Few months earlier, I moved to London with a strong desire to make this city my hub for my next trips. Indeed, it is a great place from where to take a plane, a train or a bus towards another European city for a very cheap price!
Megabus releases from time to time thousands of bus tickets for £1 towards various cities in the United Kingdom and Europe. I’ve witnessed those mega sales last november, unfortunately, I didn’t have a Schengen Visa to cross the Channel to France, Belgium or the Netherlands for one pound!
In April, Megabus has done the same smart “marketing strategy”! I’ve been lucky to be among the first to buy a ticket to Paris-Porte Maillot from London-Victoria.
The trip starts at 9.30pm, after a check-in in messy Victoria Coach Station. The bus left the station at 9.40pm toward Dover, our first stop of the night! Around 11pm, we pass the French Border Security Check! Our passports are controlled in few minutes and we take the bus again. Midnight, we are in the ferry! This is actually a surprise! I was expecting the bus to cross the Channel via EuroTunnel which takes around 30 minutes without leaving the bus… I’m somewhere in the ferry, sleeping on a table… People around, Dutch families, British Army soldiers, French students playing cards, some typical Brits enjoying their beers! And I’m sleeping on a table, exhausted! Few minutes after the ferry left the english coast, my phone started working with Bouygues France… my 3G disappeared and my iPhone became really useless!
1h30minutes later, we are definitely in France, in Schengen as my visa states! The bus stops at Boulogne-Sur-Mer for few minutes. A technical problem happened the bus door didn’t open when the drivers switched! We started to worry… but everything was fine as the problem was minor!
Still on the road, sleeping and waking up every 30 minutes. It feels like it takes forever to reach Paris. After 20 minutes late from the scheduled arrival time, we are at Porte Maillot! I take then the Metro toward Riquet where my cousin waits for me before taking his car to Mantes-La-Jolie a small city far by around 60km from Paris. The reason why I go there is for another cousin’s wedding!
Anyway, I’ve had a very annoying and boring trip and I’ve realised that I’ll never ever take a night bus even though for £1-well maybe to Amsterdam as I’ve never been there before! 🙂
A bientôt! 🙂
Merci Chadia! 🙂
I lové….continue dans tes voyages. Et profites de ta jeunesse se sont les meilleures moment.
Amicalement.
Chadia