Written from the Paris train: an evening that begins at the St Pancras barriers

The message sent from somewhere past Lille

Eurostar makes a particular kind of booking easy. The run from Paris takes a little over two hours, the train has Wi-Fi, and there is nothing to do between the northern suburbs and Kent but think about the evening ahead. A message to the desk from your seat is the most natural way to arrange one, and it saves the half hour that would otherwise vanish on a hotel bed with a phone in hand.

Put four things in it: the train's scheduled arrival, the hotel, the length you have in mind and whatever you already know about dinner. Give the arrival in London time. Paris and Brussels run an hour ahead of London all year, and a surprising number of evenings have gone slightly sideways because somebody wrote seven o'clock while reading a watch still set to France. A reply normally follows within a quarter of an hour, and the connection can drop in the tunnel, so read nothing into a silence around Calais.

No queue at the London end

The single most useful fact about arriving by Eurostar is that the border is already behind you. Passport checks for entering Britain take place before boarding, at the station in Paris, Brussels or Lille, so at St Pancras you simply step off, walk the length of the platform and go out through the arrivals doors. On a quiet evening that takes a few minutes, which is why a meeting can be set so close to the time the train is due.

Choose one exact spot and name it in the message. The long champagne bar that runs beside the international platforms on the upper level is the classic choice, with the advantage of a glass in hand if the train is running behind. The station's public pianos, usually being played by somebody unexpectedly good, make a livelier landmark. High overhead, Tracey Emin's pink neon has hung above the concourse since 2018, spelling out a line about wanting time with someone, which any romantic stepping off the Paris train may take personally.

The twenty minute cab, and faster ways in

Everybody leaving St Pancras with luggage heads for the taxi rank, and it usually moves steadily. The drive to Covent Garden or the Strand looks short on a map and takes about twenty minutes in practice: fifteen late at night, thirty or more on a wet Friday when the Euston Road locks solid. Put twenty into the plan and you will rarely be caught out.

Travelling light, the Piccadilly line is quicker. From King's Cross St Pancras it is one stop to Russell Square for the hotels of Bloomsbury, two to Holborn and three to Covent Garden itself. Covent Garden station runs on lifts that queue at busy times, so guests with a suitcase often do better leaving the train at Holborn and walking ten minutes down to the Piazza.

Dinner inside the hour

The ambitious version of a Eurostar evening puts you at a table within an hour of the barriers. It is entirely possible if dinner is close to the station, or if the bags go on ahead without you. Three shapes work well.

Who meets the Paris train

Nora, one of the four blondes on this site and a designer with a genuine soft spot for Victorian train sheds, likes to begin on the platform level itself and will want to hear how the journey went before anything else. Samanta, who arrives at the agreed minute and has firm opinions on hotel lobbies, suits the drop and go version, waiting downstairs as the lift doors open. Vanessa, who is slowly collecting languages of her own, is easy company for a guest whose head is still in another language after a week of meetings abroad.

When the train runs late

Eurostar keeps a tight timetable, but trains do run late, and a delay is the most common change to these bookings. It costs nothing to handle. Message the desk from the train with the new arrival time and the start of the evening moves with it; she keeps warm in a bar instead of pacing the concourse, and the length you booked stays the length you get. Fifteen minutes on either side is simply absorbed.

A long disruption is different, and the honest course is to decide early. If the train is going to be hours behind, say so as soon as you know, and the evening can be moved to another night or reshaped into something that still makes sense at the new hour.

Lengths that suit an arrival

After a working day on the Continent and two hours on a train, most guests want company rather than an itinerary. Ninety minutes at £400 is the short version: a glass at the station and a walk to the hotel. Two hours at £500 allows a proper drink and a light supper. When a table is already booked, the four hour dinner date at £900 fits around it, while £1,800 buys ten hours for a guest with a London meeting in the morning and no wish to spend the night alone in a strange room.

The travel companion page covers meeting trains in more depth, including the rarer booking in which she travels with you. The rates page carries the whole ladder, and the station, its exits and its walking times are laid out on the St Pancras page.