I am trying to discover the timetables and routes for a series of train journeys I made in the early 1980s between London and Pisa, back in pre-Chunnel times.
I have the precise date for one of the journeys: leaving London Victoria at around 8am on Saturday 2nd October 1982. I know I would have been at the Gare de Lyon by the early evening that day (I recall drinking coffee in the station café with four fashion students en route to the autumn shows), and I would have reached Pisa by mid-morning the following day. But my memories of other parts of the journey are very hazy.
Would the ferry journey have been between Newhaven and Dieppe?
Would I have needed to cross Paris by Metro between the Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon?
Or would the train have shunted around the city?
I made the journey several times in both directions between 1981 and 1985 and recall that the details of the Paris crossing varied from trip to trip.
I would have made the reverse, Pisa-London journey a few months earlier, probably in late July, leaving Pisa, I guess, in the early evening. On that occasion I definitely crossed Paris by Metro and boarded the cross-Channel ferry at Boulogne (finding myself alongside the Venice Simplon-Orient Express, sans passengers, as I waited in the queue for the ferry).
And I made this same journey, Pisa-London, in late-September/early October 1983; arriving at the Gare de Lyon very early the following morning, with a break long enough to disembark and go into the station before the train shunted around the city to the Gare de Nord and the next stage of the trip.
Would any forum users be able to fill in the gaps in my hazy recollections and join the dots of my journeys?
In addition to the main stations, I’d also be curious to know the names of some of the smaller places in France I would have passed. Would I have been travelling on lines originally built by English navvies (under the direction of Thomas Brassey) in the mid-19th century?
I have the precise date for one of the journeys: leaving London Victoria at around 8am on Saturday 2nd October 1982. I know I would have been at the Gare de Lyon by the early evening that day (I recall drinking coffee in the station café with four fashion students en route to the autumn shows), and I would have reached Pisa by mid-morning the following day. But my memories of other parts of the journey are very hazy.
Would the ferry journey have been between Newhaven and Dieppe?
Would I have needed to cross Paris by Metro between the Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon?
Or would the train have shunted around the city?
I made the journey several times in both directions between 1981 and 1985 and recall that the details of the Paris crossing varied from trip to trip.
I would have made the reverse, Pisa-London journey a few months earlier, probably in late July, leaving Pisa, I guess, in the early evening. On that occasion I definitely crossed Paris by Metro and boarded the cross-Channel ferry at Boulogne (finding myself alongside the Venice Simplon-Orient Express, sans passengers, as I waited in the queue for the ferry).
And I made this same journey, Pisa-London, in late-September/early October 1983; arriving at the Gare de Lyon very early the following morning, with a break long enough to disembark and go into the station before the train shunted around the city to the Gare de Nord and the next stage of the trip.
Would any forum users be able to fill in the gaps in my hazy recollections and join the dots of my journeys?
In addition to the main stations, I’d also be curious to know the names of some of the smaller places in France I would have passed. Would I have been travelling on lines originally built by English navvies (under the direction of Thomas Brassey) in the mid-19th century?