05-25 Yep, ANOTHER Train Ride

Nothing much happened today except we traveled on a train from Caen, France to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. So, you get to hear about train traveling.

We went down to breakfast this morning. It's like most, but less; and there's no one there. Totally self serve; very limited in items, but enough. Karen has two boxes of Kellogg's Coco Krispies. All of the cereals on the breakfasts so far have been Kellogg's. She has milk on it, a glass of water and a yogurt. I have my normal croissant(s), a bowl of fruit and two glasses of juice. For that they charged us $9€ each. Ouch. l usually ask at check-in is breakfast included. Most of the places we choose include it, but we made this reservation at the last minute in Bayeux so we payed the piper.

We caught the train from Caen to Paris today at 10am walking to the station. We get a reservation because it's only $1.50€ each extra with our EuroRail Pass for a reserved seat on this train. Some of the trains here are so crowded and this isn't even the peak season. But peak season is getting closer now. Having a reservation for a seat makes life more pleasant and less stressful.

I've got the laptop out with power (power comes with first class; sometimes it works, sometimes not). I'm working on a Zermatt blog today. Since Karen is seated next to me she gets to see the pictures!! As she would say, "Ahh the MATTERHORN!!!"

We arrive at Paris St. Lazare train station and we figure out where to go. There's like an entire town, down underground in Paris. Its not like the NY subway where you go down and you have maybe four choices of where to go. In NYC you have to decide which side of the track to go to on in order to go the direction you want.

Under Paris you've got maybe six different directions to go in all and maybe up to 4 or 5 different trains coming through to different places. You have to read all the signs and sometimes the sign is slightly around a corner. Then you've got food locations and store signs that clutter up your reading. We weeded our way through all this and bought a subway ticket only to just miss the train. No big deal normally but the next one didn't come for 30 minutes. That means we won't make it to our next train in the Paris Nord station.

After we arrived at Nord we got lunch and found a place to eat it. Found the next train and it didn't have any stops until the airport so we got here just a few minutes later then we expected.

Found the free hotel shuttle. Goes to several hotel; ours, All Seasons Roissey, was first. Saw this great looking airplane taking off on the way there. Hey, wait a minute. Those don't fly anymore!

Arrive at the hotel at 3pm. Small, modern room. Window doesn't open but the fan works. NOT. They, the motels, say they have A/C and they do, but the question I've found out you should ask is, "What month do you turn on your A/C"?????

Went out to dinner at 5:30. The guy at the front desk told us where to go. Had a good calzone then walked back home.

Tomorrow we get to go on a new roller coaster at Parc Asterix about 10 miles north of our hotel.

05-22 All Day Trains to Bayeux

I decided I NEVER leave enough time to get out of the motel and to the train station. It is always a rush. Time to slow down and give ourselves some more breathing room. I'm adding 5 minutes for checking out the room for things we might have left and last minute bathroom breaks.

It is a rainy morning in Lausanne and our train departs before 6:30am on our 4 hour train to Paris and then on to Bayeux.

I think our checkout guy was in a different time space continuum because it took 10 minutes for him to take my credit card and give me a receipt.

The older gentleman checking us out took too long. It was as if this were the first time he'd checked anyone out. I was patient, as usual, because you just can't hurry these people. Another reason to give ourselves more time out the door. I'm adding another 5 minutes to our leave time for checking out.

We did, once again, make it to the train on time. Shoot, we had 12 minutes to relax in our seats before it left the station. We had requested (3 times from 2 different people) at the Hotel Elite if we could have a "Take Away" breakfast. Not a problem is the answer we got each time. Alas, no breakfast this morning. Fail. I'm adding 5 minutes so we can pick up some breakfast at the train station.

Our train was a mere two blocks away (in light rain) but down 4 flights of stairs. I hate making Karen walk faster than she can so I'm adding another 5 minutes to our leave time for that too.

It's raining again. This isn't a big deal today because we are traveling all day. We leave Lausanne, Switzerland for France. Places our train will stop along the way are Vallorbe, Frasne, Mouchard, Dole, Dijon, Paris (change stations and get on another train), Caen, and our destination Bayeux.

It will be good to leave Switzerland, the most expensive place to eat that I've ever been AND the one with the Matterhorn.

Karen and I had a 12" cheese pizza, a bottle of water, and a diet coke last night for dinner in a cafe across from the train station. It costs $34 US. This isn't possible in the United States, not even in Walt Disney World.

Train ride to Paris was worst ever. 2nd class. Window blocked by pillar. Raining hard and cloudy all morning. We're not going on THIS train again!

In Paris we needed to get from one train station (Lyon) to another (St Lazare) so I researched it the night before and we were in the right places to make our connection. And we're early.

Our train looks so old. Will we get there today?

Train tip of the day: If you have a Eurorail Pass and you have a reservation then they place these yellow tags above your seat. SO, if you don't have a reservation on the train and you have a Eurorail Pass you are free to take any other available seat. Eurorail Pass holders are considered 1st class travelers.

They were rebuilding the pickup area at the Bayeux terminal so we dragged our luggage across the gravel then through a round-about and finally onto a sidewalk heading for our motel.

Nice picture Karen but this is NOT our motel.

This is our motel.

I made reservations for this place in Jan of this year and I made a mistake. I booked nights here and in Lausanne for the same nights. Hoteliers frown on this. I got an email about it a day later than when I could have done something about it due to not having Internet. I emailed the place back asking if he had room for us on the last night we needed and he replied no but that we still had the other two nights that we had already booked . I should have confirmed via email that I still wanted the room but didn't and when we arrived they had given the room to another couple. The son called around to 3 places but couldn't find a room for 2 nights. I had a backup plan and we went to that hotel. Although not quite the B&B of the Le Castle, it was half the price.

We walked the 1/2 mile or so and registration and getting the key were done via a computer terminal in a kiosk outside the hotel. Chalk up a new experience for us.

We got into our stark room complete with one piece plastic bathroom and did our Internet thing before heading into town for dinner and verification of where our morning tour would start.

Lesson learned for the day. Triple check your bookings and over communicate when verifying bookings.