Category Archives: gare austerlitz

Monday 11th July 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in the Auvergne, would you believe. And at Liz and Terry’s too (well, Terry’s, actually because Liz is stuck in Normandy right now).

What has happened is that there is some urgent sorting out that needs to be done and I’m the only person who can do it. and it has to be done before July 28th. And seeing as how I don’t have Caliburn’s new insurance documents (these are essential of course) and there are a few other bits and pieces required, then the sooner I reacted the better.

Hence, at 10:03 this morning I was on a train in Leuven station.

That’s not all, of course. I was awake at 06:20, packed and sorted shortly afterwards, and upstairs having breakfast when the alarm went off at 07:00. I had a beautiful shower too in my new en-suite shower room (must take advantage of the benefits) and then I was off to the hospital.

I took no chances and went on the bus. The back door of the hospital was actually open this morning so I quickly nipped through onto the car park and over to Caliburn to grab my passport; Then I was back down to the front entrance and back on another bus to the station.

My train was at 10:03 as I said, and I was there for 08:45.It hadn’t taken long and there was plenty of time to sit and read a book.

They even have beggars on the trains now, so it seems, and as you know, that’s something that annoys me intensely.

At Bruxelles-Midi I didn’t have time to hang about. I found my train, found my seat and we piddled off almost immediately. The booking people had cut it that fine.

And it was a good job that I had gone to pick up my passport because (as I expected) there was a police control on board and someone unable to produce her passport had a very hard time of it.

The train was packed out too – hardly an empty seat anywhere.

At Paris gare du Nord I had to wait ages in a queue for a Metro ticket but the person at the counter put me right and finding the Paris-Austerlitz station for the next leg of my journey was quite straightforward (it’s about 10 stops directly down the Porte d’Italie line). We had another beggar on the metro who was going on about how hard it was to find a place to live and a job to do so I gave him a right royal piece of my mind, to a round of applause from the other passengers, and he piddled off elsewhere too.

At Austerlitz I needed to buy the ticket for my return. And there was a huge queue. 15 desks in the travel office, 8 of them manned … "PERSONNED" – ed …personned and only two of those people working. There’s a Subway sandwich place around the corner which was where I was planning to go for lunch, but badger that seeing as how the situation was in the ticket office. I was lucky to catch my train.

This train was packed too – with a mere handful of empty seats. I crammed myself in and attacked the packet of biscuits that I had brought with me for an emergency (such as this one).

Terry met me at Chateauroux as he was passing by on his way from Normandy back home. He was early at the station and so the rain was, as you might expect, late. And now I’m back here.

I’m having an early night here too because I have a lot to do tomorrow so I need an early start. But it’s all “go” right here at the moment, isn’t it?

And on Wednesday morning, at Silly o’clock, I’m back on the road (or should I say “the rails”) to head back to Leuven.

I’ll be meeting myself coming back if I keep going like this. And I’m supposed to be ill too!

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Tuesday 15th October 2013 – I changed my plans a little this morning.

I didn’t have too much to eat last night as there wasn’t all that much in the vicinity of my hotel. I had to walk for almost ever until I found a “Quick” that sold me some chips. Consequently I paid €5:95 and had the breakfast here.

hotel ibis budget etap paris airport charles de gaulleA wise decision, that, because I would have paid much more than that for a couple of coffees along the route, so when you add the orange juice, the toast and the half-baguette with strawberry jam into the equation (and when did you ever see strawberry jam in little squeezy tubes?) I more-than-had my money’s worth and that will keep me going for quite a while.

I had a good night’s sleep too. Not a single mosquito bit me and not a single fly entered into the room to buzz around my head at 04:00 in the morning. In fact I went out like a light and that was that.

Traffic was incredibly heavy on the road back to the airport and the RER train was packed too. And what with struggling up inclines and steps and dragging my suitcase along all of these corridors, I can see why I abandoned this route in favour of the TGV. However a direct train to Montlucon for just €46:00 makes up for most things, even if I do have to wait for over 2 hours for Liz to finish work. Still, there’s plenty of coffee in Montlucon and I have a book or two to finish. I hope that the coffee at Montlucon is better than that at Paris Austerlitz which was quite frankly disgusting and if I hadn’t had to pay all of €1:10 for it, would have found its way into the plant pot. It as however just as well that I drank it, because, would you believe – shock! Horror! That I have a Three-and-a-half-hour journey on my train and there is not even a hint of a buffet car. How is this possible?

Anyway, my luck was destined to change. There I was, in the station at Bourges in the middle of “Apache Blood” when I happened to remark to myself that we weretaking an inordinate amount of time to restart. It turne out that there was a bottleneck down the line and, true to form on this voyage, my travel was to be retarded by at least 20 minutes. Still, that gave me the chance to dive over the station buildings and buy a coffee. Every cloud has a silver lining of course, and it’s really an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good.

diesel locomotive 567348 gare d'austerlitz paris france montluconWe end up only 5 minutes late at Montlucon and so I have plenty of time to photograph the locomotive, a diesel number 567348, that pulled us all this way. Plenty of time indeed, because Liz isn’t due here for another two and a half hours.

So why this train then? The answer is as I said earlier. It’s a direct train. All the other trains involve a considerable amount of changes, and one or two of them even involve coach journeys. I didn’t fancy any of that for a moment.

But Liz picks me up, and she has made a beautiful curry for tea and there is even a bed for the night. I’m grateful for that – with the torrential downpour I really wasn’t looking forward to going back home in all of this.

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