Interrail Europe 2002

Day Three (Weds 16th) - Road Accident

Got up at about 8am and had a shower, an odd experience as the shower was just an extension of the dorm – all that separated the shower from the lower-bedroom was a shower curtain. Breakfast was included in the price of the room but was fairly basic, half a baguette with butter, jam and a drink. There seemed to be quite a few people in the dining room, the hostel was deceptively large – fairly narrow but quite tall.

We left the hostel and headed for the metro but got distracted by signs for the Centre de Pompidou and decided to go there instead. As we started walking the mild drizzle began to turn into a downpour so we decided to take cover in Monoprix (a department store). The road was full of heavy traffic and it took a couple of minutes to find a gap to cross in, when the gap finally came we dashed across and a guy on a motorbike (ID-ed by Barrie as a Yamaha XJ600) clipped my heel with his front tyre, nearly dragging me to the floor. That was the closest call I wanted with the Paris traffic – having been in the city for less than 24 hours and being run over doesn’t make for the best of starts.

We purchased an umbrella and some toothpaste in Monoprix, the last time I’d been in one of these stores was on an exchange trip with my school and one of my friends ended-up getting arrested for shoplifting, not speaking much French meant that it was very difficult for him to explain that he’d bought the CD from another shop – it all worked out in the end though. We managed to get to the Centre de Pompidou without further incident, had a wander around jumped on the metro to Etoilé for the Arc-de-Triomph.

We climbed up the Arc-de-Triomph and saw the Eiffel Tower under partial cloud, it was a miserable day but seeing the top third of the tower obscured by cloud gave a greater perception of how tall the tower really is. We decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower to see some more of Paris and slowly began to realise how insane French driving really is – everyone seems to drive as though if their speed drops below 40kph they’ll explode. We arrived at the Eiffel Tower and were extremely pleased to discover that it has lifts all the way up (unlike the Arc-de-Triomph which is all stairs). At the top of the tower it was VERY windy, some kids were using their coats as sails and skidding around on their feet, imagine a cross between water-skiing and wind-surfing but on a 400ft tower and you’ve probably got the gist. It took a while but Barrie got the better of his vertigo and managed to stand by the edge, I took a few photos – the cloud had cleared by now and there were marvellous views across the city.

We came down from the tower and headed straight into a creperie where we spent the last of our cash, Baz had a cheese and ham pancake and I had egg and cheese, the woman in the shop seemed to find us amusing – probably a combination of our broken-French and because we took ages to choose what we wanted to eat. After cashing some travellers-cheques in a branch of BNP Paribas we went back to the hostel, I’d left my credit card clip in my bag and didn’t want someone to find it and run up a massive bill. When we arrived at the hostel we weren’t allowed up to the rooms as they were cleaning so we killed 15 minutes by wandering around the immediate vicinity, there was an aircraft bits & bobs shop which among other things had some altimeters and a device which looked like a Holy Hand Grenade. Back at the hostel we did a little bit of reading and figured out our route for the next leg of the journey – we were going to Nice.

In a moment of extraordinary sense we decided to go to the Gare de Lyon to reserve our seats, the walk took us past the Place de la Bastille too. It turned out that to reserve a seat on our intended train (the 09:36) would cost us €40 (around £35), the only other available train was the 07:54, early but at only €7 much more cost-effective. From the station we caught the metro to the Place de la Concorde where we crossed the worst roads I have seen in my life – ever, from there we walked past the National Assembly and the Hôtel des Invalides, past the Eiffel Tower (where we saw a rat) and ended up eating in a small Italian restaurant called Il Sorrentino. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and got some sleep ready for an early morning.

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