Frankfurt to Paris by train!

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Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097

Well time to move on yet again, next stop Paris! After checking on my phone at our itinerary, checking our train time, 12.49pm, we once again waddled down for breakfast, today was no different than other days, still vey busy in this room, too many people, not enough tables. We did get one eventually and we sat down and ate, and afterwards as we had time, we walked down several blocks, looking at shops and just going in different shops just to use up some time, so we probably walked about 2km before heading back to our room to check out. There was no 'sorry about your cheese and drinks going missing-here's €10 to cover your costs!' Just a Bye...
Not much else to do when you have suitcases in tow so we went to the marketplace in the train station, here we had a table, wifi and ordered a hot cappuccino and sat bored for the next hour or so. Nikki piped up that today was Friday 13th, maybe she spoke too soon, Nothing had gone wrong with any of our planes, trains or accommodation and for so far being 16 days into our trip, we have been very lucky.
The time was now 12.20pm and we had to go to check the main train board to see which platform we were to go to. Platform 14 it was, and as we were 1st class, carriage 28, this was going to be a long train. We watched the train arrive, started moving towards the end, but this train wasn't very long, I waited for a conductor who was helping another person find their carriage, and just as I showed him our train details, I have just seen that our train was at 8.50am this morning...........OH NO!!!!! With Nikki in clear panic mode, I asked him, " what do we do now?" He said " go to carriage 11 and try and find a seat" and don't tell anyone! We shuffled into the train, still a 1st class carriage and found a table with 4 seats, we settled in but didn't get too comfortable as we may need to shift. Clint seemed to think we would be OK here as the ones that were reserved, had a sign saying reserved from different sectors. Well I had daggers coming from Nikki as "we could have been in Paris 4 hours earlier, blah, blah, blah!!"
The same conductor came thru our carriage checking tickets, he stamped ours and I said, "Are we ok here??" And he said "Shhhhh!!" Well it was too late anyway, we had already been on the train for about 25 minutes!
I had added our itinerary to my notes on my phone, but I had actually got Silvi, (our travel agent,) to get us on an earlier train to Paris, but I never changed my itinerary on my phone, and unfortunately, I didn't check our proper tickets for the time, only the train number and where we were sitting..... Whoops!! My bad..
Well, we settled in, looked at the scenery, although our windows were so dirty and checked for wifi, yep, another dagger coming from Nikki, no wifi on this train, this was a German train, all the other were Swiss! Yes, Nikki did mention it was Friday the 13th!!
After playing some games on the iPad, it was time for some lunch. Clint and I went down to the restaurant carriage and ordered some food. While we were waiting for our meals, the same conductor came thru and I had to get a photo with him just so we can put it in our Travelpod book. Food was good, and by now, the train was cranking up the speed, it was getting faster, 180, 240, 299, 320 km/ hour was the fastest this train got up to. The sky got dark, it rained, the broke into snow, not much but at least we saw it again.
The train started slowing down, our arrival into Paris was approaching. We arrived at Gare de Paris-est station. From here we had to find our way to our hotel. We had bought some tickets for the Metro, but we just had to get on the right line. Because we arrived right at peak hour, the underground train was packed, line 7 for 5 stops and then we had to change lines internally and get on line 8 for 1 stop. For some ungodly reason, there is NO lifts, only stairs. So down stairs, up stairs, this bit was fun!! Once we finally got to line 8, it was so busy, we waited for the next train to come along, hoping the next one wouldn't be as busy. Well it was, we squeezed on, but had to stay close to the door as we only had 1 stop. Once we arrived, next was to find which exit to take, and yes...we took the wrong exit and ended up diagonally opposite where we should have been. So.. A long walk around the Madeleine building, dodging cars and pedestrians, and it was freezing cold. We found our hotel, yay and checked in, this hotel we have 2 rooms. Our room was very nice, at the street front with a tiny balcony, and it had a coffee machine....heaven! Nikki's room was ok too, but was a lot smaller than ours.
We put on our warm clothes again and walked down the street, towards Galleria laFayette, a very busy shopping area. We found a cafe close by, and ordered, Nikki had ravioli, I had chicken and chips and Clint had a steak with egg on top and homemade salad... ( lettuce only!!)
After another exiting day, we chilled in our rooms, with a nice glass of wine!

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Comments

[Ross and Katie Nicholson]

Wow... what fun you are having... you got there in the end and thats all that matters. Did you say it was cold???? Why are you wearing a Tshirt?

[Peter james]

Your trip sounds like a lot of fun. As for Friday 13th events, life's a roller coaster, sit back, and enjoy the ride!!!Enjoy Paris & have a safe trip home

[Ross and Katie Nicholson]

Wow... what fun you are having... you got there in the end and thats all that matters. Did you say it was cold???? Why are you wearing a Tshirt?

[Lyn]

Have you been taking lessons from Lorraine?

[Deb Bakker]

There you are wally (Clint ) I thought you got traded in for anotherModel

[Deb Bakker]

Sue you look really cold , are you ordering a glass of red ,

[Deb Bakker]

Have you trade in Clint ., No find wally , I can find wally We're did you hide him

[Nicola and Stephen Muller]

A minor hiccups in the scheme of things, you made it to your destination. A great read. make the most of your time there and watch out for dog poop.