Paris by Train

September 11, 2013

Today was very hard—getting the car to Hertz early (and finding where to park it), dragging luggage around train stations, up steep stairs,

Steep stairs at Gare Dijon

aided by a very kind and strong Frenchman who helped each of us with our nearly 50-pound suitcases, getting on the train with all of our stuff and hoping it was the right train (it was), the right coach (maybe - it wasn't marked), and the right seats (really wrong here, but we had had to move fast just to get on the train and when the conductor showed up halfway to Paris, he didn't even blink - just punched our tickets) and feeling relief upon seeing a sign as the train was slowing that read “Paris Gare de Lyon.”
 

Two TGV trains like ours waiting to leave Gare de Lyon

Then, everything was in reverse order: gathering all of our bags, hauling them off the train, walking forever with them, standing in a line similar to those at DisneyWorld to wait for a taxi.  The train ride was so smooth and nice—and fast!  It made up for the craziness in finding Hertz this morning. 

Once we got in our cab, Robin breathed a sigh of relief and commented on how great it was not to be in the driver’s seat in the city.  (Paris traffic is really ugly, and there a e lots of streets that seem to have several streams of traffic interspersed going in opposite directions! - rl) As we neared our little hotel, where we stayed five years ago, Villa des Artistes, we started seeing familiar landmarks along the Boulevard de Montparnasse; we were very happy to be here and all the hard work seemed worth it.

I told Robin that I thought we were very brave to have had this long adventure, visiting six countries by plane, car, boat, and train (1,332 miles just in the car); he said it was hard to say whether “brave” was the right word or if “foolhardy” was a better one.

This cozy hotel is in an old, old building on a wonderful little “rue” (street) on the Left Bank.  The interior is snazzy modern and inspiring.  Our room is gray, black, and silver with a huge window—not as small as last night’s space, but not large either.  As I stretched out on the bed to relax after we arrived, I looked at the dark ceiling.  On it an unlabeled outline of a map of the world is etched in blue—just the lines.  I lay there studying it and counted the number of countries (states) in Africa—there are 55.  I got Robin involved in looking at it, and we were surprised by how far north France is in comparison to the U.S. 

The carpeting is such fun too—it is covered with labeled constellations. 

Each door in the hotel has a quote by a well-known artist. 

Tomorrow we have scheduled a five-hour tour to Giverny to see Monet’s gardens where he painted his water lilies and more.  I hope the weather will improve—it’s been kind of gloomy the past few days.