and summer of welcoming guests to my apartment in the 10th, some of the questions they ask are recurring, so I’ll occasionally use this space to answer them.
It’s difficult for a European to gain a North American perspective – and more difficult still not to crack insensitive jokes about our differences, but please tell me dear American friends – you do know that there is a body of water between England and France?
The old (English) joke used to go: fog in Channel, Continent cut off. But since 1994 the world’s busiest shipping lanes have a tunnel with trains running underneath.
You can get on a train – Eurostar - in Paris and be in the centre of London in less than two and a half hours. Or you can drive to the coast and put your car on a different train – Eurotunnel - for an undersea journey of 35 minutes.
Despite the odd hiccup – the occasional strike or fire in the tunnel (some lorry/truck drivers have had to scramble to safety but no one has been seriously hurt) the Channel Tunnel has been a great success.
I travelled from London to Paris by Eurostar just a couple of hours before the last fire and was able to make the return journey just a few days later also by Eurostar. There was a limited timetable and it took quite a while longer since only one of the tunnels of the two main bores (there are also service/safety tunnels) was in use, but the trains were up and running again remarkably swiftly.
I wouldn’t say my praise is unconditional – the help for those with mobility difficulties can be very slow and patchy for instance – but I’ll save that subject for another day.
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