All Aboard! Yodel investigates the Snow Train
We're looking at the various ways that you can get to Morzine, Les Gets and Avoriaz this winter, either to start your season or for your holidays. Full steam ahead... this week we're looking at rail travel!
Snow Carbon have a cool website dedicated to telling you all you need to know about train travel to your favourite winter sports resort. But the best demonstration of how easy it is comes with this video clip:
Snow Carbon list 35 ski resorts that are easily accessible by train. Les Gets, Morzine and Avoriaz are three of them and there are two journey options:
Day Journey
08:02 - Depart London St Pancras on the Eurostar
11:17 - Arrive Paris Gare du Nord and change to Paris Gare du Lyon
13:09 - Depart Paris Gare de Lyon on the TGV
15:46 - Arrive Bellegarde
16:07 - Depart Bellegarde on a TER Regional train
17:40 - Arrive Cluses and take a 25 minute taxi ride to Les Gets, Morzine or the Prodains Gondola to Avoriaz
Night Journey
18:02 - Depart London St Pancras on the Eurostar
21:17 - Arrive Paris Gare du Nord and change to Paris Gare de Austerlitz
23:02 - Depart Paris Gare de Austerlitz
08:15 - Arrive Cluses and take a 25 minute taxi ride to Les Gets, Morzine or the Prodains Gondola to Avoriaz
Granted both journeys could take longer than a flight out of London Heathrow and then an airport transfer. Plus changing stations in central Paris isn't necessarily everyone's idea of relaxing travel. But adult return prices are reasonable at £117 euros and children's prices start at £104. There's also the advantage of extra time on holiday - by taking the night train both two and from resort you'll have extra days to play. Also, there aren't any hidden charges for luggage and you get to see those amazing views along the way.
Using the snow train to travel from London to Cluses produces 14.08kg of Co2 per person. By comparison, flying the same journey produces 78.44km of Co2 and travelling by car produces a whopping 202.58km of Co2 per person. With all this talk about the snow level rising and the death of the European Alpine ski resort in 10 years time, can we really afford to ignore train travel?
Send us your thoughts... have you used the snow train?
