Advertisement
Published: December 21st 2008
Edit Blog Post
I guess sometimes things aren't meant to go according to plan. Last time that we spoke we were making plans to go on a day trip to Nantes to see my cousing Erinna who is lucky enough to be studying there. On the morning of our proposed day trip (yesterday morning) we got up early, ate yet another free breakfast, and headed down to the Metro in order to get to Gare de Montparnasse, from which trains to Nantes and other destinations in the west of France depart. We queued up at the ticket office and when our turn came we headed up to the window and explained, using plenty of hand gestures and hopeful pointing at timetables, that we wished to make a reservation on the next train to Nantes. After a flurry of keystrokes and a shake of the head the gentleman behind the security screen explained that there were no availabilities on any trains that day to Nantes for Eurail passholders. If we wished to buy a ticket, it would cost us 70€ each, one way. No thanks. This isn't the first time that our Eurail passes have been more of a burden than a help, but more
on that shortly.
After a few minutes of deliberating we decided to rejoin the queue and see whether or not there were any seats available to us cursed passholders on the following day. There were two, but we would have to move fast if we wanted them as they were disappearing fast. Unfortunately, time wasn't our side as our only means of communication with Erinna was email and our arrangement was to meet her in Nantes.
We left the train station, looking for an internet cafe so that we could hopefully get her phone number from an email she might or might not have sent us, but 15 minutes of searching left us net-less. We jumped back on the Metro, knowing the location of one relatively-close-by-train internet cafe, and after a bit of walking around thinking (incorrectly) that it must be 'just down this street', we eventually got there. Sure enough Erinna had been thoughtful enough to give us her phone number via email in order to 'speed things up' and so we set about trying to find a phone so that we could tell her the news.
After finding a phone at the Metro station which we had just
Eiffel Tower III
A view of the Palais de Chaillot been at, we tried calling the number she had given, only to realise that the phone card system that we have needed a country code. After a call back to Australia to ask someone the country code for France and several failed attempts to get through, we eventually got onto Erinna and explained the situation. She was disappointed, as were we, but she understood. Four hours after we set out for Nantes that morning we hung up the phone at Luxembourg Metro station in Paris' south, and decided to head to the Eiffel Tower.
Those of you that read the previous episode of our blog would remember that we had headed to the Eiffel Tower the previous evening but had decided not to queue up after a long day of walking and tourist-ing. We arrived at the tower about noon yesterday confronted by a similar sized queue to the one that had disuaded us from lining up the previous evening. This time we were keen to get to the top though, and get to the top we did, some 90 minutes after we first joined the queue.
We spent about 45 minutes waiting for the bag-checking queue, another 25 minutes
waiting to buy the tickets and another 20 minutes for the lift from the second floor to the top. Now I have to admit that we both wondered whether the wait was worth it, especially when we only spent about 10 minutes at the top because it was so cold. To be fair though, the views were amazing and the history behind the mechanical workings of the tower were quite interesting.
We spent the rest of the afternoon standing and walking around the Trocadéro and the Palais de Chaillot where two groups of 'youths' were congregating - one group filming themselves dancing in various locations around the Palais, no doubt for their next YouTube video, the second group, rollerbladers, using a park bench, some rocks and a pile of advertising boards to construct a makeshift jump from which they propelled themselves, much to the delight of us onlookers. It was a most relaxing afternoon, the two of us revelling in the opportunity to just sit back, watch and enjoy some Parisian (counter)culture.
Today, our fourth in Paris, was even lazier than yesterday. After another free hotel breakfast we jumped on the train and headed to Gare de Nord in order
to book our seats on tomorrow morning's train to Brussels. Fearing a repeat of yesterday's Nantes episode, we headed hesitantly to the ticket office and after a half hour wait we got to the window. Of the 15 or so trains that head to Brussels tomorrow only one of them had seats for passholders. Not only that, but when we decided that we had little choice in the matter, the lady behind the projectile-proof glass informed us with a grimace that we still had to pay 25€ each in order to reserve our seats. Similarly, when we decided to reserve our seats for the train to Rotterdam on Christmas Eve there was only one train (at 7:30am) that had seats for Eurail pass holders, out of a dozen or so trains throughout the day. And again, we had to pay 20€ each in order to reserve the seats.
It's really starting to make us wonder whether or not the 890€ Eurail pass was a good investment. Sure, it (theoretically) means that we can get on any train without having to pay the ticket price, but as we have seen, 'any train' isn't really that accurate. Furthermore, the cost of reserving
a seat on the train, plus the price of the Eurail pass itself has more often than not cost us more than it would to buy tickets on the day. Take tomorrow's journey to Brussels for example. Assuming, reasonably, that we only make one journey per day for the 10 day duration of our pass, it is costing us 89€ per trip plus any seat reservation charges. The seat reservation for tomorrow's trip cost us 52€, totalling 141€ all up. To buy the same two seats on the day without the pass would cost us 126€, and would mean that we could use the automatic ticket machines rather than queing for half an hour, as was the case today.
I guess it doesn't matter, it's just frustrating to know that while we thought we were saving money and time, we were wrong on both counts.
While on the subject of being a tight-arse, don't buy lollies from market stalls along the Champs Elysees. Having seen the stall the other day on our way to the Arc de Triomphe, we decided to make a detour there today. We grabbed about 500g of mixed lollies - 21€. That's about $42 for you
Riiiiipppp oofffffff!!
Me savouring our solid-gold lollies. folks back home. Oh well, you have to laugh I guess! We laughed long and hard on the way back to the train station, vowing to make sure that we savoured every single jube like it was the last one we would ever have.
Aside from those two incidents, our day was surprisingly pleasant. We wandered around the streets of Paris, looking in shops, taking photos, and just seeing where our feet took us. I think it's important to remember that at the end of the day we are both very lucky to have the opportunity to spend eight weeks in Europe, and getting ripped off here and there is such a small part of a wonderful and exciting experience. At least that's what we are going to keep telling ourselves.
Thank you all for your continued support and your lovely messages - we will be in touch...
Matt & Shaz
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0399s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Corry DeNeef
non-member comment
Christmas
Dear Sharon and Matt. Enjoying the blog. Hope you end up with a few fine days on trip. Anyway, hope you both have a very Merry Christmas and a Safe Happy New Year. Corry and Steven