Last week at this time we were starting our journey back to Strasbourg from Nice with some trepidation. Already we were starting out a day later due to Thursday's national train strike. When Mark and I went to the train station in Nice the evening of the strike, we found out that our train for the next day had been canceled. We were told that it would be better to travel on Saturday than Friday, the first day after the strike, so we rebooked our tickets for Saturday and made arrangements to stay one more night at the rental apartment.We left Nice for Marseille at 8:30 Saturday morning, optimistic about getting back home to Strasbourg about 7:30 p.m. After spending almost three hours on a TER (regional train), we arrived at the Marseille station, which was very cold, windy and unfriendly. We hurried in to the salle d'attente (waiting room), which was packed, and looked on the electronic board for our next train. A minute or two of panicky searching confirmed our fears: our train had been canceled. Mark gamely went to the information counter to check. Within minutes he came rushing over and said, "We have to leave now! Track I, to Lyon." While I composted (validated) the tickets, Mark and the kids ran full-tilt down the track with our baggage. So many things could have gone wrong: Track "I" in French sounds like "E"; the train was due to leave right away but was a few minutes late; and there were actually two TGVs sitting on the same track but bound for different places. Luckily Mark had the presence of mind to ask for the train to Lyon and was directed further down the track.
The trip from Marseille to Lyon was the best part of the day; it just went downhill from there. In Lyon, we waited in a long line to get tickets to Strasbourg. Our train wouldn't leave until 17:48, which meant almost four hours of waiting, but at least we would get home around 9:30 p.m. We waited impatiently to see our train show up on the electronic board, and when it didn't, we were a little upset but not surprised. Mark and I headed back to the ticket office, and that was when it got a little weird. The woman behind the counter didn't even issue us new tickets, but wrote on the back of our old one. We were to take the 17:00 train to Paris Lyon station, get on the Paris metro, transfer to Paris L'est station and take a TGV to Strasbourg. It sounded good in theory, but the timing only gave us 30 minutes to get from one station to the other. With a 20-minute metro ride, we were pretty sure we weren't going to make it. However, it was our best bet at the moment, so we boarded the TGV for Paris just before 5:00 p.m. It was an uncomfortable feeling because we didn't actually have reservations, something that's required on every TGV, and we got kicked out of our first choice of seats by a family. We had only been in our seats for a few minutes when we heard an announcement: passengers for Strasbourg were invited to leave this train and take another train to the Massy station. Luckily I was with several people who understand French much better than I do, or I would have missed the announcement.After waiting on Track C for the new train, the track was changed at the last minute. By this time we were just rolling with the punches. We had started to identify other passengers who were in the same boat as us (to stick with a travel metaphor!) We all boarded the Paris Massy train, again without reservations or tickets, but by this time we didn't care anymore. Then came the lowest part of the travel day: while on our way to Paris Massy, it started to get dark, and both Mark and I became very anxious about what we would face when we got to the next station. We didn't know if we would be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, or even whether or not our next train would be running. Given our track record that day, we thought not, but we were so out of control of the situation that we had no way to plan our next move.
When we arrived at Paris Massy, we followed our friends off the train, out of the station into the dark, and finally to another TGV station nearby. When we got there, we found out that the train to Strasbourg had been canceled. No surprise there. Now we were 22 people and two large dogs, stuck in an outpost railway station at 8:30 p.m. with nowhere to go. You would think that this would be a low point, but at least I felt that there was security in numbers. Luckily the ticket counter was still open, and a few of the more vocal members of the group negotiated (argued) with the ticket people to find us some place to sleep and new tickets to Strasbourg the next day.I'm sure it took some coordination of the part of SNCF, but we were taken care of from that point on. They stopped a TGV train for us, and we got off at the Paris Montparnasse station. We left our luggage at the information counter and were marched out of the station and down the street to a restaurant. We were provided with 25€ each to have supper, which was quite generous. Meghan and I didn't quite make it, because we were much more tired than hungry, so we left without eating and made our way back to the train station. We were directed to Track 6, where a TGV train was parked overnight. I had thought to get some extra sleep but was quite spooked by Meghan and I being the only ones on the train. I had visions of the train taking off with only us on it. Also in the back of my mind was the question that Meghan posed to me as we got on the train the first time: "Mom, can rats get on the train? I just saw a couple of them."
After a few cell phone calls to Mark and Cameron to find out how fast they could get back from the restaurant, people started straggling back. We spent the night trying to get comfortable and never really succeeding. At 5:40 a.m. an SNCF employee rousted us and directed us to the waiting room, but we were already off and running. Our large group navigated through the ticket validation gates and labyrinth tunnels of the Paris metro system, and boarded the metro for the Paris L'est station. Our last hurdle before leaving for Strasbourg came when the young woman with the two large dogs was denied boarding the train because only one of the dogs had a muzzle. We heard her burst into tears, and several members of the group, who by now had bonded in a way that only adversity can do, rushed to her defense. We were relieved when we heard that she was able to board, but had to sit in a compartment by herself with the dogs.The rest of the trip was rather mundane. Meghan and I snoozed, and we were home in the apartment before 10 a.m., as we live only a seven-minute walk from the train station. We were exhausted and amazed that we had survived the trip home. Unfortunately, the trip home overshadowed our trip to Nice, the two of which will be forever linked in our minds.
For more on our trip to Nice, see our Flickr photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christina-t/
Email us at
christinateskey @ yahoo.ca
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