7/5/2023: Train Success

Brussels, Belgium > Paris, France

We left Brussels early this morning and said our farewells to Brad (we’ll be seeing him in a few weeks at Lake Como with his new lady friend). When trying to book train tickets to Paris yesterday, we found that literally everything from Brussels to Paris was booked (and there were a TON of trains headed that way). Turns out the storms in the Netherlands had really messed up the train systems and left many people changing their plans from going to Amsterdam to going to Paris. The next best option would be to take the 5+ hour bus ride to Paris, but that sounded pretty awful when compared to the cushy, WiFi enabled and air conditioned train we’d planned on taking. We decided to try our luck and after some long lines and lots of help from the station workers, we were told that if we could hunt down the train manager, he’d be able to tell us if any seats had become available. With minutes until takeoff, we ran to the platform like it was nobody's business.

We arrived in nearly a full sweat with one minute to spare. To our delight, the train manager said yes!

After a quick train ride (it was cruising at 184 mph), we arrived in Paris. Woohoooo! We checked into our hostel, grabbed some insanely delicious French food, went back to the hostel for a Power Nap, and enjoyed the rest of the evening in the hostel’s courtyard listening to live music alongside fellow travelers.

~ Savvy