We left the comforts of our Backroads shuttle at the Rennes train station and said our goodbyes to our fellow cyclists. Our next destination Paris for the night. We were early so we settled in at the station.
And the settling in went sideways quickly, I had booked the tickets for the wrong day.
With the train sign blinking “Complete”, meaning Full, Sold Out, and 12 minutes to departure, I sprinted back to the ticket station, summoned all of my Sacred Heart French, and all of my sales and marketing acumen to get us on the train. Not sure what convinced the agent, but we got a seat in the caboose (really) with train crew who were riding to work in Paris.
Sigh of relief was momentary, we arrived in Paris at the wrong station. Not exactly the wrong station, but I had not set Joe’s expectations that we would have to do a little juking and jivving to get to our hotel. And for some reason, he agreed to the subway and not a cab. Did I mention we arrived at Friday night rush hour? And that he is correctly hyper sensitive to pick pockets (they even announce it over the loud speakers). Away we go to find our metro, bobbling and weaving through the bowels of Montparnasse Station. Joe jumps on and I am nearly shut out, but he pries the doors apart to the wonder of the commuters. We are sardines for a good 25 minutes, until finally we get to our stop and hotel close by.
Phew, that was crazy, and at this point Joe can barely look at me. I am ground zero for every travel snafu on the day. But we get to the hotel, (yes of course its in a dodgy neighborhood, would you expect anything less of this story?) We check in quickly, the woman at the front desk can clearly read all is not well. To the small elevator we go, so small it will only fit one of us. I send Joe on his way upstairs so he can catch his breath away from the travel tornado known as his wife.
All good? Nope, not when Joe comes back down and looks through the elevator gates and says, “I’m stuck in the elevator”. I had to look away at this point, it was just too comical and I was so frazzled. “Oh how odd, this has never happened before”, nice calm unfazed French lady says. Joe at this point is grabbing the gates and shaking them and pushing all the buttons. The solution is to send him down to the basement to get off the elevator… and walk all the bags back up to reception… and then up the spiral (not kidding, no exaggeration) staircase to the 3rd floor.
Some apartment dweller in France is telling the story of the Friday night when he could hear yelling from the 3d floor of the Avalon Cosy Hotel, “never again Chris, never again”.
We gathered ourselves and went for a walk, and alas had a great dinner sitting at the bar of Brasserie Bellanger, kind of a farm to table place where we watched all the meals get prepped. It was perfect.
And yes we heard traffic noise and gendarme sirens all night from my quaint hotel pick.
Hope to see you along the way.