When I book with the Eurostar site to a destination in the south of France, they only offer a short Paris transfer time (54 minutes) between Gare du Nord Eurostar and Gare de Lyon TGV. Is this easily achievable with 2 adults and 2 walking toddlers (no buggy)? How would you travel it to not be in a rush, and are there any tips to avoid surprises and delays?
1 Answer
Buy 4 metro tickets (or if you are going to do the same thing on the return trip, you are probably better off buying a « carnet » of 10 tickets — note that those used to be available at the Eurostar bar, not sure if this is still the case).
Follow the signs for RER D towards Corbeil or Melun. It’s usually track 44, 3 levels down from Eurostar arrivals.
Take the RER D to Gare de Lyon (2 stops, less than 10 minutes).
In the best of conditions it takes less than 15 minutes. I would count about 30-45 minutes in your case, especially if you have to buy the tickets and you get in Paris early in the morning and it’s the beginning of a month (lots of people renewing their monthly passes). If you have the tickets already it should really be easy.
Check for any disruptions in advance (there are lots of works during the summer).
Note that if there are issues with RER D, there are alternatives:
- take RER B (same platform, other track) to Châtelet-les-Halles (1 stop), cross-platform change to RER A, 1 stop to Gare de Lyon.
- take metro line 4 to Châtelet (6 stops, about 10 minutes), switch to metro line 14, 1 stop to Gare de Lyon
- and many other combinations of lines B, D, 4 or 5 and lines A, D, 1 or 14.
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3Confirming that metro tickets were available at the train bar earlier this year.– mdeweyJun 22, 2019 at 12:19
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1Important in the RER trains, keep your tickets, you need them to get out of the system. (You should also keep them in the Metro and on the buses in Paris but there you can easily get out without your ticket.)– Willeke ♦Jun 22, 2019 at 18:05