We were all excited to have the opportunity to visit Paris, but Sienna in particular has a strong interest in French language and culture and is studying French as part of her VCE. 

We rose at 4.15am and caught a black taxi cab from our London apartment to St Pancreas international station to catch the 7.01am Eurostar fast train. 

We had visited St Pancreas the day before to check where we needed to board. It is a beautiful old station built in the 1860s, and is located directly across from Kings Cross station.

Our earlier visit put us in good stead to easily find the terminal which was very busy. Boarding the train was a similar process to boarding an international flight - we needed to go through customs including passports and bag checks, then waited eagerly for our boarding call. 

The train was very comfortable and the trip was smooth. It was hard to believe we were travelling at up to 300km per hour (186 miles per hour), though a little slower through the tunnel under the English Channel. 

It only took 2.5 hours to arrive in Paris - that's 306 miles (492km). If only we had a fast train like that between Melbourne and Ballarat!