Europe - 2015

Our trip is winding down and today was a big travel day to get us from Brussels to Giverny for our day poking around Monet's old stomping ground and, in particular, his garden. It was to be a 5 step journey, but there turned out to be complications. The first step was to get a taxi to the Train station which turned out to be very easy. But the second step meant catching the fast train from Brussels to the Gare Nord in Paris. We had heard of problems with a train drivers' strike and even had an email from the train company suggesting our train would go ahead, but that they couldn't be sure. So we were relieved when the train was actually there and started off on time.
The Third step was to get a taxi from Gare Nord to Gare St Lazar. As we were heading out of the station towards the taxi ranks a guy chatted us up and offered to take us - a 20 minute journey - for 65 Euros. Well that was interesting, after we thanked him for his kind offer we continued to the taxi rank to pick up a 10 minute ride that cost 10 Euro. What a saving!
The fourth step was a train from the Gare St Lazare to Vernon-Giverny. We bought a return ticket with no problem from a super helpful young lady at the train office. But when we went to board the train we found out that someone had left an unattended bag on or near the train (our French is not very useful) and they didn't know if or when the train would leave. In the end everyone had to get off the train (which was pretty full) and mill about for a while. Luckily they sorted out another train and we only lost about a half hour (thanks to the French guy who kept us informed of what the announcements were saying).
Thankfully the final step getting from the Vernon train station to our BnB in Giverny went without a hitch. Our BnB is very quaint - the village is just beautiful and we are looking forward to our day in Monet's garden tomorrow.Read more