A surprise visit to Paris

We left La Chapelle-Gaudin, and Helen, on Sunday.  She drove us to Poitiers, bravely joining the taxi ranks to drop us at the door of the train station.  We said quick goodbyes, and know we will keep in touch.

Then the saga began.  Our TGV (fast) train was due to depart at 3:25pm but the departure board told us it was delayed by an hour.  Not as bad as the two earlier trains which had still not arrived and were expected to be two and a half hours late.  There was a nice man wandering around in a TGV uniform and we approached him and, firstly, asked if he spoke English as our French is limited, a lot.  We were in luck.  He was able to tell us that a tree had fallen on the track, halting all the trains using that track.  Our train would arrive about an hour late, which meant we would miss our connection at St Pierre des Corps, but we should be able to get on the following connection and arrive at our destination, Vendome, only an hour late.  I called our new host, Darienne, to let her know of the delay as she was due to pick us up in Vendome at 5pm, and said I’d phone again once we’d got on the connecting train through to Vendome – we didn’t want her turning up there at 6pm and finding we hadn’t been on the expected train.

Back at Poitiers station, we remained in the main hall until the platform number for our train was displayed, then followed a maze of signs to find the lift that would take us onto the bridge and over to our platform.  Having made it that far, we checked the diagram that shows where the carriages will be located on the platform – carriage 19 was the second to last at the back of the train so we headed in that direction and settled down to wait, standing along with most other passengers as there is little seating on platforms – not usually a problem because trains tend to run on time so you arrive just a reasonable time before scheduled departure and do not have to stand around for long.  In fact the TGV ticket recommends you are at the platform at least two minutes before the scheduled departure.  I think I’d be a bit stressed if I were to cut it that fine!

Finally, trains started arriving and departing and it wasn’t long before our one arrived.  But, strangely, our carriage wasn’t quite where we’d expected and we had to trot further down the platform to find it.  Having found it we left our big bags on the luggage rack (always a disconcerting feeling) and made our way to our seats to find a man seated in one of them.  Luckily, he spoke a little English and I showed him our tickets and he was just getting his out to check when an official looking man in a cap turned up and asked ‘Madame’ for her tickets.  He directed us out of the carriage and said we had to go to another, at the front of the train – to be more accurate he’d said a lot of something in French until I said “we don’t speak French”, to which he replied with those basic instructions, plus a tidbit about “the train leaves in two minutes so you’ll have to run” - these trains are very long.  Oh dear.  So we ran, heavy day packs on our backs, wheeling our big Kathmandu travel packs behind us, weaving around the people standing on the platform preparing to wave goodbye to their friends and family on the train.

I’ll divert a little in my story to tell you of a discovery I made early on in our time in Reading, and the decision I made following that discovery.  Where we were living in Reading was less than a half hour’s walk from the train station, and a couple of times we cut it a bit fine.  Often this was because it can take longer to get your tickets from the machine than you expect.  Anyway, we got into a pattern of me buying the tickets while Nigel checked the board to find out what time the next train departed and from which platform.  If we were running a bit late, we would then have to ‘get our roller-skates on’ to get to the platform – jogging through the station, up the escalator, along the bridge, down the stairs and then flying through the doors.  I think it was the next and final step which was the nail in the coffin, so to speak.  If there were seats available, we’d plonk ourselves down in seats to recover ….. and then my back would spasm, painfully.  It would usually only take a minute or so to recover, but it was scary (thrown on top of already being stressed about nearly missing the train), and altogether not very nice.  After the second time I decided it was a ridiculous situation and I declared that in future if we were running late for a train, we would miss it and we would get the next train. 

Fast-forward to platform 2 at Poitiers Station.  We had run towards the front of the train to find that they were all first class carriages and were certainly not carriage 19.  The platform staff blew the whistle.  We’d just passed the third carriage from the front where the entrance to the carriage was crammed with people standing.  Left with little choice, and finding only two people in the entrance of the next carriage, we climbed aboard, and the doors closed.  Phew!  I was not in the best of moods.  'Angry' is a pretty accurate description of how I felt about what had happened.  I haven’t been angry for a very long time.  Anyway, there was a woman sitting on one of the fold down/pop up seats in the entrance way, with her stuff on the one next to her.  She moved her stuff and I gratefully collapsed onto the seat, still gulping for air after our run.  And had another of my ‘episodes’ – back spasms, a few moans and groans thrown in for good measure, tears in the eyes.  As usual, it settled down again, and I just wanted to burst into tears.  Luckily, Nigel was by this stage sitting opposite me and held my hand until I’d calmed down. 

We’d been looking forward to this train trip, but instead we were sitting on crappy seats with limited views of the countryside flying passed us.  But there’s no use crying over spilled milk.  We were at last on our way.  We would miss our booked connection, but hopefully we’d get on the next and we’d be in Vendome at 6pm.

A quick look at a map will show you the locations of Poitiers, St Pierre des Corps and Vendome.  From Vendome you would have to stay on the train another 45 minutes to reach Paris, so how does Paris fit into this story?  The trip from Poitiers to St Pierre des Corps takes 45 minutes, so 45 minutes after departing Poitiers we were mentally preparing ourselves for the imminent slowing down of the train, and disembarkation.  Except the train didn’t slow down.  We got out our phones, turned on the GPS and ran Google Maps to find out how far away we were.  They couldn't pin-point our location, probably because we had limited access to the satellites through our pokey window.  So Nigel bravely tried a little French on the woman sitting with us.  She spoke enough English for us to understand, so, without the added confusion of smatterings of French, I’ll explain...

We were on the wrong train and we were on a non-stop journey to Paris.  We could do nothing but join her in laughing at our situation!  We were very lucky though - she was a TGV employee and explained that this train had come in to platform two just before our train.  The trip number was one digit different from our one, but I hadn’t even looked for that – I’d just been looking at the carriage numbers.  She spoke to the ticket collector and he looked up the trains out of Paris back to Vendome and she wrote down the trip number and departure time for us.  He also wrote a note on our ticket to explain the error, to reduce the chance that we’d have to pay for the extra trip.  In the event, on our arrival in Paris, our ‘rescuer’, having pointed out the Eiffel Tower in the distance as we caught a glimpse of it in the distance between buildings, assured us she had the time to take us to our return train and ensure we got free seats.  She spoke to the men at the help desk on the platform next to the train and one of them asked us, in English, to follow him please.  We quickly said our goodbyes and again said our thanks to her and followed our guide.  He kindly pointed us to very comfortable seats in a first class carriage and we most happily settled back to enjoy our 45 minute trip to Vendome.  I phoned Darienne and said we’d arrive at 7pm.  Thankfully she was still able to pick us up and we’ve now spent a day in our new ‘home’, a beautiful French chateau ….. but that’s a story for another day!