An Experience

An Unexpected, Bewildering, Frustrating and Ultimately Learning Experience!

This is a somewhat complex tale so only read if you have the inclination!

At the end of our canal trip we planned to spend a night at a hotel near Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris before flying to Split in Croatia to go sailing quite early the next morning. Bob and I needed to go into Paris to collect our Eurail passes. Peter stayed behind to finish the final touches on the canal boat before the next partners arrived for their stint. To avoid carrying our luggage around Paris for the day Bob and I decided to catch a train from Montbard to the airport, leave our luggage at the hotel and do a round trip into Paris. In purchasing tickets the day before we discovered that only one train per day goes direct to the airport from Montbard and that it leaves at 7.48am. This meant an earlier start than necessary but we figured we could leave the boat at 7am and make it and it would be worth it to make everything run smoothly. So this all went to plan. The train was a TGV – very fast trains, with few stops, that speed around the French countryside. There are still slower regional trains as well.

So we got to the station in plenty of time and Bob worked out, via a plan at the station and a series of numbers on the platform, where we should stand so we would be in the right carriage - between the letters S and T on the platform in order to be on carriage 8 – seats 54 and 55. This meant we were a long way from the very few other people on the platform but we were pleased with ourselves that we were so well organized and skilled at mastering the system.

Then there was an announcement over the station loud speaker. Our French is rudimentary but we understood that the train was delayed due to problems in the preparation. Most French trains are on time so this was a little unusual. We waited and about 8 o’clock there was another announcement and we could see a TGV train approaching. This announcement mentioned Charles de Gaulle so we prepared to board. So our train was only 10 minutes late after all – not a big deal after Australian trains! We noticed that it was a first class carriage and not number 8 but got on anyway – no seats 54 and 55 either. We contemplated going back to second class, which out tickets were for but it was unclear if we could move between carriages, especially with luggage, and there were quite a few spare seats so we sat down and figured we’d deal with the conductor when he came and pay the first class supplement if necessary. So we sat there one behind the other trying to look comfortable with the train speeding through the French countryside. The conductor did not appear and we were pleased when, one and a quarter hours later, we pulled into the station and our first class infringement had not been detected.

The station we stopped at was Gare de Lyon which is in Paris. We hadn’t realized that we stopped there on the way to Charles de Gaulle but we could cope with that. We would move on shortly. Then we realized that everyone else had go off the train and it was clearly going nowhere!

Mmmm – we packed up and got off the train.

Now we’re told that there is very little crime in Paris (as we discovered getting to our apartment in Paris that I wrote about before with codes etc to get into apartments burglaries are just not worth it.) The French people are individualists and do not join gangs readily. So that leaves pick pocketing – and yes - that can be a bother. It’s not common and Gypsies are blamed for most of it. We have met one couple already who were targeted and lost 85 Euro one had in a zipped trouser pocket. We heard of another couple who were coming to a canal boat, via a Paris railway station, and lost their passports, credit cards and cash. Therefore we try to avoid being in stations and looking vulnerable and confused about which way to go etc. This was one of the reasons we wanted to go to the airport hotel to drop off our luggage before our sojourn into Paris.

Well – despite all of the above here we were –we had no idea how – on the platform of a Paris railway station looking and feeling vulnerable and confused.

What should we do? Well firstly not look vulnerable and confused! This was difficult / impossible. Eventually we took off to seek advice – not sure from whom! The railway station is huge and is divided into 3 halls. People were everywhere. We eventually found an information booth, queued and asked how to get to Charles de Gaulle. Our French is poor and the booth ladies English was not good so we were only marginally further ahead. We ascertained that there was a left luggage place downstairs and somewhere in the direction that she waved her hands. We decided to use this and then go to the airport later.

Suffice to say left luggage booths are not usually in prominent places at train stations and this was no exception! After wandering and asking numerous people probably some 20 – 30 minutes later found it.  The attendant – surprise, surprise and joy unbounded spoke excellent English and was able to direct us to the subway, which was 2 floors lower then we were, which we could use to make our way to the travel agents.

We decided breakfast was more important initially and used this to puzzle over how we could have got our plans so wrong and totally misunderstood the railway system, just as we seemed to be getting on top of it.

When we eventually got to the travel agents to pick up our Eurail passes we were met by Nicholas – the train buff who helped us get much cheaper railway passes than we expected by knowing the system so well. We told him what had transpired and he immediately said “Oh I know – you got the wrong train – two TGV trains go through Montbard within 10 minutes of each other in the morning – the first to Charles de Gaulle and the second to Gare de Lyon.” It hit us like a flash. Our train was delayed so the Gare de Lyon one came first. The announcement we heard was probably to say don’t get on this train to Charles de Gaulle. We misinterpreted it and got on. Nicholas’s colleague told us that he was probably one of only a few people in Paris that knew the system well enough to be able to sort that out for us. I do have to say that if you could see the Montbard station, which is very small, you’d probably be as surprised as we were that not only do any TGV trains stop at it – let alone 2 in 10 minutes!

Anyway from there all went relatively well – we got our Eurail passes, had a nice lunch and negotiated our way back to our luggage and ultimately the airport hotel.

What did we learn from this? Well firstly

-                    that we were lucky that we weren’t in Russia or some other far flung place where the train may have been going to

-                    that it was just as well that we were not catching a plane that day which we may have missed (there were two other couples speaking English waiting for the train but in different parts of the platform so I wonder if they made the same mistake as us).

-                    we know where the left luggage lockers are at Gare de Lyon although I doubt we will ever need to utilize this knowledge again - maybe in our lifetimes!

-                    if we hadn’t met Nicholas that day we probably still wouldn’t know what happened and why we ended up in a Paris railway station rather than the airport

-                    we are more familiar with the Paris subway system which will help us in future

-                    there were no pickpockets waiting to target vulnerable and confused travelers near us that day!