Getting to Paris was fairly smooth, but the legendary Charles de Gaulle Airport wasn't about to let it be that easy. I got through Frankfurt without having my passport checked even once - I picked up my boarding card by inserting my bank card into an automated checkin machine, then scanned the bar code on it to get past the gate and into the aircraft. David had a slight delay, but the real fun began when we realised that we had landed in different terminals. In the end I asked him to aim for the RER (mass transit commuter lines) in his terminal and I'd just try to find him. The shuttle between terminals is a bit like an old-style rollercoaster ride and takes forever.
Then it was out into Paris' public transport system, which rumbled along to Chatelet-les-Halles, the metro station I was most afraid of when I lived there as a kid. The RER section wasn't as bad as I remembered the metro part being - more people and more lights. Then it was one more stop to Gare de Lyon, which we would leave from the next morning. Despite it being nearly 11pm there were open cafes, and we had warm goat's cheese salad and a Savoyarde flammkuchen with mushrooms, cheese and bacon. I navigated from the station to the hotel, then David navigated us back when I got hopelessly off track. The Hotel des Trois Gares was neatly tucked into a corner at the end of a footbridge across a canal and we had a nice quiet night there (the only downside about the place was the miniscule lift - you would want to be friendly to use it).
The next morning, after commiserating with the man on reception about France's defeat by the Netherlands the night before and seeing Ireland's 'No' vote splashed across the front pages, we headed to Gare de Lyon and grabbed some warm drinks before boarding a train for Fontainebleau-Avon. It was not a good morning for coffee - at the hotel it was stewed and cold (a rare combination) and at the station more like water. Half of the hour-long journey was spent sitting at an intermediate station, but then we arrived through steadily increasing amounts of forest to Fontainebleau. Or, maybe more accurately, to its outskirts. Not realising the scale of the map we walked in, which took almost half an hour. But we found the hotel easily, and they let us check in and get the key card early. We headed out for a pizza and dessert at a cafe next door - narrowly avoiding a rain shower - and then headed back in to plan but ended up sleeping for a while... obviously we both needed it.
We spent the rest of the evening watching Stardust on DVD, which was a lot of fun. My favourite line of the movie: "But you were a mouse! You wanted cheese!" We realised at one point that as David had brought me over some clothes, my new music player, a very large pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a USB headset - there was no way I was going to get everything back in to my rucksack along with my laptop and camera (which I didn't really need anyway as David had brought his much smaller one). So, case swap it was. Must bring it back in July.
Somewhat more refreshed the next morning, we left our cases at the very nice Hotel Napoleon and headed out. After picking up a map of the Forest of Fontainebleau, I realised that Nemours, where we went on family holidays when we lived in Paris, was quite a bit further than I had thought and would probably require a return to the train station. Damn. The weather was also quite unsettled, with half an hour of sunshine followed by ten minutes of torrential rain. Not really the kind of weather you want for going and rambling around (and knowing me, getting lost in) a forest, no matter how lovely the rocks are.
We resigned ourselves to staying in the town where we could find shelter, which was no bad thing. Lunch was had at a cafe and patisserie we had seen the day before, some nice quiches followed by a raspberry souffle for himself and a coffee religieuse that almost made me ill - I seem to have lost my sugar tolerance somewhat. There were plenty of places in the town to wander around and buildings to admire, then we explored the chateau gardens and did a quick bit of boating on the carp lake (just got out in time as it started to rain again - although we were equally worried about being capsized by one of the giant fish). We even went on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the French Garden and out a little way into the forest, which was lovely but made you appreciate modern suspension. Amazing how even rain can be enjoyable when you're somewhere else on holiday.
After spending a few hours around the chateau and realising that the weather wasn't going to improve, we set off for the station again, this time by bus. The train back was much quicker, and we were in Gare de Lyon over half an hour before we had planned.
For the next half an hour or so, we were reminded why we don't come to France very often. The Japanese restaurant we had seen on Friday was closed, as were the Chinese and Italian ones. Which left the Fruits de Mer (seafood) and Savoyarde restaurants - none of which had a 'vegetarian option' beyond plain omelette. Eventually we got tired of walking around the area - particularly as the number of open restaurants decreased as we went away from the station - and instead headed for the airport.
That was equally bad, and we ended up having slightly stale mozarella and tomato and ham and cheese sandwiches at a terminal cafe. After splitting up to head off to our checkins, I found that my flight was delayed by a technical fault which had caused a delay on the incoming craft, which was then followed after boarding by some passengers from another flight deciding they didn't want to transfer to this one, so their bags had to be found and offloaded. Between that and the irregular evening trains from the airport (filled with celebrating Turkish supporters), I got home about 1:00 am.
Monday was thankfully quiet at work, and although one of the MA seminars was supposed to have started yesterday there was nothing on the bulletin boards, so as I was geared up to do something I instead redesigned my j-trans site. It's still not perfect but at least looks a lot better.
No comments:
Post a Comment