We woke early and made our way up to the Roma Termini to catch our train to Paris. We got their early as we wanted to be stress free and have time to get on board etc…we found the platform and waited with some other travellers. The train was at the station and we walked almost the entire length of the platform to find our reserved carriage but the train was locked, so we waited patiently. All of a sudden, the train started moving out !!! what the ???? There was no nothing !!! oh my ..what shall we do now ? Then we noticed the other guys were heading back down the platform… so we followed, moving faster and faster as we finally figured out that the platform had been changed.. we ended up running, lugging those bags, with me straining to breathe all the way down one platform and then up the next one…we never made it to our carriage but had to throw the bags and ourselves on board as the train started to move…. man were we exhausted after that. It took ages to find and move through the train to our seats, lugging the bags through the carriages..hmm , not happy jan !!! We collapsed into our seats and tried to cool off and get the wheezing under control….we didn’t move again till we reached Milan, some 4 hours later. Here we were to change trains for the Milan - Paris section. Wary of the system now, we waited near the signboard and waited and waited…as the time slipped by and the train was delayed again and again….hmmm…we then realised that we would not get to see any of the snow covered mountains we had so wanted to see, as it would now be dark as we went by…bugger !!! This was the bit of train travel that Glenn had raved about for the last 30 years and now…. hmmmm - but there was nothing we could do about it, so we had to chill. The train finally left Milan but we arrived in Paris 1 1/2 hours late and all the other local trains had ceased running…so another taxi but this time, we hope to get some refund from the Eurrail. Thankfully, it was cheaper than Italy and we finally got to bed about 2pm. Our room was so small and one of the most expensive of all our rooms - New York, Paris and London are all so expensive !! but it was clean and the shower hot. What we didn’t realise then was that the trains ran right under our room every 10 mins or so and we were soon woken by a deep rumbling and shaking…. groan….mostly we were able to sleep through it but I found it quite a pain and won’t stay there again. We also won’t stay there again as they tried to charge us 46 euros for using a phone card in our room !!!!
Glenn actually got stuck in the shower too as it was so small - that was funny !! We took it easy the next day and then began to explore the city - lots of walking in miserable conditions, which didn’t help me get better either. Glenn actually got over his cold really well, in a few days - not me !!! We found it very tiring fighting the wind and trying to keep warm, so we cut some days down and went home and watched the one english channel CNN… boring !! We did learn a lot about other European countries though from the advertising on tv….he he … like it is easier to set up a business in Georgia than Germany - bet you didn’t know that ? ! CNN repeats its news so often we could go out and see the same story again when we got home the next day !!!
We found the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower (we hadn’t seen it by the last night, so we set off from our hotel in the rain and walked the 8km there and back - it was well worth it with the twinkling lights on it..) lots of other places - some intentionally and some not…overall, we enjoyed Paris more than Rome - maybe it reminded us of Buenos Aires ?? We did the eat at home caper with a few nice meals out…the fridge in our room didn’t work so we toleerated warm wine a few nights before we got desperate for a cold one, and went to a restaurant - only to be served a warm rose !!!!
One special day was when we went out to the Palace of Versailles - this was on Glenn’s wish list so we decided to risk the weather and go. Luckily for us, we had a clear morning…after getting our train there and buying tickets we decided to see the gardens first. They would be magnificent in spring !! as they were still wonderful in winter.. we took a big walk around them, found the temple of love and then walked back to the palace. We made it just in time as they were closing the gardens due to a “meteorological event” that was coming - in other words, a huge storm !!! timing is everything !!!
The palace was magnificent and the audio commentary really good - we did the whole thing almost but you do get all “palaced ” out !!! it is so lavish and we found we got a bit sick of all that indulgence but we really enjoyed our visit… it was a great day.
We went out for dinner that night to finish our time in Paris and got to bed early as we had a train to catch down to Tours in the morning.
