Our time in Lucerne came to an end, perhaps to soon as we still had much to explore. Originally our travel plans had us on a separate train to the Campbells. This did not make much sense though as we were travelling to Paris together and even staying in the same hotel.
Arriving at the Lucerne railway station we had a discussion with the platform guard to see whether it would be possible to board the same (earlier) train as the Campbells. Since this train had unreserved seating we were given the go ahead, allowing us to travel together.
The travel to our midway stop was easy and straightforward and we alighted at Basel ready for a snack and drink. As we settled in to a café (8 of us with bags takes a pretty big footprint) we heard the unmistakable sounds of an Australian accent. We had come across a couple from Werribee in Victoria. Sally and Pete in particularly had a good yarn with them. Megan (and therefore I) was busy doing her end of year financials. Work never stops even when you are on the other side of the world.
In time, we finished in the café and headed for the platform for our fast train to Paris. When I say fast, I mean really fast. Pete had a GPS speedometer app on his phone which he used to measure a top speed of 328kph. Wow! Imagine having a train like that running from Melbourne to Sydney.
We arrived in Paris to bedlam. I’m not sure if it was just the sea of people, our tiredness after a long day on the train or simply really bad signage but we had a heck of a time trying to find the Metro to catch towards our accommodation – not to mention the challenges involved in buying the tickets. Thanks to Megan and Pete (and a member of the clergy who kindly assisted) we eventually got on the right train with the right tickets.
Emerging from the Metro station, there was much excitement as we emerged to find the Arc de Triomphe right in front of us. The excitement was tempered by the weight of the backpacks and the tired arms pulling roller bags. It was time to find our accommodation.
In the days to come we would find it easy to navigate our way around the area, but for today we needed a navigator. Enter Pete … and his dodgy phone. Pete valiantly took the lead, stopping more than once with a puzzled look on his face as his phone seemingly tried to direct us to Moscow. He was not to be swayed though and directed us all with confidence.
After what seemed like ages we turned the corner in to the street where our Hotel was. The excitement felt at the Arc de Triomphe, cowed by the walk, was lifted to new heights as we looked up to a fog shrouded Eiffel Tower visible at the end of the street.
We entered the Hotel, concerned about a change to our booking – resulting from the cancelled bus tour that we were originally going to be doing. Sally and Pete headed for their room, but we were held up at reception. It turned out that although we had a booking for the next 2 nights, we had no booking for tonight!
We did notice some anomalies on the paperwork we had, but could not work out what had gone wrong. Thankfully the hotel had a room to spare, albeit tiny, that we could use for the night. Leaving the kids with Sally and Pete we headed back down to reception to try to sort things out. Low and behold, we did have a booking for tonight (in 2018!). A little bit of tooing and froing had things sorted out.
I stayed in the room with the four kids while Megan, Sally and Pete headed off for the supermarket. On their return Sally did an amazing job of whipping up a stir fry in her tiny kitchen. We all ate this eagerly, enjoying every mouthful. Thanks Sal.
It was time for showers and bed. Tomorrow we were off to Versailles.