Paris
28/08/2011
The Internet Max was not up (no internet at all) so I will try again tomorrow (the full 48 hours over a weekend?). I went through my travel documents for Le Havre (and for the Toulouse to Ghent leg) and there were discrepancies. I wanted to go to the Eiffel tower to check out the picnic areas so I planned a round trip by bus and tram to get me to the Gare Saint-Lazare to check on my tickets etc, then to the Eiffel tower via the "Champs Elesie" and back to Cite Universitaire. I intended to buy a filled-bread stick (called a Sandwich) and eat it under the "tour de Eiffel".
Firstly the trip by Bus 21 was well worn so no dramas, but the Gare Saint-Lazare was a maze of platforms and construction works. I found the information booth (in plain sight but not labelled in english) and a bilingual assistant (I had to wait in line) and I dealt with both problems. Firstly I will only find out the Le Havre platform 20 min before the train arrives (check the "big board"), secondly I do not have a booked seat so I have to go as quickly as possible to the far end of the train, past the carriages marked with yellow(?) and then just select a seat. I gather it can be a bit of a race.
The second problem was that I needed to pick-up my tickets for the Toulouse to Ghent leg of the trip and to check that one of the tickets I ordered on the internet was valid. It had been cheap, as I had ticked the over-60 box, but in the fine print it said that you had to show your season pass on demand. As expected that was the wrong ticket and I had to pay another 90 odd Euros. Better now than on the train with a rigidly french-speaking conductor breathing down my neck. I got a slight discount for an "early booking" but no age discount. I came out of the experience wiser and poorer (the two often do go together).
Strangely liberated I made my way the the "Stade" for Bus 80 to take me to the Eiffel tower. Two Stade's for the same bus going in opposite directions and no way to tell them apart. A "Little old lady" pointed out the directional arrows along the bottom of the posted time-table, which solved the problem. Not the first time she had been asked that question in broken french. On the bus ride to the Tower I again passed or crossed paths with the tourist buses, open-air double-deckers, in the cold showery weather. We went along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées for a little bit and I got to see the Arc de Triomphe down the end of the Avenue. Very Paris! Got to my stop then had to walk towards the Eiffel Tower through some back streets (along with several hundred people taking the same short-cut). The crowds matched the Louvre and the gardens were a bit ratty, BUT there were people lying and sitting on the grass. Picinic time! (Except for the rain showers).
I have been up the Tower a few times in the past so did not repeat the experience of battling the crowds up to the lookouts. I spent the time more productively wandering the edges of the park looking for a supermarket, all closed on a Sunday naturally. But there was a sandwich shop open in a side street so I got my French Bread Stick filled with ham, cheese, and tomato; and I stood under the Eiffel Tower and ate my Picnic (out of the light rain)! The trip back to the Cite' was not as salubrious, the bus and ultimately the tram went through the rougher, less touristy suburbs of Paris. My Navigo card still worked but the reader on the bus was reminding me to recharge it; the cards are charged from Monday to Sunday. Just made it!
Tomorrow will be an early day so I got back a bit early to do my laundry and pack (decide what to take in my day pack). It is for three nights, two travel days and two work days, so I really do not need much. Camera and laptop are essential but I may be washing out socks and undies each day!
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