1) There are three types of trains in France with three types of cycle policy
a) the TGV - the high speed trains, (Train Grand Vitesse). Using them is unavoidable on some routes. The guards may fine you or threaten to throw your bicycle off the train if they find you with such contraband luggage. I ask why this is so. 'French Law' says one. Why though? 'It is forbidden' he repeats. Someone else tells me my bicycle is more dangerous than the massive sacks others are carrying. 'someone could put their leg through it'. Right.
b) the TER run on the provincial services. They love bikes.
c)the CoRails have an ostensible no-bike policy but will let you take bikes, I hear, if you wrap the item up and make it not look like a bike.
I have a vivid memory of sprinting around the Paris St Lazare (pictured, above, by Monet) station wrapping up my bike in salvaged clear polythene (no one would sell me single rubbish bags, only packs of twenty for more money than I possessed, ripping open salvaged hairties to help bind my package, ready for the last train to Rouen. In the end no-one even asked for my ticket.
2) The magnetic strip on your visa card can fail, leaving you with just 25 euros* to get back to the UK. I found nowhere I could get money out with just the card number and the right ID. Internet booking seems promising but it seems you have to swipe your card to pick up the tickets! Luckily....
3) Fellow travellers will lend you 5 euros to help you buy a ticket if they stand in line with you, watching and waiting that you don't run off and spend it on meths.
4) You can't sleep in French train stations. Unlike the hospitable Frankfurt train station, they close from 1am to 5am.
5) It's hard to do touristy things when you are finding out the above.
*1 Euro = 2 NZ$ approx.
4 comments:
Sounds nerve-wracking! Oh for a fold-up bike....
http://www.strida.co.uk/
Oh man what a pain...
Folding bikes are big here, it's a damn good idea. Some good pics at http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vouwfiets
But this is the super-cool one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Brompton5.jpeg
Ah, bicycle lust...
It was nerve-wracking, but enjoyable in an urban-adventure kinda way. I see the folding bicycles everywhere. They are indeed inspired! Not sure how they would handle 20kg panniers and 60 km days though.
I remember trying to sleep the night in a train station in Paris. I had comfortably managed to settle on the anti sleeping seats at last, surrounded by my 100kg worth of stuff (I was moving way form France after a year of living there ok, and wanted to take heaps of books and giant drums etc with me that i felt I couldn't get elsewhere -teach me to be so materialistic!). Anyway I was woken and told I needed to leave bacuase ithe station was shutting, so myself and a small band of loitererstruged in to the night. I tried to pushed a trolley around paris with all my stuff on it for a while, wondering if I could do this until dawn cause I was too scared at 18yrs to sleep on the streets. I endeded up finding a fat man in a stained white singlet smoking cigarettes who let me stay with him
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