Tour specific travel advice to cut carbon emissions – for your tour starting in Gavarnie
The Eagles now has a target to emit net zero carbon from its activities within two full seasons, by cutting emissions by swapping from air to train, for example; and by offsetting. We estimate current net emissions from tours to be 280 tonnes/year after offsetting. (To keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees by 2100, each person should emit on average no more than 1.5 tonnes per year.) If you would like to help reach the club’s target, there are two main things you can do:
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Offset your travel (by whatever mode) by buying from the Club’s emissions offset scheme at a cost of around £3.50 for an average return flight within Europe and less for other modes.
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Choose lower emission mode(s) of transport for all or part of your trip. (Taking a direct flight from say Edinburgh to Munich then continuing to Innsbruck by train, instead of taking connecting flights, will still cut emissions. Or travel by train in one direction and plane the other.)
Per passenger, the rough CO2 emissions for a return from London to Geneva are as follows
Direct flight, Economy Class 400kg
Large car, 4 passengers 160kg
Small car, 4 passengers 80kg
Coach 50kg
Train (e.g. Eurostar ) 25kg
(Source of data: here)
This document gives a few tips on booking lower carbon travel to the start point of your tour, Gavarnie, from London. The closest station is Lourdes from where buses operated by https://www.mestrajets.lio.laregion.fr/ run twice a day to Gavarnie.
Train. Lourdes is around 9 hours by train from London St Pancras, with a change in Paris (from Gare du Nord to Gare Montparnasse, direct on metro line 4 in 15 minutes; tickets are sold at the Eurostar buffet car). It is not possible to get from London to Gavarnie in a day by bus and train because the last bus leaves Lourdes too early. However, as day trains, there is a night train from Paris Austerlitz to Lourdes, see www.sncf-connect.com, offering seated and couchette accommodation. This then allows you to connect into the bus to Gavarnie.
For train times see www.bahn.co.uk – just enter London or your local GB station and your final destination, pretty much anywhere in Europe.
Eurostar does not offer through London-Lourdes tickets. You have to buy a ticket to Paris on www.eurostar.com, and another onwards from Paris at www.oui.sncf.com. To be on the safe side allow 60 minutes in Paris. Booked well ahead Eurostar charge around £60 for a single from London to Paris; SNCF charge about the same for a single from Paris to Lourdes.
Eurostar and German Rail (DB) tickets go on sale 6 months in advance and SNCF 4 months. More info at https://www.eagleskiclub.org.uk/plan-your-trip/low-carbon-travel/train-travel-tips-and-hints.
Bus. If you are a committed coach traveler/spotter, you can travel overnight from London to Paris and then onwards to Toulouse in a total of about 16 hours and for around £60, booking ahead at www.flixbus.co.uk. From Toulouse onward travel is by train to Lourdes (2 hours) then bus.
Car. The Michelin route planner www.viamichelin.com suggests a drive time from London to Gavarnie of 15 hours, a distance of 1300 km/850 miles and tolls of €115 one way. It also calculates fuel costs for your car, though not Euroshuttle. A motorway payment tag can be convenient – see www.bipandgo.com – but prices are the same as cash or card.
Carshare. Carsharing is available with www.blablacar.com. If driving, register your trip details to get paying passengers – e.g. €70 Calais-Lyon. As a passenger, search on the app for trips - good value, but usually posted at very short notice. It is widely used in France and Spain.
Travelling from outside London? Apologies if this info all seems a bit London-centric but pretty much all rail and bus travel from the UK to the continent is via London, though when driving, the Hull-Zeebrugge or Newcastle Amsterdam ferries may be good (though still carbon intensive) alternatives to Euroshuttle. By train, it is possible to return as far north as Edinburgh in one day from some stations in the western Alps (Modane, for example; or from Zurich), though more difficult on the outward due to the time difference. See www.bahn.co.uk