7/9: After breakfast we headed to the tube, changed lines to end up at the train station that would take us to Paris. We would then need to not only change trains but also train stations. Little did we know this day would hold the most drama we’ve seen so far.
Bob's planning has been impeccable, with his accommodations and coordination of our movements on planes and trains! We arrived at the London train station with plenty of time to get through passport control, get a coffee, and briefly use the wifi for blogging before boarding the train. What we didn’t know was that the wifi on the train would be terrible, and my grand plan of catching up on the blog would be foiled. Boo!
Through the Chunnel we went, and we arrived in Paris with 1hr and 15 minutes until our next train left for Bayeux from a different train station. When Bob made the train reservation, the Trainline system made this transfer for us on paper, but…it assumes you know where to go to transfer train stations! Bob had researched this as well, and through Apple, Google, and City maps he thought we could take a tube from one train station to the next. But, when we arrived, it just wasn’t clear where we should go - we needed to get to the St. Lazare train station, but there were multiple St. Lazare stations. The 3 of us waited while Bob diligently tried to figure it out, all the while feeling the time ticking.
We decided we needed to just get there, and walked out to get a cab…but once we got to the curb we realized we needed to get in the cab line that was quite long (NO!!!) so we turned around and got in line. It seemed to be moving along fairly well at first, but as the minutes ticked along, and we weren’t completely sure how long the cab ride would be to the next station, and how long before departure the next train would close the doors, we got a bit nervous.
From my minimal interaction with one of the French cab line attendants, I sensed that he was friendly and helpful. I used my Google English to French translate and showed him my phone: “we need to get to the St. Lazare train station - is there a way to get there quickly?” He understood immediately, moved us to the front of the line, and we were loading our bags into a cab!
As we started off, the driver asked if we needed an immediate transfer, and of course yes we did! Oh, well in that case, he said, it would be E85. Whoa what?! Through broken English we asked him what it would be without an immediate transfer, and that 85 seemed to be too expensive. It was pouring rain and he told us he’d give us a good price of E70 ($75). So - we paid. A lesson we would discuss with the kids later…
We got to the station, grabbed our stuff, and ran inside. We had about 20 minutes before our train left. With lots of people all over, Bob and I desperately looked at the digital signs for which platform to run to for our train to Bayeux. We couldn’t see anything going to Bayeux. We grabbed an attendant near us and showed him our ticket; fortunately he was kind and directed us to the correct platform. The reason we didn’t immediately see the train platform listing was because it said ‘Cherbourg’, not ‘Bayeux’, because the train was continuing past Bayeux. We yelled, “Merci Merci!” to him as we ran to the platform. Onto the train 10 minutes before departure!
As we sat in our seats, feeling exceedingly thankful that we made our train, Bob applauded me for my genius (yeah that’s right ;-) in getting us to the head of the line, and we discussed the cab ride with the kids. We reviewed the situation of us being in an extreme time bind, in a city where we didn’t know the language and didn’t know where we were going, and basically being at the mercy of the cab driver. If we bluffed and said we only had $40, for example, he could have pulled over and told us to get out. If we missed our train and had to stay in Paris for the night, we’d be spending a whole bunch more money to figure that out. So - this is one of those travel experiences that happen and you do what you have to in the moment to get to the next step.
Our 2 hr train ride to Bayeux was uneventful, until it was time to get off. While we realized it was our stop, and we were ready to get out of our seats, we didn’t realize we should be standing by the doors with our duffels ready to get off. I grabbed a duffel and headed the wrong way, when Bob called to me to come the other direction. He grabbed a duffel and got to the door with the kids as the doors were closing….AHHHH WAIT! We shouted to the kids to hold the doors - they acted immediately. Simone repeatedly hit the ‘open’ button to keep the doors open, while Quinn waved his hands in between the doors to keep them from closing. Bob had 3 of the 4 bags, and he was waiting for me to get the 4th. I was seriously struggling to extract my bag from the rack - it kept getting caught on the adjacent bags. A kind Frenchman came to my rescue and helped me - we got the bag and me off the train probably just before we got yelled at by the conductor for delaying the train. Whoosh!
Sweating again for the second time today, we set out on our walk (which we thought was 2 blocks) to our apartment for 3 nights. It turns out it was 0.6 miles on a cobbled brick road. The only good things: it was a gorgeous night, not raining, a beautiful town, and most importantly, Quinn and Simone were real troopers! It turns out our place was RIGHT next to the Notre Dame Cathedral!! After a wrong turn schlepping our bags, we decided to ‘off road’ it to get to our place!
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| Simone on the right :-) |
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| We’ll have LOTS of pics of this church. We couldn’t get enough! A day of exploring Bayeux tomorrow! |
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| The view from our bedroom window |
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