Paris, here we come

8.30am and two taxis, one with a trailer, arrived to take all of us plus luggage on the half-hour drive to the station at Nîmes. From there, people were catching trains to various destinations. We, together with the lovely elderly French couple, Roger and Françoise, were on the 1055 train to Paris. The waiting time went very quickly, and it was handy to have them there to help us interpret the minimal signage and garbled French PA system announcements at the station. We spent much of the time, as we had during the cruise, with them helping Brian expand his limited French vocabulary while we in turn helped them with their basic English.

French trains are fast, clean and comfortable, but as we had discovered already at Gare Part Dieu in Lyon, getting on the train and finding ones reserved seats is not always easy. For a start, the signage telling people where to stand on the platform to be alongside their carriage was hopelessly wrong, so when the train pulled in to the platform we all had to sprint about 50m with our luggage. This wouldn't matter, were it not for the fact that the train is there for literally only two minutes before it heads off again. We felt sorry for anyone travelling with a lot of luggage and small children. Our troubles weren't over yet. As we entered our carriage, the way was blocked by two people in wheelchairs. This wasn't their fault as there was no other space for them.

HEALTH WARNING: Politically incorrect statements ahead!! What it meant was that we had to try and squeeze past them while carrying our own heavy luggage above our heads. This wasn't easy, but we felt that the disabled people wouldn't be keen on adding decapitation to their list of medical issues. At risk of sounding even more politically incorrect, we concluded that they were returning from Lourdes, in which case they should seek a refund. Trains should only require wheelchair spaces for the outbound journey.

We reached Paris on time after a very quiet and comfortable three-hour high speed train journey and then set about trying to navigate ourselves plus luggage from Gare Lyon to our hotel at La Tour Maubourg. Many of the Metro stations now have escalators, but there are still a few which required us to lug suitcases up and down flights of steps. We were certainly happy to see our hotel, the one we'd stayed at in 2014. Little has changed, and our room was every bit as comfortable as the other one was before. We scored an attic room this time, unfortunately without a view, but the room itself was great.

Paris is a romantic city, so what was the first thing we did? Went to the laundromat and washed a week's worth of accumulated laundry. Admittedly, we did go and indulge ourselves at a nearby patisserie while the clothes were washing.

Later, we came down to earth with a bit of a thud. There are many dozens of restaurants, all within easy walking distance of our hotel, but we decided that we'd go for something cheap and light. After all, we'd eaten and drunk especially well over the previous week, and it wouldn't do us any harm to ease off a bit - and save a bit of money. However, the one we chose was very ordinary indeed. We knew that we wouldn't be going back there in a hurry.Read more