Can you actually journey to Europe car-free – and hassle-free – with a canine?

I understand it’s impolite to stare, however I can’t hold my eyes off what’s occurring on the following desk. A waiter in a waistcoat with a medallion round his neck is brutally however meticulously dismantling a barely cooked duck for a desk of 4 Frenchmen to my left. I discover myself unable to look away, besides to verify on the canine who’s – predictably – additionally enraptured by the lesson in aquatic fowl anatomy.

I tighten my grip on Arty’s lead in case he decides to pounce, and check out to not fear in regards to the medieval-style torture machine solid in silver that’s clamped to a trolley close by.

I haven’t by chance set myself down for dinner in a butcher’s store. I’m in Rouen, capital of northern France’s Normandy area, the place duck à la rouennaise – pressed duck cooked in a sauce of its personal blood, port and cognac – is the delicacy.

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While the canine is likely to be wishing he may get his chops across the fowl, I’m much less eager. I return to my bottle of beaujolais and look at my itinerary for the following day as a substitute. I must plan, as we’ve obtained a practice to catch tomorrow, and one other one after that, after which a pair extra, as a result of because of a brand new initiative by Byway Travel, I’ve ventured onto the continent utterly car-free with canine firm – one thing that has been a logistical nightmare till just lately.

Travelling to Europe with a canine however with out your personal automobile isn’t so simple as hopping on the Eurostar. Despite dogs being allowed on trains throughout Britain, Eurostar has a considerably baffling no-dog coverage. Before the pandemic, canine homeowners wishing to journey to France and past both needed to go by automobile on a ferry or through the Channel Tunnel, or ebook a dog-friendly cabin on the DFDS Newcastle-Amsterdam ferry or P&O’s Hull-Rotterdam route as foot passengers.

Not solely are the latter choices costlier, however attending to and from the ports generally is a faff while you’re dragging a canine alongside, too. For canine homeowners with out their very own car, the continent has lengthy felt a lot additional away than the 21 miles it takes to cross the Strait of Dover.

But Byway’s new dog-friendly, car-free, flight-free trips have opened up Europe for passengers on foot and made exploring the continent by rail an actual – and pleasurable – risk. Our journey started in Marylebone, London, the place Holmes Hotel offered dog-friendly mattress and board the evening earlier than our early practice. Then, after a brisk, autumnal stroll on the crispy leaves of Regent’s Park, we headed to St Pancras for our practice to Ashford International. It’s right here that the Byway journeys get intelligent, making use of a comparatively new service run by an American referred to as Brenda: Le Pet Express.

After being stranded in France together with her pets when she flew in from the US (on her approach to relocate to London for a job in cybersecurity on the London Stock Exchange), Brenda was impressed to arrange her pet-friendly minibus shuttle for car-less travellers trying to get between the UK and France. In 2021, she lastly swapped laptop servers for a specifically tailored minibus with crates alongside one facet and single seats down the opposite, so passengers can sit with their pets always, and now she runs a every day shuttle between Ashford and Calais.

She picked a bunch of us up in her pink bus outdoors the practice station (three dogs, one cat and 4 people in whole), herded us by way of check-in on the LeShuttle pet reception like we have been on a college journey, after which deposited us at Calais-Frethun station for our onward journey in France. It could sound easy, however the pink tape is plentiful. Fortunately, that’s Brenda’s job to fret about – all we needed to do was present our pet passports (or animal well being certificates) and calm down on the bus.

That mentioned, there’s nonetheless some admin of your personal to do beforehand, as travelling to Europe with animals is a good bit extra sophisticated than these breezy pre-Brexit days. All pets now require an animal well being certificates or a sound EU-issued pet passport (Arty and I went to Ireland to get ours earlier this yr). There are guidelines round what you may and may’t carry into the nation – meat-based pet food, for instance, is likely to be confiscated so that you’ll want to modify to a vegan or insect-based various, corresponding to Hownd or Grub Club – and your pet might want to have had a worming pill given by a vet inside 5 days of your return to the UK.

There are additionally guidelines round dogs on trains in France: formally, they have to both match right into a small service, or bigger dogs should put on a muzzle and stay on a lead always. In actuality, these are not often enforced, and travelling by double-decker, air-conditioned practice within the nation is a delight whether or not you’ve a canine with you or not.

Byway’s dog-friendly journeys would possibly require some refining. We have been initially booked right into a resort that was a 40-minute walk from the closest inexperienced house – this was modified on request – and later discovered that our vacation spot, Rouen, wasn’t essentially the most dog-friendly metropolis, as you may’t journey with dogs on buses or trams. But it’s nonetheless a superb approach to get onto the continent in a stress-free vogue. Just choose your vacation spot properly and permit loads of time for enjoyable on the bottom – the 12 hours it took to get home felt somewhat extreme for our three-night journey, so subsequent time we’ll be staying for longer – and I believe Arty will see to it that we order that duck.

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Lottie Gross was a visitor of Holmes Hotel and Byway Travel. A 3-night journey to Rouen with Byway prices from £892 per particular person together with all trains from London St Pancras, the Le Pet Express service, and three nights’ lodging.

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