April 27, 2017. Riding the rails of Europe

LOCATION:  Guingamp, Brittany, France

WEATHER:  Overcast.  Warm in Rome, snowy in Alps, warm in Paris, cloudy and cool in Brittany!

 

We had two alarms set for 4:45 AM.  One was George's phone.  He had to leave it on for the alarm, so it pinged all night long as he received Facebook birthday wishes.  I  finally gave up on trying to sleep at 4:30, and made us go directly to the station.  Of course, we got there too soon, but to me that is better than rushing.  We caught the 6:00 AM train.  

It was a high-speed direct train.  At times, it got up to 300 kms/hour (about 180 mph).  We stopped just once, in Milan. It was almost all businesmen traveling.  We arrived in Torino at 10:00 and easily made our transfer at 10:15.  The train system is very efficient.  We got to thinking how different it would be for a European to try to use AmTrack in the USA--- always late, confusing, etc.    

From Torino, our route took us through the Italian Alps. We stopped briefly at the French border for a passport check.  We stopped in several ski resort towns, including Chamonix, quite famous I think.  Then, through the French Alps, then farmland.  This train was not as fast --- lots of local stops.

 

We arrived in Paris at 4:30 PM.  We had a 6:00 PM connection to make to go to Brittany.  However, the connecting train leaves from a different station.  We figured out how to get there by bus and rode across Paris.  It is just full of sidewalk cafes and intersting looking places.  We almost missed the busstop for the train station, as it was not marked well.  But, we got off as almost everyone else did.  We were doing ok on time, but I needed to print our train tickets.  Nothing is translated into English so I couldn't figure out the machine to retrieve the tickets.  The alternative was a long, long line to talk to the ticket people.  We would not make our connection.  Approaching a meltdown, I kept trying different machines.  Finally, I peaked over a woman's shoulder as she was buying her ticket and figured it out.  (I think she thought I was trying to copy her credit card info or something).  We had a few minutes before the train departed, so bought some sushi to eat on the train.   This last train, from Brittany with a final destination of Brest in far west Brittany was another high-speed one.  Our first stop wasn't until 2 hours outside of Paris.  The passengers looked like commuters.  Three and a half hours from Paris, at 9;30 PM, we got off in Guingamp.  This is where we will meet our next homeowner tomorrow.  It is a small town with one hotel.  We had made a reservation.  When we got off the train, everyone scattered from the station.  Without wifi, we didn't know where to look for our hotel.  I asked the train station attendant who was closing up the station for the night.  He pointed and we headed off.  We found it easily as the town is pretty small.  However, the hotel was closed up for the night!  We pounded on the door, but no one answered.  At last, the same friendly train station attendant walked by and we asked him to call the hotel for us.  The hotel manager came out and let us in. Whew!    

It was a long, long day on the rails, but we are glad we did it.  We saw lots of pretty scenery.  Flying would have been an option, but we would have had to stay somewhere overnight along the way.  

 

We will be at this housesitting assignmet for about 2 weeks.  We fly out of Paris in mid-May.  We still have to figure out what we are doing for the few days after the assignment, before our flight, and how we are getting back to Paris.