So @Gautrain extends my "Europe Experience" :)

This past week I got back from an awesome visit to France for a couple of weeks - summer in Europe is always fun :)

As with most of my visits to France I rely heavily on the countries awesome public transport. For example when landing at Lyon International Airport one is spoiled with options of how to get from the airport to your destination. I normally use the TGV highspeed train service to Grenoble, but this time used the bus service that runs from the airport to Grenoble every half-hour. Brilliant and convenient.

Grenoble has an extensive tram and bus network that basically takes you anywhere you want to go with single trips being only €1.40

Here's a pic of the tram that ran right past the hotel we stayed in:

After the stay in Grenoble we headed to Paris using the TGV service - had forgot what 320km/h felt like :)

TGV upper-deck on the way to Paris

Getting around Paris is well nothing short of amazing! The Paris Metro network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km in length. There are 300 stations (384 stops), of which 62 facilitate transfer to another line. Paris has one of the densest metro networks in the world, with 245 stations within 86.9 km2 of the city. (We used this really cool iPad app to navigate the system)

Paris Metro Lines

As a side note - the best way to see Paris is on foot without question - however it's really really great to know that when you tire of walking you can very easily catch the metro back to your hotel!
 
While we were away the Gautrain service between Pretoria and Johannesburg became operational so we thought we would test this on our return. Instead of arranging for someone to collect us from ORT we decided to take the train to Centurion and have us collected there. What an awesome flawless experience!

Waiting for the next train from ORT

It just continued the European experience!

In fact the day after our return we had an appointment in Illovo and decided to test the route again - this time with the bus service included. So the route was from Centurion station to Rosebank station - Gautrain bus to Illovo (with a stop just a few 100m from where the meeting was) and back. Everything worked flawlessly - train on time - bus on time. I can't remember when last a trip to Johannesburg from Pretoria was this relaxing! Felt pretty good watching the peak-hour traffic and not being in it :)

I absolutely recommend this as an option when having to commute between the two cities. I can only imagine that the bus routes from the stations will be expanded in time which will make the service even more useful - but as a start this is awesome.

Have you used the service? What's your experience been?