This past weekend I went to Blois and I experienced another type of train in the process.
Blois is a small, old town to the east of Nantes, and you can take the TER train there, which is a ride of roughly two hours. Like on the TGV, I sprung for first class because I like having a whole row to myself, and on the TER like on the TGV, you can get solo seats. Quite frankly, the TER first class is nicer than the TGV first class--the solo seats are divided by little plastic walls, there are places to hang coats in between each seat, and room for your bag right behind the seat so you don't have to leave it in the communal baggage area where it might get squished. Also, I was carrying eight pears in my bag and so I was more concerned about bags getting squished than the average passenger. I wrote plenty on the train there, and had a great time looking out the windows, since I'd taken a train at 11:18am and not after sunset like my TGV experience.
When I arrived in Blois, it was 1pm and I'd already been warned by TripAdvisor that not only could I not check in to the hotel I'd booked before 5pm, but the hotel itself was pretty much locked until that time. I decided to take as long as I could to actually find the hotel, maybe eat something, and also scout out my touristy options in the area for the next four days. I walked around Blois, finding a large shopping center, two nice parks, dozens of signs pointing to the castle, and finally the hotel. I found it at 2:30pm, pushed on the front door, and, finding it to be indeed locked, I headed up the road and found that I'd made a circle to the train station, so I sat myself in a cafe and stayed there for two and a half hours, making a lemon tart and a double espresso last as long as I could. I finished reading a book there, too, Reves de Femmes: Une Enfance au Harem, that I'd picked up in Morocco.
At five, I got myself back to the hotel, checked in, and spent the rest of the night watching French TV and writing.
Saturday morning I woke up early and rushed off to the castle, to find that I was pretty much the first person there and that the art museum wing of the structure was closed for the week. The Chateau at Blois puts a lot of emphasis on architecture of the era on the first floor and holds an immense amount of artifacts in the royal apartments. The most interesting part of the chateau, and the part that is the most different from the rest of the castles that I've seen in France, is the dizzying tile patterns on the floors. They are truly incredible and make you feel a little like you're in Wonderland.
After the castle, I walked down a long staircase to find that there was a street market going on! I love markets maybe almost more than any other type of tourist activity. I walked as slowly as possible, circling the market three times and finding the Blois natural history museum.
Thinking this was a good idea, I entered and tried to buy a ticket, only to be told that I would have to make the rounds in half an hour and that I should come back after I was full of food and happy. So I went back to the market and acquired chicken couscous, chebekia, and little sugared brioche bites, which I ate at the hotel.
The natural history museum was very different from the Nantes one. Firstly, it was tiny, its temporary exhibit featured enormous replicas of all the bugs found in the WWI trenches, and also it was poorly lit and had forest noises playing, which made it insanely creepy.
The Maison de Magie was closed, and so I found myself shopping instead, and I ended up with more books (someone help me).
That whole day I'd been checking my phone to see if I was spending a good amount of time at every destination, and when I was sitting in the room that evening, I realized that I just really, really wanted to be back at Nantes. I wanted to be in my own room, with easy access to tea.
The next morning, I changed my ticket from Tuesday to Sunday night. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a refund on the hotel room, but it was a dirt cheap hotel and I took really long showers to make up for it. I walked around in the morning to find everything closed, then got to the station, got on the train, and went back to home base.
Dany was panicked when I came through the door, but after assuring her I wasn't sick, just lonely, she calmed down. She'd in fact warned me about that, about being too lonely and bored in Blois, and she was happy to see me.
In a bonus for coming back early, it turned out that university classes were held today. It's very odd because the university had vacation when IES didn't and IES has vacation when the university still has classes, which is confusing and a little frustrating, but at least I came back in time.
Showing posts with label train. Show all posts
Showing posts with label train. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Un long week-end à Londres
So I spent the weekend in London with Jess after arriving in Victoria station on the British Pullman. On the first night, we went with two of her friends to a real pub, so I checked that off the list. I wanted some Irish coffee, but they were out of coffee, so I just stole sips of Jess's beer and shared pulled pork quesadillas with her. After, we did some awkward grocery shopping: lemon cakes and yogurt and wine.
The next morning we caught the tube to Camden Market, where we ate pierogis, browsed a bookstore, and then got lattes and shopped more. I acquired two items of clothing, both of which feature an owl pattern. I also talked Jess into getting an enormous leather journal with a scary engraved pentagram on the cover.
We dropped our things off at her flat, put on tights, did our hair, and rushed off to tea at the Swan at Shakespeare's Globe. On the way there, we found a man clicking away at a typewriter alongside the river, next to street performers. The sign in front of his mint green typewriter read:
Literature While You Wait: short stories, poems, suicide notes. Pay what you goddamn like.
I would not shut up about it as we reached the restaurant.
Tea was the usual tiny sandwiches, scones, and little sweets including a citrusy custard we couldn't identify (pineapple) and the darkest chocolate cake bite. It was so rich it almost made me sick. It took a while to get the check, but then once we did, we walked back along the river and I pestered Jess enough that we finally went back to the literature-while-you-wait guy. After he explained it, I asked for a poem and we were told to wait for ten to fifteen minutes. We walked around, passed several of London's floating chair people, and one accordion player playing right under a No Busking sign. The typist eventually found us and told us that my poem was done, so I bought a poem for three pounds about missed connections in an art gallery.
We ordered Chinese food that night, popped the Orient Express champagne, and started our new novels.
The next morning, we woke up with every intention of doing tourist things in London! Yes, we declared. Today we will see Saint Paul's Cathedral and also maybe the British Museum. Yes, good. We debated for all of five minutes before we agreed that we did not in fact want to take a tour and instead we wanted food, so we made a quick reservation at the Swan, pulled our clothes on, and ran over for breakfast. I had my first full English breakfast, Jess had eggs Benedict, and we both had mimosas, which masquerade under the name "Bucks Fizz" in the UK, apparently. We returned to her flat after food, changed back into pajamas, and wrote.
That night, Leah showed up and we ordered Chinese food and wrote and discussed politics and it all felt very West Hall from last year.
I ended my weekend with another writing sprint the next morning and then I got on the last train of the weekend, which took me to Heathrow Airport. The last exciting aspect of the trip was that I had the whole row to myself on the plane to Madrid and that I set foot in Spain, but it was only for two hours.
And next weekend is vacation too.
The next morning we caught the tube to Camden Market, where we ate pierogis, browsed a bookstore, and then got lattes and shopped more. I acquired two items of clothing, both of which feature an owl pattern. I also talked Jess into getting an enormous leather journal with a scary engraved pentagram on the cover.
We dropped our things off at her flat, put on tights, did our hair, and rushed off to tea at the Swan at Shakespeare's Globe. On the way there, we found a man clicking away at a typewriter alongside the river, next to street performers. The sign in front of his mint green typewriter read:
Literature While You Wait: short stories, poems, suicide notes. Pay what you goddamn like.
I would not shut up about it as we reached the restaurant.
Tea was the usual tiny sandwiches, scones, and little sweets including a citrusy custard we couldn't identify (pineapple) and the darkest chocolate cake bite. It was so rich it almost made me sick. It took a while to get the check, but then once we did, we walked back along the river and I pestered Jess enough that we finally went back to the literature-while-you-wait guy. After he explained it, I asked for a poem and we were told to wait for ten to fifteen minutes. We walked around, passed several of London's floating chair people, and one accordion player playing right under a No Busking sign. The typist eventually found us and told us that my poem was done, so I bought a poem for three pounds about missed connections in an art gallery.
We ordered Chinese food that night, popped the Orient Express champagne, and started our new novels.
The next morning, we woke up with every intention of doing tourist things in London! Yes, we declared. Today we will see Saint Paul's Cathedral and also maybe the British Museum. Yes, good. We debated for all of five minutes before we agreed that we did not in fact want to take a tour and instead we wanted food, so we made a quick reservation at the Swan, pulled our clothes on, and ran over for breakfast. I had my first full English breakfast, Jess had eggs Benedict, and we both had mimosas, which masquerade under the name "Bucks Fizz" in the UK, apparently. We returned to her flat after food, changed back into pajamas, and wrote.
That night, Leah showed up and we ordered Chinese food and wrote and discussed politics and it all felt very West Hall from last year.
I ended my weekend with another writing sprint the next morning and then I got on the last train of the weekend, which took me to Heathrow Airport. The last exciting aspect of the trip was that I had the whole row to myself on the plane to Madrid and that I set foot in Spain, but it was only for two hours.
And next weekend is vacation too.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Un Voyage de luxe
This past weekend was my grand vacation. It was incredible and exhausting and this post is going to have to detail the fact that I was on five different kinds of trains--four of them within 24 hours.
Now, I have little to no experience on trains. Supposedly I learned to walk on a train in New Zealand, but I don't remember that. I have very vague memories of being on a train to Virginia that was very late and had a few drunk businessmen on it. In any case, this was the first time that I truly remember being on a train.
I left Nantes at 6pm from the Gare SNCF on a TGV (Train à grande vitesse/super fast train). I'd sprung for first class on the train and booked a solo seat because if there are things I enjoy, it's wide, cushy chairs and being alone in a row on transportation so I don't have to bother other people to get up.
There were very few people on the train and it was very quiet, so I wrote a lot, read a little, and tried to look out the window, but it was dark already, so I ended up just looking awkwardly at my own reflection. The train arrived at the Paris Montparnasse station and I had to take the metro to Gare de l'Est, which was actually very easy, except I think I broke the ticket selling kiosk.
The next morning, I had a ticket for the Orient Express.
It's not the same Orient Express that ran in the 20s since that train was sold at auction, but someone bought those cars and now the train runs anew. There is a car on the train that was used as a brothel in WWII and everything is very old and very fancy. I found that it existed after a short trip through Google and then realized that one of their Paris-London trips coincided with a long weekend when I had been planning on visiting Jess and Leah up in the UK.
I spent the night at a Holiday Inn right across the street from the station before getting up early and heading to the platform for check in at 8:30am, an hour before departure as was recommended. The train was already waiting when I arrived--it was deep, glossy blue, with lettering in brass. I was given my tickets and travel documents before a woman named Nastasia led me to the cafe to wait for my compartment to be ready. She escorted me back to the train where I met the manager of the car, Pierre, who was dressed in a white double-breasted coat. I'd written that the purpose of my journey was to celebrate my letter of admission to Sciences Po. If you tell the Orient Express that you are celebrating something, I suppose they tell the entire staff, because everyone from a very distinguished tour guide to the stewards in their bright blue suits with their round blue hats congratulated me.
I had the 10:30am breakfast sitting, so I headed out of my private cabin early and ran across a tour and just sort of pretended that I belonged there, which allowed me to learn more about the history of the train. Breakfast was actually brunch which was actually more like lunch. I struggled with the scrambled eggs because I didn't know which fork to use, but it was delicious and topped with smoked salmon.
I love smoked salmon.
The second course was lobster with mashed potatoes and then the meal finished with caramelized apple cake and vanilla ice cream. One super benefit of travelling by yourself is that every table got five chocolates, no matter how many people were sitting there, and so I got to eat all five of them.
We arrived in Calais at around 2:30pm, ready for our transfer to the coach buses that would take us through the tunnel. I count the tunnel train, which could hold all of our coach buses, as the third train. It was uneventful, but I was tucked away in a bus.
The fourth train was the British Pullman, a sister train of the Orient Express. On this train, we had an afternoon tea: sandwiches, scones, and little cakes.
Some of the sandwiches were smoked salmon.
I arrived in Victoria Station in London, about an hour later than expected, and before my phone died I was furiously Facebook-messaging Jess, and fortunately she found me, put me on the tube, and we got to her place and even had the energy to leave again to go to a pub that night.
That was a lot of trains. You can even count the Paris metro and the London tube as trains too, and then there were even more.
Now, I have little to no experience on trains. Supposedly I learned to walk on a train in New Zealand, but I don't remember that. I have very vague memories of being on a train to Virginia that was very late and had a few drunk businessmen on it. In any case, this was the first time that I truly remember being on a train.
I left Nantes at 6pm from the Gare SNCF on a TGV (Train à grande vitesse/super fast train). I'd sprung for first class on the train and booked a solo seat because if there are things I enjoy, it's wide, cushy chairs and being alone in a row on transportation so I don't have to bother other people to get up.
There were very few people on the train and it was very quiet, so I wrote a lot, read a little, and tried to look out the window, but it was dark already, so I ended up just looking awkwardly at my own reflection. The train arrived at the Paris Montparnasse station and I had to take the metro to Gare de l'Est, which was actually very easy, except I think I broke the ticket selling kiosk.
The next morning, I had a ticket for the Orient Express.
It's not the same Orient Express that ran in the 20s since that train was sold at auction, but someone bought those cars and now the train runs anew. There is a car on the train that was used as a brothel in WWII and everything is very old and very fancy. I found that it existed after a short trip through Google and then realized that one of their Paris-London trips coincided with a long weekend when I had been planning on visiting Jess and Leah up in the UK.
I spent the night at a Holiday Inn right across the street from the station before getting up early and heading to the platform for check in at 8:30am, an hour before departure as was recommended. The train was already waiting when I arrived--it was deep, glossy blue, with lettering in brass. I was given my tickets and travel documents before a woman named Nastasia led me to the cafe to wait for my compartment to be ready. She escorted me back to the train where I met the manager of the car, Pierre, who was dressed in a white double-breasted coat. I'd written that the purpose of my journey was to celebrate my letter of admission to Sciences Po. If you tell the Orient Express that you are celebrating something, I suppose they tell the entire staff, because everyone from a very distinguished tour guide to the stewards in their bright blue suits with their round blue hats congratulated me.
I had the 10:30am breakfast sitting, so I headed out of my private cabin early and ran across a tour and just sort of pretended that I belonged there, which allowed me to learn more about the history of the train. Breakfast was actually brunch which was actually more like lunch. I struggled with the scrambled eggs because I didn't know which fork to use, but it was delicious and topped with smoked salmon.
I love smoked salmon.
The second course was lobster with mashed potatoes and then the meal finished with caramelized apple cake and vanilla ice cream. One super benefit of travelling by yourself is that every table got five chocolates, no matter how many people were sitting there, and so I got to eat all five of them.
We arrived in Calais at around 2:30pm, ready for our transfer to the coach buses that would take us through the tunnel. I count the tunnel train, which could hold all of our coach buses, as the third train. It was uneventful, but I was tucked away in a bus.
The fourth train was the British Pullman, a sister train of the Orient Express. On this train, we had an afternoon tea: sandwiches, scones, and little cakes.
Some of the sandwiches were smoked salmon.
I arrived in Victoria Station in London, about an hour later than expected, and before my phone died I was furiously Facebook-messaging Jess, and fortunately she found me, put me on the tube, and we got to her place and even had the energy to leave again to go to a pub that night.
That was a lot of trains. You can even count the Paris metro and the London tube as trains too, and then there were even more.
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