Belgium by Land: Eurostar Stars

For Valentines Day this year we thought wrap the experiences (not simultaneously) of Belgian beer and high-speed train travel into one glorious weekend trip. Friday after work we made the 1.5 hour train trip down to London to catch a Eurostar train out of the new St. Pancras International Station. St. Pancras used to be a major hub of British rail travel and was the largest enclosed space in the world when it opened in the 1860’s, but time and neglect really left it in a bad state. When the all-new (Arup) high-speed line from the English coast to Central London was proposed, St. Pancras became the new terminus of Eurostar and 800 million pounds ($1.6 bn) was spent to totally renovate and modernize it.

Friday night it was fun taking to to walk around the new station and check things out before we left: the “world’s longest Champagne bar”, high-end shops, and of course, impressive roof arches. After we had our fill of modernized Victorian engineering we boarded our train. A comfortable 2 hour trip later we were on the streets of Brussels!