train from London to Angouleme (transfer Lille Europe?)

I have been trying to get onto the Eurostar website but it keeps crashing my computer. I%26#39;m hoping someone can give approximate information. I want to get a ticket to go from London to the Lille Europe TGV station (I assume there are trains from London that will stop there?), and then catch the TGV at Lille Europe to go down to Angouleme. I can manage the TGV part, but (because I can%26#39;t get to the website) I can%26#39;t get a handle on whether a train from London stops there (or at some other mutual station). Does anyone have insight on this?

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The majority of trains from London to Brussels will stop at Lille Europe, the fares are slightly lower than to Paris.

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Thanks so much -- do you have any idea whether I can get a through ticket from London to Angouleme, or whether I will need to book them separately?

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There are very, very few trains that go directly from Lille to Angouleme, there is apparently 1 or 2 TGVs a day, and I think they leave from Lille-Flandres, not Europe, however both are not very far.

It is of course much faster to do London-Paris-Angouleme than through Lille (1 hour less!), but you will have to commute by metro in Paris from Gare du Nord to Montparnasse (direct line, not very difficult).

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The French railway website allows a single, simple booking for the total trip.

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Thanks Didierz - I was trying Eurostar because I just assumed (obviously incorrectly) that SNCF would have tickets only within France, not for a trip originating in London. I know that the particular TGV is Lille Europe only because when taking the TGV from Angouleme to CDG that is a stop (further on), because of course to get to CDG one must take the train that bypasses Paris itself. I will try the SNCF website - thanks!

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Yes, unbelievable, but the SNCF website improved a lot these past years, and now allows train tickets to and from abroad, as long as you have some French part.

Eurostar is, strictly speaking, a private company (only partly owned by SNCF), and they only sell Eurostar tickets on their website, nothing else as train tickets.

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Further confusion! I now have checked SNFC site -- it shows I would arrive from London at Lille Flanders and leave from Lille Europe (as you indicated) but that if I do a return (which I won%26#39;t, but I lincluded hypothetically) it would both arrive into and leave from Lille Europe! Do you know what the difference is, and how much trouble it would be to transfer between the two stations?

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I nener understood this stupid system of 2 stations in Lille that are...less than a mile distant (1.5 km exactly). Totally stupid.

Many trains have a stop at Lille Flandres, some at Lille Europe, don%26#39;t ask me why, as you pointed out there don%26#39; seem to be any logic in this.

Metro line 2, and I think also a tramway line, join both, so it is easy to connect one to the olther in 15 minutes or so.

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The best website to check out trans-European train routes and journey times is the German national train booking system. It will give you very detailed information on any changes of trains needed.

The English version of the site is at

http://www.db.de/site/bahn/en/start.html

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Thanks all, I appreciate it!