Although our bed was super comfy, we did not sleep well. Gary woke up 8 times in the night with calf cramps, and I had fitful weird dreams...damn I hate jet-lag! Gary and I were wide awake at 4am (can't speak for the others!). We resisted actually getting up as long as we could, then Gary showered and walked across the street to see if he could get some coffee and tea to bring back to the room since breakfast wasn't served until 6 am. He came back empty handed (nothing was open in the train station, which surprised us), I showered, and we headed down to breakfast and had the place to ourselves. We were joined shortly by John and Babette and we took full advantage of the breakfast buffet; fresh squeezed o.j., croissants (of course!), bread, cereals, scrambled eggs and smokey little sausages, assorted yogurts, meats and cheeses...AND a machine that made silver dollar sized pancakes! 😳. Ron and Lenore appeared around 8am (also not having slept well at night - I think Ron read an entire book in the night when he couldn't sleep). It was bad enough that Babette and I both showed up downstairs in striped shirts, but when Lenore appeared in stripes, we about died laughing...we might as well have been Chevy Chase's family in National Lampoon European Vacation!
Once we were all packed up we headed across the street to the Montparnasse train station, and waited for the signboard to notify us which track our train would be leaving from. Last time we were in France with John and Babette we had a horrible train experience where we almost missed our train and by the time we boarded, there was no room for luggage so we rode the entire way with our suitcases and hand baggage on our laps and under our feet - it was NOT a pleasant experience. So today, when our track was announced we bee-lined to track 8. Our tickets were in 1st class in car #2. I had booked our 6 seats together (4 seats together with a table in-between, and across the aisle 2 more seats with a table in-between). We saw a big "2" on the side of the train car and entered, placing all our luggage in the luggage rack at the front and walked down the length of the car to our seat numbers. I was a bit confused because seats #51-56 were not facing each other with little table, but I figured they must have had an equipment change...so no big deal). Imagine our surprise when 2 young men came and said we were sitting in their seats! As it turns out, the big number "2" on the outside of the train car was indicating it was 2nd class, and was actually coach #8!!! Yikes! We panicked then abandoned our luggage in that train car (too many other bags had been piled on top of ours that there was NO WAY we could retrieve ours! We exited the train, speed-walked (Hunts don't run, especially senior-citizen Hunts!) down the platform until we reached car #2 (at the opposite end of the train...it was a long speed-walk down the entire length of the train platform!), and found our 1st class seats facing each other, just like I had reserved! I'm writing this right now on the train, saying a little prayer that all our luggage will still be in car #8 at the opposite end of the train when we arrive in Bordeaux, and will not have been carried off by any nefarious passengers! Since we were the first ones to put our luggage down, there was NO way we could have retrieved it before moving to the correct coach. Don't worry, as I sit on the train, I am watching out the window to see if anybody at any of the stops along the way walk past my window with a suitcase with a red "Bon Delire" luggage tag!
The train journey was comfortable and relaxing and the 3 hr train ride passed quickly...but we all had the nagging worry in our minds about our luggage at the total opposite end of the train. I told everyone that as soon as we arrived in Bordeaux I was going to rapidly exit, speed walk (remember, Hunts don't run!) down the platform and get in the car with our luggage. I hesitated a second when I got off the train, and someone in our group said "go right" and I took off. As soon as I started my speed walking, I was passed by Babette (who knew she ran track in her younger days...she NEVER told us that!?!?). We got all the way to the front of the train but never found the proper car. All the cars were totally empty, no luggage in sight. Babette and I stood there a bit perplexed and the rest of the group caught up with us. It was a bit chaotic but we headed back quickly, stepping into each car and finding nothing but empty luggage racks. We finally realized, that we should have headed LEFT off the train...and somewhere along the route we had picked up another train and were connected in the middle with 2 engine facing each other...the train now was SOOOOO long and so totally empty! In hindsight we realized that the trains have doors on each side of each car, and in Paris we had entered on one side of the train, and in Bordeaux we had exited on the other side of the train.) John and I got a system going though; we ran to each car, I stood in the doorway, blocking it so it couldn't shut, meanwhile John entered the car, pushed the button to open the internal door to the luggage compartment...and moving quickly on to the next one, only to repeat our actions in each train car. We finally found our luggage, safe but very lonely, at the totally opposite end of the LONG (double) train! We were very lucky that Bordeaux was the final destination of this train, as checking 20 train cars took a long time, and if the train had another stop after Bordeaux all of our luggage would have gone on as well! So yes, this was our 2nd wrinkle...but the good news is that we were all laughing at the absurdity of it all by the end of the day. (And I am convinced that if they have security cameras in the train station, all the SNCF train employees were laughing as well.)
Bordeaux has a great tram system that can get you pretty much anywhere in the city so we took the tram to our VRBO in a residential neighborhood about a 5 minute walk from the tram stop. After a brief orientation of the home (3 story house with 4 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms), we walked to the grocery store a few blocks away to get some necessities (wine, cheese, coffee, milk, etc). I think we were so tired/jet-lagged that we just couldn't get our act together to gather the energy to go out to dinner. We are in a residential neighborhood and there are very few restaurants (like almost none) in our immediate neighborhood. The few that we saw on the way to the grocery store were all closed as it was about 4pm and they close between lunch and don't reopen until 7pm. On a whim, Ron had grabbed a fresh, ready to bake pizza at the grocery store, so we all headed back to the grocery store to get another one so we would have enough for dinner. Hardly a "typical" French dinner, but it was perfect. Sitting around the big dining table, as a family, eating pizza felt like the perfect thing to do! The gents finished the evening toasting with some French whisky John had brought from Paris, called "oui-ski", and we called it a day, heading off to bed cuz we have an early day tomorrow!
That train ride was like a comedy of errors. Glad it all worked out in the end....
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