The French Connection

Arrived in Paris at 6am Saturday morning with the city just waking up. A taxi to the St. Lazare train station costs over 100 euros so we took the airport bus. Quite a bit of flapping on our part because the ticket machine would not accept our credit or debit card. We also try our 50 euro currency but it takes only bills up to 20. Nuts, we are both going crazy thinking we will MISS our train to Caen when a wonderful bus driver digs up change for us. Voila we are all set. It's an express bus so we zoom into early morning Paris which looks a bit seedy on the eastern side. Some homeless people sleeping in doorways and a lot of trash on the curbs. The area around Gare St. Lazare is deserted. The station is COLD but there's a Starbucks (!!) inside that's warm. Seems ironic that we are having coffee in an American chain instead of a charming cafe but we feel better when we observe that almost all of the clientele are French. Then to the train which is also an express and very nice even though we have 2nd class tickets. Departed and arrived EXACTLY on schedule. Public transportation is wonderful here we think!Read more