Trains, Trains, Trains, Missed Trains, Hot Chocolate, Trains, and a Convent

Avignon to Nouan le Fuzlier.

The story of this day is a story of trains and train stations, mostly, ending in a French Nun community in a very small French town somewhere south of Orleans (which is somewhere south of Paris).

We caught the bus to Avignon TGV train station, which is different to the older station outside Old Avignon as it services the TGV 'fast trains' through the area. We got brekkie at the station (despite the fact that I asked for two pain au chocolats and only got one and then went directly on to serve someone else so I couldn't correct her. Half a pain au chocolat is never enough...) then successfully made the train.

We zoomed along at high speeds to Lyon. That stop proved to be exciting as our ten minute time to transfer turned out to be up and down a million flights of stairs through crowds of people to get to the other platform, with all our bags. Poor Packhorse Greg, he was in a right lather by the time we got on that train!

Then we could relax for a bit before we were deposited in Paris. This time we had an hour to transfer but we had to get to an entire other station, which was only across the river but was poorly signposted. We were sure there was an underground passage there was little to say what direction to go. So we emerged into freezing, overcast, Paris. After two weeks of nothing below 20 even when it rained this was a bit of a shock! Also, a week of small town France had spoiled us and suddenly we had been thrust back into a large, busy, smelly, grey city in the middle of a commuter Monday. We hoofed across two bridges with our bags, feeling a bit lost and put out, as the rain abruptly pelted down.

Drenched for the second time in two days and feeling dazed and unprepared – after all, Paris wasn't even today's destination – we figured out what train we wanted, but it was way to early for a platform to appear on the screen. I insisted that we sit down and have some lunch even though we knew the prices would seem ludicrous and the quality mass-produced here in the station, after what we had been enjoying further south. We successfully negoiated lunch and then it was time to board the third train of the day, to Orleans.

Things went well on this train until we got off. By now we knew the easiest way to figure out what next was to ask at the information desk. The train from Orleans to Nouan le Fuzelier was one that couldn't be booked as a reservation was not needed – just our railpass. So we went to the desk and the lady (once she figured out I was trying to pronounc Nouan le Fuzelier) said “oh, you can take this train or this train, but you need to take it from the Orleans station. You'll have to take the tram”. “Orleans station? I though we were at Orleans station?!”

Turns out we weren't. Turns out there are TWO stations in Orleans, Orleans Aubrais, and just Orleans. So when the train arrived at Orleans Aubrais, at the time that our ticket said it would arrive at Orleans we thought 'great! This is it'.

Okay so we need to take the tram across town, no worries. Oh wait, the next train to Nouan is in fifteen minutes, and then there isn't another one for three hours. Crap. Needless to say, we didn't make the next train. So then we were stuck in the rather barren (nothing but vending machines and a few very hard, cold seats) Orleans train station, with all our stuff, on a grey and rainy day, for two hours. After we had gleaned all the information we possibly could from the info man and the timetable stand, we concluded that there were no other trains coming sooner. A text message to Greg's friend Megan at the convent to explain we would be late gave the reply that the appropriate French word to use in such situations is “Dommage.”

Well, dommage.

We soon tired of the station and decided to head out and have a little look around, maybe find a nice cafe. It was cold and grim and drizzly – it's amazing how a grey day can make a city look really seedy! There were very few inviting places on offer, but eventually we found one that looked moderately friendly. Not really sure how things worked in a city cafe, we stood awkwardly outside with all our bags as I looked up the word for 'hot chocolate' which I figured would be just the thing at this moment. A friendly roundish man with a jolly beard appeared in the doorway and asked us a question in French. I smiled and said precisely this “Excuse me do you have chocolat chaud?”

“Oui, oui” He said and gestured us inside out of the cold. The place was done up a bit like 1950s American diner style and there were a few young people at the bar having an afternoon tipple, while a mix of French and english pop music from the 80s and 90s played from the radio. The chocolat chaud turned out to be divine and if we hadn't been running out of time I would have ordered another. Another disaster that turned into a fun mini-adventure in a city we weren't even supposed to visit! Looking back we did well to to hit Lyon, Orleans and Paris all in one day – three fairly large French cities. But I guess counting Lyon is pushing it a bit...

Eventually we made it on the last train of the day, anxiously counting the stops the whole way to make sure we didn't screw it up. As we pulled into the station at Nouan le Fuzelier, Greg spotted Megan waiting in the car and we knew we had finally got it right! Megan is a friend of Greg's from uni – previously a traffic engineer, she is presently living here in this tiny French town, as an asperient (I guess potential nun?) of the Catholic community there (sorry Megan I'm bound to stuff up the details, such as what to appropriately call your community!).

She drove us to the commune and showed us to our room. Our room was in a guest area and was lovely especially since there was a dish of chocolates on the bedside table and psalms in French waiting for us on the pillows!

After we had dumped our bags and regrouped after the frazzling day of travel, Megan showed us around the place. It's kind of like the places we used to go to for Easter camp at church, only French and much older! There are living quarters, various halls and rooms for hosting retreats, a rather beautiful church, and a beautiful old chateau where the community share meals, take lessons, and generally go about life. The grounds are stunning, the whole place is what you imagine a community hiding in the French countryside would look like, lush fields, a pond, and pretty flowers and bushes growing everywhere (Megan I can hear you laugh as I romanticise away – but honestly it is a beautiful setting!). It's very peaceful and tranquil although I wonder what happens to some of that peace when the busloads of Parisian catholic youths turn up for the retreats!

 

We were invited to join the community for dinner which we were very grateful for! While we waited we enjoyed a sneaky cider and chocolate from a comfortable sitting space and we were introduced to many of the people there. There's no way I can remember anyone's names, but we met some of Megan's fellow asperients, as well as some nuns, priests and soon to be priests. Everyone was extremely welcoming and excited to greet us despite the language barrier. It was very charming to hear everyone stretch their varying English skills on us – which for the most part were just fine and however limited they were always superior to our French!!

To add to the amusements, one of Megan's asperient friends, a Spanish girl who's name I've forgotten, had her family arrive that night from Spain as well. So they soon joined the mix and the hilarity of the three languages all going on at once was rather good. I felt bad for Megan's friend who speaks all three herself, and well, as she tried to switch from Spanish for her family, English for us, and French for everyone else – her poor brain must have been so confused!

The head Priest (I think) declared at dinner time that there would be “An English table and a Spanish table” to avoid too much confusion as we ate.

The "English Table" 

Dinner was exceptional 'home fare', with various courses being served. There was even home brew dessert wine and profiteroles, which Megan advised us were not the normal fare but had been rolled out in honour of the guests. We did feel very honoured – when we decided to come and visit and Megan and take a peek at what life was like for her we didn't expect the whole place to do anything special for us or indeed take too much notice that we were even there! So it was really, really nice.

After dinner everyone pitched in to wash up and Greg got roped into taking a photo of the Spanish ladies, as they all hurried to grab teatowels to make sure they looked busy in the picture. There was a lot of laughs and the whole mess was clean in about 15 minutes flat. Then we made our escape to a library area where Greg ruthlessly grilled Megan on what life was like and various areas of Catholic doctrine. He assures me that this is what normal conversation between them has always been like – very challenging and forthright – so hopefully Megan he's telling the truth! Then Megan's lovely Spanish friend appeared and we all talked for a bit. Then it was surprisingly time for bed – it was close to 10pm but it was so darned light that it felt more like 6pm! Had we really come so far north in just a day?

The next day the plan was breakfast with another lady at the commune, then off to Chambord and a chocolate factory!

Avignon Adventures!

Sunday the 3^rd of June: Avignon 

If you would like to enjoy a theme song for today as you read, listen to this song on youtube in the background:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHsER0a7MGA

The plan today was to check out the Palais des Papes, the Pont d'Avignon, take the free ferry over to the island across from the town and go for a walk and maybe do some of the two walking tours in our guidebook.

It was a cooler day than the day before (early 20s rather than 31 degrees, thank goodness), and drizzling on and off.

We headed to park beside the Pope's palace first to take in some nice views.

On our way up, the square in front of the Palace as you head up the switchback stairs towards the park.

Up in the garden there were good views of the river and the island across the way.

That bridge is the Pont d'Avignon

Then we headed down via some ramparts and stairs to the entrance of the Pont d'Avignon. The bridge was kind of interesting, including the story/legend/factual recounting of a dude (Benezet) (now sainted) who was tending his sheep in some far away place and then was told by God to come to Avignon instruct them to build a bridge over the river Rhone. At first laughed at, he managed to lift a ridiculously heavy stone, carry it some distance, and lay the foundation of the bridge. So the town leaders decided they should probably listen to him after all – I guess even if they didn't believe they were incurring the wrath of God by ignoring him, they realised they would be annoying a guy who could throw giant boulders at their heads. It was never quite established (on the audioguide anyway) why it was so important to God to have such a bridge, but it seems that in it's time it was a useful sort of bridge, albeit with the annoying habit of getting destroyed. In it's present form it retains but 3 of the 22 something arches.

The drawbridge.

"It's good to be on a bridge!"

Looking back from the end of the bridge you can see the palace and wall.

Greg on the ramparts.

More views of the Palace from the bridge, with the golden Mary standing out amongst all the harsh grey stone.

It was also interesting learning about the children's song (that I'd never heard of before but it is apparently famous) was kind of cool. Especially when the audioguide had sections of the song in various genres to listen to including 'acid jazz' and 'reggae'. You could also see enormous fish coming up to the surface to flop about amongst the river reeds so that was cool too (I wanted to post an awesome video of it, but it didn't work...)

Oh, and on the alter of one of the chapels, there was a pigeon posing for photos...

There were a few chapels build into the bridge itself. Of the two remaining, one was dedicated to St. Benezet (and for a while he was buried here but then he got relocated after various wars and religious confusions).

This one had a pigeon on the alter.

All in all an amusing if miscellaneous way to spend an hour.

Next stop was the Palace of the Popes of Avignon, via a street filled with many pretty shops that temporarily distracted.

The Palace itself while imposing was possibly the most boring sight we have been to so far. The rooms themselves are massive and impressive, but gutted by fire (so no wall/ceiling/floor coverings) and unfurnished. There were one or two rooms with restored frescoes which were pretty cool. The audioguide, which should have told interesting anecdotes and painted vivid images of what was once there, most of the time started with detailed dimensions of the each and irrelevent and uninteresting details...“The room is 22 metres long, 11 metres wide, and 6 metres high. Each stone on the floor weighed as much as an antartic polar bear cub after it has just fed. It is the same size as a duck pond that can be found in the remote town of gooblegook in Hungary. The ceiling is too high to be traversed by the average rat without falling off. The servants of the Pope would deliver to this room 12 geese, 7 pigs, 42 bushels of grain, and a handful of dustbunnies every morning for the Pope to break his fast. But often the Pope would still be hungry, and ask for an extra serving of dustbunnies. The people that would use this room were *long list* . The other things that happened here were zzzz not listening”

Actually if it had been like that, I probably would have listening. So please *insert inaccurate facts above with accurate, much more boring ones*.

The views from the top of palace were fairly spectacular, although our enjoyment of this was somewhat marred by the rain that fell as well stood there.

It's actually difficult to tell in this photo, but Greg was taking it of me to demonstrate how keen I was, climbing to a higher part of the roof to take more photos, despite the rain...

We zoomed through the Palace, not wanting something that didn't interest us that much taking up too much of our precious time.

Once out, the initial plan was to continue on the walking tour in the guide and find some lunch. We followed the walking tour as far as one nice church (which we had a little look in).

... we then abandoned the tour as we were starving and there didn't seem to be any cheap eats open in the city (it being a Sunday, many places were shut).

At some point in our meanderings that day, we found this pretty park.

So we headed to the main street which was considerably quieter on this rainy day with no shopping to be had, and found some rather sub-par filled bagettes at a chain bakery. We also found some less sub-par pastries further down. Clutching our booty we ducked back into the hotel to eat in the dinner room downstairs, where it was nice and dry. Once we were no longer Hangry we set out again.

The little kitchen for breakfast and hotel guest's use during the day.

There were some vague thoughts of getting back to the walking tour but the weather and the lack of people was making the streets of Avignon look rather abandoned and dingy, and in places downright seedy. As the rain had let up, we opted instead to take the free boat over to the island across the canal and have a walk along the park there. The boat was easy to find and the ride across was short and fun, shared with about 50 other people and a very small dog.

View of the Pont d'Avignon from the boat.

The walk didn't take longer than about 20 minutes either, and then we were at the bridge (not the Pont d'Avignon, one that actually went across the entire canal).

On our little walk along the island.

On the bridge heading back towards Avignon's old town.

We crossed back over to Old Avignon and decided to walk further around the outside of the walls, to the gate near the train station where we had first arrived the day before. There seemed to be a pedestrian path going right by the water.

Well, it turned into a bit of an adventure! At first everything was going well, the path took us passed dinner cruise boats waiting to receive their evening guests, and then it led in amongst some trees, the river just visible through them to our right (including some ducks).

Meanwhile, the sky was darkening and drops of rain began to fall again. We knew we weren't far, but as we approached the next bridge which marked where the gate opened into the city, we realised that the path was going to go under the bridge, rather than meet up nicely with the road and turn into some pedestrian friendly access. In fact, beyond the trees we seemed to be surrounded by motorways. We paused to put on our jackets. The only options were to go back – all the way back to where we had first got off the bridge – or keep going on the path and see where ended.

As the rain began to fall we passed under the bridge. There was a little concrete 'room' under the bridge full of graffitt, and it crossed my mind that in this weather, that would be a decent shelter for a homeless person. We came out from under the bridge to discover that the path abruptly ended in a grassy bushy slope leading up to the motorway in the middle of nowhere, and a man coming our way with flattened cardboard boxes under one arm and a shopping bag full of stuff in the other. He passed us by without incident but it occurred to me as the rain began to pelt down that he was a homeless man, headed for the best homeless rain shelter to be had this side of the Avignon river. Part of me felt bad for him, part of me was just relieved he didn't try to rob us, out in the middle of nowhere as we were.

Then it was time for the next adventure: crossing the busy motorway in the pouring rain. It was about the same as trying to cross the Wellington motorway, but there was an island in between the two directions of traffice and thankfully it was 'quiet' due to it being a Sunday. We made it across safely and through the gate into town – although not the gate we were hoping for.

This was the 'gate' we were hoping for. Through it you can see the train station.

Blinded by rain we were temporarily lost but then got our bearings and hurried to the safety and shelter of our hotel! The reception lady laughed when she saw us come in, drenched and a bit frazzled by the adventure “I think you are better staying here, out of the rain!” She suggested. Indeed.

I had an idea for a nice place for tea from the guide book, and it seemed to be one of the few good places actually open on a Sunday in Avignon. Bearing this in mind I knew it would probably be busy, so I decided to try and make a reservation. I was pretty sure they spoke english but I was terrified to be trying to have a phone conversation in French with no way of pointing or gesturing to help myself be understood. So I spent a few minutes on swatting up on how to say times of day in French and “I'd like to make a reservation” etc. Then took a deep breath and tried to phone them – noting the outside line number of the hotel. I tried four times, with different variations of the number (with area code, without, etc.). Every time it sounded like it wasn't working or engaged. I was nervous about the whole thing and frustrated that I had no idea what a ringing sound on a French telephone should sound like! We resolved just to go there really early and hopefully get a set.

Then we relaxed and tried to dry off for an hour or so. When it was time, we headed out.

Rather guttingly, we missed out on the restaurant by a few minutes only – they had just given their last unbooked table away. Most people had a reservation. ><

So we wandered, disapointed and with no plan B. Luckily, we came across a nice enough place with friendly waiters, nice indoor ambience, and rather good food. This was the restaurant of the “I asked if you were French and you said 'dessert please' “ incident, if you saw my remark on facebook..

Craving some vegies - we weren't disappointed!

Feeling a bit sheepish we nevertheless enjoyed our dessert...

Feeling reasonably pleased with ourselves about our satisfactory end to the initial culinary disaster, we headed back to base once again for an early night, because the next day was to be a long one!