Safely home

Our train from Avignon proved to be our only real train mix up of the holiday and it wasn't really our fault. There are two stations in Avignon - Avignon Centre and Avignon TGV - and we were expecting to get the 12.38 from Avignon TGV to Paris. However, when Benjamin went to get our reservations for it, the ticket office woman told him that the train left from Avignon Centre. So we assumed it did and since there was a train leaving Avignon Centre for Paris at 12.39, we assumed that was the one we were booked on. Only once we were on it and realised it had several intermediary stops did we twig it was the same train as our reservations were for and that the Avignon ticket woman had told us the wrong thing. The ticket man spotted our reservations were for the wrong train and spurted a torrent of French at us which we couldn't understand at all, but Benjamin thought he might have meant that we needed to pay something at Paris. Having no mind to end up with a hefty fine, we decided to escape at Lyon which has hourly services to Paris and get ourselves some correct reservations.

Our train from Avignon arrived at Lyon's airport station which is some way from Lyon so we caught the shuttle bus into Lyon and Benjamin left me with our baggage and went off to try to get us onto the next train to Paris which left at 4, and hoping we wouldn't be too late as we were due to meet our friend Jessica there and were already running behind. Benjamin appeared some time later with the sorry news that there were no reservations available until the 7 o'clock train! This isn't because there weren't any seats available - it's because the French train companies don't like giving reservations to people like us with rail passes when they might be able to sell the seat to someone who would pay them for it. Quite how many people were likely to do that less than half an hour before a train's departure, I don't know, but we did know before setting off on holiday that France had a reputation for being difficult over the issue.

That left us with over 3 hours in Lyon so we dumped our bags into a luggage locker and headed for a park (that Benjamin had been to previously) to relax for a couple of hours. It was a very pretty, large and popular park, even including a zoo which we didn't see, and a very pleasant place to while away the hours. We also went on Lyon's metro system to get to an internet cafe to contact Jessica and the hotel to let them know about our delay, grabbed some food, and were very grateful to finally get onto the 7 o'clock train! Incidentally, we were booked onto carriage 17 and initially we could only see carriages 1-8 which, after the day of trains we'd had, was worrying. It turned out that our train to Paris was two TGVs stuck together and ours just hadn't turned up yet! We finally reached our hotel at about 10pm and, after a confab with Jessica, headed straight for bed.

We went to Versailles on our first full day. It was the one thing I really wanted to do in Paris and I wasn't disappointed. Room after room of grandeur and splendour with gold shining everywhere... And it was free since we're EU citizens aged 25 or under :) The gardens were really nice too, especially the huge fountain which is only on for an hour a day, presumably because it gets through so much water! We hired bikes in the afternoon and tootled around the grounds for an hour and they meant we got to the far end of the Grand Canal. There was patchy cloud so we were in the shade but could see down to Versailles gleaming in the sun, which was beautiful.

We went to Flunch in the evening, which is a jolly eat what you want sort of place where you can see the staff cooking various food options and can help yourself to whatever you want, including heaping on as many vegetables as you like. Benjamin and I have both been there before and it's a decent place for getting a filling meal at low cost (I quote Benjamin: "Flunch - living the dream!"). If we'd realised they'd changed things since last time and there were now microwaves, our food would have been hotter and probably pleasanter but nothing could impinge on the deliciousness of my strawberry tart. On the downside, when we came out on the restaurant to go to the metro station right outside on the door, we did find ourselves in the middle of a French police confrontation involving baton wielding and lots of shrieking. We didn't stop to ask questions but made a dive for the stairs and got safely away from it all!

We began our last full day abroad with a walk from Jessica's guidebook which took in several minor Parisian landmarks. These included a lovely park with a lake and a (mock?) Roman temple perched on top of a hill, a church with a mightily impressive wooden porch, and some views across Paris. It took most of the morning since Benjamin and I were increasingly quick to tire after four weeks of travelling. Afterwards, we headed out to La Grande Arche de la Defense which is a huge building in Paris' business district, is (almost) in line with the Arc de Triomphe and is an almost perfect cube, though hollow in the middle. It's mostly offices but there's a lift up to the top which has good views over Paris and a computer museum. Benjamin got very nostalgic there! We played Scrabble on the roof while we rested and then, after stopping at a patisserie to stock up on sweet sugary things (tarte aux framboises for me, apple muffin for Benjamin), we went to the ultimate Parisian landmark: the Eiffel Tower. I hadn't been to the top before as it had been shut on my previous visit and Benjamin and I hadn't been up together so we braved the queues and made it to the top just as the sun was starting to go down and bathing everything in a soft pinky light, which was gorgeous.

As the remark about the sun suggests, it was getting late by this time and we were starving so we headed to Notre Dame which has many restaurants in the surrounding roads. We found a nice one with a three course meal for 15 Euros and feasted extremely well there. The chips that accompanied my steak were particularly tasty, as was the apple tart for dessert.

The following morning was our last in Paris; our train was at 14.10 back to London. We stocked up on presents and walked to the science museum which, had we had time to make paying to go in it worthwhile, would probably have been really good. It certainly looked it and the gift shop had lots of fun things in it, though we didn't buy anything.

Our Eurostar ended up being 15-20 minutes into St Pancras thanks to speed restrictions around Lille so we had only about half an hour to get across to Paddington to make our connection. Fortunately the Circle line west from St Pancras was one of the few lines to be running and even more fortunately given the number of people waiting for the train, it was empty. We made good progress until the Edgware Road Vortex of Doom where we always have to wait for several minutes but we made it to Paddington with a few minutes until our train was due to go. However, the tannoy was instructing everyone to get on the train immediately so it could prepare to go and it was something of a frantic run to get there, but we made it!

We're now back in Oxford, our fridge and freezer are starting to look restocked and the mountain of post has mostly been opened. A good night's sleep has been had and it's back to work tomorrow... In the coming days, we'll do at least one more post and get the photos uploaded too.

Sur le pont d`Avignon...

Hello from southern France! It`s been a while since the last update - indeed we have stayed in three different places these last four nights - so I better start off where we finished from in our last post.

The three hour bus to Andorra was not too nauseating for either of us and the scenery was nice. The capital itself was as implausible as I remembered it to be - far too much squeezed into a tiny valley - a very unique place. However a surprise awaited us when we went to our hotel - our room stank of cigarette smoke, and when we asked for a no smoking room we were told that no such thing existed in Andorra! You see, Andorra is not part of the EU so is not subject to the anti-smoking rules prevalent across the rest of Europe. As we walked around, we found many people smoking, vending machines everywhere, huge boxes of cigarettes available at cheap prices and smoking products being advertised (which has been banned in the UK for many years). We didn`t spend too much time in our room because of this.

On our full day in Andorra we went to the village of Ordino, which was quite pretty and had loads of museums... we went to the Postal Museum, the only stately home in Andorra, the iconography museum and the museum of miniatures all in the space of 3 hours and all for the cost of €10 total. They were of varying quality but we enjoyed and giggled our way through them :) After that, we went up a cable car for some lovely views of this mountain country. One place we didn`t go to but nonetheless provided us with much amusement was the pin museum - we speculated on what exciting exhibits could be found there and made up lame jokes, eg I can`t quite pin down what is so exciting about the pin museum...

Then it was back to our smelly room for an early night as we had to catch a 5:45 bus the next morning! This was followed by a 40 minute wait for the train station in France, during which we both got VERY cold... eventually though we made it to our next destination, Carcassonne, some 7 hours after leaving Andorra. It`s not that it was a terribly long way away, just that it takes a while to get down from the hills.

Carcassonne is home to a beautifully restored large medieval castle, which dates back mainly to the 12th century, but the place has been inhabited since Roman times. Entry was free for us, because we are aged 25 or under and are EU citizens, yay! We invested in an audio guide which was fun, and took many lovely pictures. The day worked out quite well as we didn`t feel rushed despite the early start but still felt we had done all we wanted to in Carcassonne.

(I have 8 minutes left on the internet now so the rest may seem a bit rushed!)

Unfortunately, after that early start the next day entailed an early-ish start as we got the 7:42 train to Avignon. All went well and we enjoyed a lovely (dopey) day in this historic old walled town. It is home to a famous bridge, built some 800 years ago at a length of over 900m. However only 4 of the original 22 arches remain now but the history was interesting. We also went to the Papal palace - the popes took up residence here for a while in the 13th and 14th centuries (from what we can recall) due to instability in Rome. It`s a big place and quite interesting though I was quite tired!

In less than 2 hours we are off on our high speed TGV train to Paris where we shall be meeting up with a friend from home and spending the following 3 days with her before heading home. Of course the end of a holiday is sad but we are looking forwards to some our creature comforts again.