St Pancras station has been transformed into our multi-million-pound gateway to Europe. So, is it now best to go to Paris by train? Or is a plane still a better bet? And what about the car – how does that compare?

We wanted to find out, so Adam Wakelin, Alex Dawson and Jeremy Clay raced from the Clock Tower to the Eiffel Tower.

Adam went by Eurostar; Alex took the plane. And Jeremy went in a car with photographer Andy Baker, who took the pictures.

The four set off from the centre of Leicester at 1pm on a Friday. Who would be the first to look up at France’s famous ironwork?

1pm, Adam, train

If Linford Christie went on the “B of the bang”, Jeremy is off on the “T” of the Clock Tower tick.

There’s no grudging handshake or gritted-teeth “good luck”, just the sight of a fat man waddling to his car as fast as his stubby legs can carry him, which, to be honest, isn’t that fast.

The blokes laying the new slabs are going at more of a lick. I’ve seen faster growing fingernails.

Andy, sighing and shaking his head like someone who knows he’s in for a long, long drive of Clay’s dreary “Did you know I used to be a drummer in a band?” anecdotes, jogs off in lukewarm pursuit.

Alex wears the expression of a small boy who has just forgotten his lines in the school nativity. Already a bit lost, what’s he going to be like in the confusion of a big foreign city’s transport system?

That’s the opposition: a

world-class ditherer and a failed musician who couldn’t even get to the end of

one of his own songs on time.

The last race I won involved an egg and a spoon, but I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

My Eurostar leaves at 17:35 – the earliest free seat – which gives Jeremy and Alex a sizeable head start. They’ll need it.

1pm, Jeremy, car

There's no need to turn and look at their faces as I sprint from the Clock Tower. I can guess their reaction.

Admiration, mixed with awe and a dash of disquiet. Yeah, eat my dust, chumps.

We dodge the crowds, Andy and I, swerving past the chuggers and almost clattering into a gospel choir as we charge down Humberstone Gate like fleeing shoplifters.

But by the time... we reach... New Look... I realise... this isn’t... really fair... on Andy... who’s got.... heavy... camera bags... gasp ... and that.

“You’ve gone very red,” he says, as we drop to a purposeful stride.

So, we’re in the lead, but hang on. We’ve got nearly 400 miles to go, non-stop, and we haven’t brought anything to eat.

We lunge sweatily into a cob shop. I can’t remember Phileas Fogg starting out like this.

We reach the car at 1.07pm. Now, there’s an unspoken convention in journalism that it’s snappers who drive, not reporters – like your dad insisting he takes the wheel, not your mum.

Which makes me mum – it’s emasculating, and I’m not having it. Not for a minute. No siree.

As it turns out, the passenger seat is quite comfy.

A minute later, we’re off.

I write “We’re off” in my notebook, just to prove it.

1pm, Alex, plane

I’m not running, and there is a simple reason for this – a bmi jet aircraft cruises at 495mph.

A car manned by the verbose Jeremy and Andy cruises at 70mph, then realises it’s gone wrong at Watford while the occupants were chuckling over made-up brands of cheese.

Adam “Wako” Wakelin, on the train, might be a more formidable opponent.

To judge from his determined Syston snarl when we set off, this is clearly his World Cup.

I’m relying on a food-related incident to delay him.

His stomach is as fragile as Britney’s child-custody case, and he has been known to be rendered queasy by the sight of a foreign tap.

I feel confident, though. My only disadvantage is thoughtlessly dressing all in black like a cat burglar, giving myself an outside chance of being arrested.

But I have a fast plane, plus a Really Cunning Plan (to be revealed later).

So I stroll to Leicester station, catch the 1.24pm to Loughborough (£6.50 return) and then the bus to East Midlands Airport (£2.20).

By 2.45pm, I’m checked in and ready to go – in theory.

1.30pm, Jeremy, car

After getting stuck in the please-don’t-leave hug of a Narborough Road snarl-up, we're on the M1. We do some hasty sums.

Folkestone is three hours from Leicester, and Paris is two and three-quarter hours from Calais. We do some hasty sums. We could actually win this, we tell each other.

2pm, Jeremy, car

There goes Watford Gap. And there goes Billing Aquadrome too, whatever the hell that is. So far, it's going swimmingly.

Even the latest bout of concreting-over-the-countryside, the road-widening scheme near Luton, doesn't hold us up too much.

But a little before 3pm, we turn onto the M25: the ring road round Dante's nine circles of hell. And - ah yes, of course - here's a flashing sign warning of delays ahead.

3pm, Adam, train

The journey from Leicester to London is as smooth as a politician’s promise.

I get on an East Midlands Train at 3pm and get off, exactly on schedule, an hour-and-a-quarter later.

Pleasingly, Alex has just texted to say his journey has already hit a spot of turbulence: “Flight delayed by 25 minutes.’’

No word from Jeremy who, three-and-a-half hours in, is probably just unwrapping his drum kit.

It’s impossible not to stop and marvel at the magnificently refurbished St Pancras with its restored clock, glorious glass roof, spider’s web of baby blue wrought iron, glass corridors, champagne bar and designer retail outlets.

It works, too. Collecting my tickets, getting through passport control and the baggage search take a grand total of less than two minutes.

3pm, Jeremy, car

We're barely moving. If I got out, sat down and pulled myself along on my bum, like a dog with an itchy backside dragging itself along a carpet, I could probably overtake Andy.

There's a sign ahead warning us the temporary speed limit is 40mph. I don't have a laugh hollow enough.

“This isn’t exactly the Cannonball Run, is it,” says Andy.

Our early optimism has drained faster than a tramp’s can of Special Brew.

I'm sick of the sight of the lorry in front. We have a short but tedious debate about

how to pronounce Norbert Dentressangle. Then the conversation dries up.

If Adam was here, I’d tell him a tale about my days as a drummer. He seems to like hearing about that.

3pm, Alex, plane

The trouble is, my plane isn’t ready when I am.

The earliest one possible is the 5.05pm, and it’s already delayed until 5.25pm.

So, while Jez and Andy in the car, and Adam on the train, are trundling forward like a trio of tubby tortoises, the hare is sitting in the Ritazza cafe at East Midlands Airport, drinking a large tea and reading The Other Side of the Bridge, by Mary Lawson.

Daring Jake has just fallen off the bridge after swinging on it like an idiot gibbon.

His plodding older brother Arthur blames himself for some reason.

I suddenly see that Jez is the flamboyant Jake, and I am the dull older bloke, which may help at work, but not on this trip.

Still, as I amble through security at 3.30pm, I’m still quietly confident.

Even the confiscation of my deodorant doesn’t throw me.

Lynx Click, combined with the English cat-burglar look, was probably too much for the French, anyway.

And I still have my cunning plan...

4.45pm, Adam, train

An Evening Standard billboard catches my eye: “Ship tourists rescued in iceberg drama.”

It’s the only disaster that Jeremy won’t be involved in today.

In the coming hours, the hapless Mr Clay will be caught up in a massive traffic jam, manage to get locked in his own toilet and have a laughing Frenchman burp stale garlic into his face.

It’s all going so well – too well. Alex is stuck in an airport and Dastardly and Muttley are going nowhere on the M25.

4.47pm, Jeremy, car

We've gone 112 miles in nearly four hours. I’m toying with the idea of opening the door, and simply rolling onto the tarmac.

Then whoa ... suddenly we're moving. For the next hour, Andy does a passable impression of Lewis Hamilton.

5pm, Alex, plane

The pace is hotting up, but only in my book.

The grown-up Jake/Jez has just reappeared at boring, stay-at-home Arthur’s farm in a smart Cadillac.

He’s clearly done really well, but where has he been? And why does my – I mean Arthur’s – surprisingly lovely wife, Laura, seem so flustered by him?

5.25pm, Adam, train

Getting on the Eurostar, I ask a smiley German man to take a photo.

It needs to make me look unbearably smug, I tell him.

“No problem!” he beams, a little too quickly.

5.51pm, Alex, plane

Yes, it’s 5.51pm before we’re airborne. That’s 46 minutes late, which could make all the difference in the end, even with my Really Cunning Plan.

But we hammer across the Channel like we’re being pursued by bird flu.

It takes just 58 minutes, and I reckon I was first to see the Eiffel Tower, albeit from a cruising height of 37,000ft.

Hmm, come to think of it, did the rules say the first to see the Eiffel Tower? File that thought.

5.52pm, Adam, train

The train is out of London and zooming through Kent at 186mph, on time, to ease into Paris at 19:50.

My only worry is that I’ll step straight off into 1979 and a country convulsed by its very own winter of discontent.

If the Metro men are still on strike, it could hold me up long enough for Alex to snatch victory.

5.53pm, Jeremy, car

Folkestone, at last. Our train went two hours ago, but the handy thing about Eurotunnel is, if you’re late, you get on the next one. It's a system designed with British roads in mind.

Pulling on to the train is pleasingly like driving through a prison wing. We zip though in half an hour, spending the downtime discussing which Wacky Races team we’d join, given the choice.

6.49pm, Alex, plane

We touch down at Charles de Gaulle Airport. I’m now 25km north-east of Paris.

With Adam texting that he’s also in France, and Team Jez-Andy’s car probably still dodging traffic cones north of Luton while selecting punning names for imaginary French bands, it’s time to unleash the plan…

6.50pm, Adam, train

A text from Orange tells me I'm in the land of snails and casual disdain. The journey under the Channel was so swift I hadn't even noticed

Moments later, catastrophe. I bite down on my ham baguette and send a squirt of mustard shooting over the table. It lands in a splodge of radioactive yellow on a French lady’s Daz-white top.

She’s asleep. I might get away with it. I casually slide the sandwich wrapper in front of the man on my left.

7pm, Adam, train

Oh dear. Madame’s awake and, after peering quizically at the stain

on her top, she’s giving me a look of sharpened knives.

I give her a Gallic

shrug a motion my eyebrows at the other fella.

She’s not buying it. I think I

might still have mustard on my mouth.

7pm, Alex, plane

OK, so I’m walking through Charles de Gaulle Airport, still un-arrested and smelling slightly sweaty.

And here’s the plan readers: I HAVE NO LUGGAGE.

Well, I’ve got a bit of luggage, but it’s all on my back, in a rucksack, so no waiting by carousel 12B for ages while reluctant French baggage-handlers smoke Gauloises round the back of the hangar before sending my underwear to Gdansk.

Nope, I’m straight out of the airport and into a taxi, where I try to explain to the driver that I have to get to the Eiffel Tower by 8pm to win a bet.

The driver doesn’t look like he has fully understood, but to be fair, he drives like he has.

With Adam texting that he’s at the Gare du Nord and about to catch the Metro, I think I can win.

7.15pm, Adam, train

Another text, from Alex. He’s landed and he’s looking for a taxi. I can’t even see the tell-tale twinkle of the Paris suburbs.

7.30pm, Jeremy, car

The train pulls up in Calais, and we’re off. The roads are completely empty. Not for the first time in France I'm struck by a nagging question: if the population of France is 61 million, where on earth are they all?

7.30pm, Alex, plane

We've hit traffic. The cab slows, then stops, then jolts forward again, then stop again. You get the idea.

7.45pm, Adam, train

We pull into Gare du Nord. I make a mad dash for the Metro. It’s running. Great. Another text. Damn. Alex is in the taxi.

7.45pm, Jeremy, car

Remember that nutty astronaut who drove from Houston to Orlando to confront a love rival, wearing a nappy to avoid bog breaks? That's starting to seem like a splendid idea.

7.50pm, Alex, plane

And suddenly – crikey – there’s the Eiffel Tower itself, lit up golden with sparkling silver lights, like an exploding rocket that’s stuck in the bottle.

I pay the taxi driver quite a lot. All right, it was 46 euros. But I’m standing beneath the tower with a “chocolat chaud” by 7.55pm (8.55pm, French time).

Overhead, the Parisian night is as big and black as my carbon footprint, but I was first.

8:01pm, Adam, train

The phone vibrates again. Alex again. He’s there. He’s won. And then, a flicker of faint hope.

Maybe Alex is at the wrong tower. Knowing Dawson, it’s possible. Perhaps he’s in

Blackpool.

8.03pm, Jeremy, car

The phone goes. It’s Alex, crowing. It’s all over. Except we’ve still got 100 miles to go. We pass Bois de Arsy services. I can’t even be bothered to crack a joke.

8.50pm, Adam, train

Alex isn’t in Blackpool. He’s under the Eiffel and he’s wearing a smile wider than the Seine when he sees me – the cat burglar who got the cream.

I’ve lost, but I still feel like a winner. I had the “bon voyage” free of fuss, faff, airport delays and Jeremy’s will-to-live-sapping anecdote about the time he supported Radiohead.

9.30pm, Jeremy, car

Hmmm. Perhaps it would have been wise to bring a map.

Still, there, in the distance, is the Eiffel Tower. So where are all the demented drivers?

9.44pm, Jeremy, car

Ah, here they are, circling the Arc de Triomphe like Wall of Death stunt-riders.

It’s vehicular Darwinism, and we accelerate right into it, emitting the kind of involuntary noises people make while falling down stairs.

Somehow, we emerge in one piece and slip across the Seine without incident and, mercy me, find a parking spot behind the tower. It’s 9.54. We could have flown to Florida in the time it’s taken us to get to Paris.

Wako and Alex swagger over from a nearby bar in a cloud of self-regard.

Still, tomorrow, we can load up the boot with cheap booze on the way home. And no, there isn’t any spare room for any bottles for them.

Info

Plane: Return flights to Paris with bmi baby start at £48.99 midweek and

£73.99 for weekend breaks.

Bmi flies twice a day to Paris on weekdays, and once a day at weekends.

Total cost (including rail, bus and taxi fares): £151.

www.bmibaby.com

Train: Return through tickets from Leicester to Paris start from £77. Ring

08705 186 186.

Metro tickets cost £2. Total cost: £79

www.eurostar.com

Car: Return Eurotunnel crossings start from £98 per car. Phone 08705 35 35

35. Fuel and tolls to Paris and back cost £107. Andy and Jeremy drove a 1.6 TDCi

Ford C-MAX supplied by Sandicliffe, in Welford Road, Leicester. Phone 0116 233

2332.

Total cost: £205 (for two people).

www.eurotunnel.com

Adam, Alex, Andy and Jeremy stayed at the four-star Hotel Little Palace in

the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, where Jeremy did indeed get stuck in the toilet. Single rooms start at

153 euros.

Ring 0033 142 72 08 15, or see:

www.littlepalacehotel.com

The Frenchman burped into Jeremy's face at the singular late-night bar-restaurant Le Tambour, in Rue Montmartre, Paris.

Don't worry. He was a customer not a waiter. And it's a smashing place.

*This article initially appeared in the Leicester Mercury in December 2007.