Tag Archives: train

Posts describing any train travel.

054- Finding a friggin’ ferry from France

Saturday, 21 July 1984, 9:15AM, still en route to Ireland aboard the St. Killian II ferry

Arriving in Cherbourg for the ferry, not knowing what to do first, I was quite lucky to run into Sandra, a California girl. She had tried the ferry the day before when the port was closed. On Friday, Sandra knew right where to go. Best of all, Cherbourg was still open! Unfortunately, we found out at the station that the Irish Continental ferry doesn’t dock in Cherbourg until Sunday. What rotten luck.

With that news, it was back to the train station for both of us. The last hope for getting to Ireland was getting to Le Havre by 6PM. If all the stars lined up, there was a shot at connecting via a number of stops and making it to Le Havre by 5:17PM. Great!

We hopped the first train from Cherbourg to Caen, where I had been headed originally. Next Caen to Bernay. Then Bernay to Rouen. During all this train travel, I worked furiously on 7 pre-stamped postcards that I wanted to mail before leaving France.

In Rouen, we had a two hour wait that we filled by looking for eats, followed by lunch in the park. Sandra had packed away a jar of Skippy peanut butter sent from home and made me a sandwich. Things were looking up!

Limited to the powers of a Eurail Pass, it took quite a few train trips and transfers to get from Cherbourg to Le Havre.

We caught the last connection on this hasty trip to Le Havre, and as we pulled into the station, I finished my last post card. Judging by a map of the port area we picked up, the Irish Continental dock was a short walk from the train station. With 40 minutes before setting sail, we decided to walk.

The map proved to be out of scale and too light on details and landmarks for our navigational needs. Finding the waterfront proved to be time consuming with scarce minutes ticking away. Sandra and I turned up in an area of seedy bars along the wharf, but no sign of our ship.

The time came for decisive action, so I started asking anybody around for directions in my limited French. A truck driver took us to a nearby store where a man and woman teamed up explain to us. The man drew a map, telling us in French where to go while his wife interpreted into English. Very very nice couple.

The time passed as we followed the man’s directions. We still couldn’t see any ship and pessimism began setting in. Fortunately, a number of likely French road signs led us to the Irish Continental gate at 5:58, however the gate was locked and area around it deserted. Now I was hoppin’ mad.

In the distance, over a warehouse roof, we saw a green smokestack puffing up a cloud. We figured that had to be the ship’s smokestack preparing to ship off. We navigated our way there, breaking into a trot, fully laden with our packs. This was the home stretch— do or die…

Sandra pooped out, but I figured if I could get them to stop for me, they’d wait for Sandra. I continued my jog, holding tight to my pack. When I caught a glimpse of the entire ship pulled up to the wharf, I was relieved to see the nose was still in the upright position while they finished loading cars. We had time.

St. Killian II loading final cars. Artist rendering of what it looked like speeding into the cone of a ferry loading cars.

Sandra caught up and after we paid our 25 franc port tax, we hurried on board, not stopping until we were deep inside the ship.

As it turned out, the ship didn’t depart for another 30 minutes. Safe inside, and sweating like pigs, if pigs do in fact perspire as rumors suggest, we put or packs down where the cruise director instructed us and found some seats next to the huge windows for a rest.

The St. Killian II outclassed all the other ferries I’ve seen so far. The ship is constantly being cleaned and has all sorts of facilities for passenger use, including a cinema.

Once under way, we passed the time by eating, reading and playing rummy. The only thing the ship lacked was a convenient way for non-cabin passengers to catch some sleep. Many people crashed on the carpeted floors, as Sandra and I eventually did. The air conditioning seemed to be at 50 degrees all the time, so I had to pull out my vest. Things were still chilly, so I put on two of the comfy oval chairs together and rolled up into a ball trying to stay warm. Sleep eventually overcame me, but not easily.

1:15PM- still aboard the St. Killian II ferry

Maybe the best part of this trip was breakfast! All of my favorites were there for
£4.70— eggs (over easy and scrambled), sausage, bacon, rolls, coffee, juice, and even terrible oatmeal. It was an all-you-can-eat affair, and as previously demonstrated, I can eat a lot.

The rest of the voyage kind of slid by. I was trying to plan out my next two weeks in Ireland and England before I pick up my tour of the USSR. Even with Let’s Go, I’m at a loss for what to do.

053- Invasion of Normandy or “The Longest Post”

Thursday, 19 July 1984, 3:30PM, Omaha Beach, Normandy, France

Yesterday turned out to be rather full, so I best catch up.

First I took in a substandard breakfast comprised of three slices of French bread with a bowl of coffee in the downstairs cafeteria, eating with a college guy from Minnesota.

To get my culture for the day, I set off to see the world famous Bayeux Tapestry.

Friday, 20 July 1984, Aboard St. Killian, docked in Le Harve, France

Before I left, I put on my Mickey Mouse t-shirt, that much to my chagrin had been improperly washed in Segovia and the blue trim on the collar and sleeves turned purple and ran, staining other parts of the shirt. I wore it anyway.

I arrived at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum before opening time, and waited around in the courtyard a while, with an American family. Their little kid commented, “Daddy, what’s so great about this tapestry?”

When we got in the museum, we found out. This was the best exhibit in terms of organization and signage I have seen anywhere. The displays were informative, clear and highly interesting. The tapestry, woven in a length of 80-some meters, portrays the events leading up to the Norman invasion of Britain and the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I must have been impressed by it all, as I bought a fold-out re-creation of the tapestry and a number of postcards in the museum gift store before I left.

Classic panel of the Bayeux Tapestry with William sailing to Britain. See all the panels at hastings1066.com

Afterwards I went to the tourist information office to find out how to get to Mont Saint Michel, my next destination for the day. I also filled up on goods from a local bakery that offered an incredible selection of untold French baked goodness. Also picked up food for later and dumped it back at the Accueil and took off for Mont St. Michel, after eating numerous sandwiches.

Mont Saint Michel is a monastery located on an island off the coast is isolated at high tide, save for a causeway leading from the mainland, and surrounded by a mud flat at low tide. I was expecting the visit to be quite an experience. After two hours train and bus time, the approach appeared quite impressive.

Impressive from a distance, but the warning signs in the foreground screamed “TOURIST TRAP”. I didn’t hear that in time.

As we drew close, the tour buses and cars parked along the causeway made me suspicious. As I walked through the gates of the monastery, the ugly truth reared its head. Mont Saint Michel was clearly one of Europe’s leading tourist traps. Lining the main street, twisting up the mont, tourist shops stood wall to wall selling all the same postcards, caps, headbands and junk associated with tourist traps worldwide. The street was filled shoulder to shoulder with tourists. I’m not exaggerating when I say movement was impossible at times.

At first I thought I’d go along with it, like the guys from Detroit suggested. I remembered their conversation about tourist shopping in Paris metro stations, trying to find the most outrageously tasteless trinkets (Eiffel Tower in seashells?). Well, I didn’t have to look far. Just as I was about to buy some plastic cameras at $1 apiece, that click off a disk of 15 pictures of Mont Saint Michel, common sense stepped in. I aborted this mission and bolted from the island, purchasing only an ice cream to provide sustenance on the way out.

A view from the mudflats. No tourists in sight. Sometimes sinking in mud is the price you pay for peace and quiet.

Another shot from the mud flats, with the tree lines marking the shore in the distance.

The tide was out, so in my new shoes (bad choice on this day) I walked the Mont’s perimeter, searching for an ideal camera angle. It just so happened that place was located in knee deep mud, so I settled for the second most ideal angle and snapped a couple of photos. After that, I killed time back on the mainland before the bus arrived to extract me from this horror of commercial tourism.

On the bus back to the train station, I met Paul and Mary, a middle aged couple from San Diego. They were pretty amusing and we kept on talking right through until the train came, at which point we were separated by class. They were 1st, I’m 2nd. I waved goodbye as they pulled out on the train leaving Bayeux.

Back in Bayeux, the sun began to set as I pulled into the Accueil. Back in the room, I feasted on Ritz crackers, Belgian pate, cheese, tomatoes and French bread. Feeling like a stuffed pig, I retired for the evening.

Thursday morning, I decided that sleep was more important than the measly breakfast served downstairs so I skipped it, brunching instead on leftovers from the pervious night. Thursday was going to be “World War II Day” so I left the Accueil and walked across the street to the Bayeux Invasion Museum to start things off.

The museum displayed a range of objects that were interesting in different degrees, but it gave the overall impression that this was a bunch of stuff the guys chipped in to start a museum. The exhibits were very informal. The most interesting part was the display of letters home written by the soldiers who took part in the invasion and aftermath. Reading firsthand accounts in the authors’ own handwriting has quite an impact.

After the museum, I checked in at a travel agency to see about getting a ferry to cross over to Ireland. The port of Cherbourg was closed due to the spreading effects of a British coal miners strike currently in progress. The travel agent made a reservation on the ferry from Le Havre and referred me to the tourist office for information to get from Bayeux to Le Havre (because to get there on the train was too cumbersome).

Loaded up with all the info I needed for a while, I visited my favorite boulangerie in town for goodies and began my search for the bus to Omaha Beach. In short order, the bus appeared and off we went.

It was a beautiful day to visit this historic site.

The driver deposited me at the entrance to the American Military Cemetery and from there I walked in. As cemeteries go, this struck me as quite dignified and beautiful. With over 9,000 men buried here, it was sobering— especially considering how many died right there on the nearby beach. It was a sad place, but overall left you with a positive feeling. The memorial stressed that these soldiers died for a purpose, an ideal which they helped preserve, so they did not die in vain.

While at the site, I also went down on Omaha Beach. The beach was not how I pictured it at all. No steel traps for amphibious landing craft, no barbed wire or any of the other accessories from “The Longest Day” with John Wayne. What I did observe were numerous holiday beach goers (clothing optional) and a number of beach houses. Maybe I’m wrong but I figured this former battleground would be a place for reverence rather than merry making. Life had definitely triumphed over death.

Omaha Beach. No fleet off the coast, no landing craft, no barbed wire, and fortunately no live rounds. Solitude is handy when you really need to ponder, and it worked for me here.

Back at the bus stop, there was quite a wait for the next bus. I took advantage of this time to see some of rural Normandy on foot, and headed off on foot in the direction the bus would eventually come from. I made it 3 km down the road, with French drivers on the narrow road terrorizing me more often than not. Several old farm buildings along the way looked well over 40 years old and were surely around during the invasion. They looked just like the classic whitewashed French farm houses from WWII pics. I can only imagine what this place was like in 1944!

Omaha Beach was just one of the landing beaches that Americans, Brits and Canadians stormed on D-Day. Take your pick, here they are, and vets from each country were looking back on those scary days.

It turned out I was such a good walker that I entered the next tariff zone away from Bayeux, making my trip back more expensive . Can I pick directions to randomly walk or what? The bus eventually dropped me back in Bayeux, where I acquired a bus schedule to Le Havre. Dinner in town consisted of pizza and half a liter of wine, which sent me stumbling back to the Accueil. As the evening played out, I washed some clothes out and packed up the rest of my stuff.

The way the train and bus schedules worked out, I had to make it to nearby Caen on the train by 7:40 to catch the only bus from there to Le Havre. So this morning, I was up at 6, and had to forgo breakfast again and zoomed to the station.

12:00 Midnight, headed toward Ireland aboard the St. Killian II

The train to Caen did not arrive on schedule, so I missed the possibility of catching the bus to Le Havre. The man at the train station info desk told me that Cherbourg was now open to ferry traffic, so seeing some chance of catching the fery, I hopped the next train out. I’m tired. More later.

052 – The 1,000 mile train from Spain

Monday, 16 July 1984, 5:00PM, Charmartin Train Station, Madrid

After another rough night’s sleep, that included a sleepless two hour time-out when I simply listened to the radio (and heard The Surfaris sing “Wipeout”!). In the morning, I got up, cleaned up and packed the majority of my stuff, and set out on the town to take care of business. That included changing French francs into pesetas, purchasing stamps for my bundle of postcards, and checking out of my room by noon. I left my bag in the lobby with the ever-vigilant, although lifeless looking, old guy who worked the front desk.

Hunger playing a major influence, and with time to kill before picking up my laundry at 1PM, I went over to the hamburgeseria for breakfast— a double burger, big plate of greasy fries and a beer. I’m really eating crap lately.

As my final pesetas ticked away, I did some modest provisioning for the upcoming train trip back to Paris. I’m not looking forward to this ride.

The leg of the journey featured a train ride relay of over 1,000 miles from Segovia to Madrid, to Irun, Paris and finally Bayeux. Where was the bullet train when I needed it?

With nothing left to do, I found a shady spot to sit on the steps across from the Plaza de Franco and examined my map of Madrid.

“Americano?” a voice asked out of nowhere. I looked up an saw an American girl.

“Oh, si, yo soy americano,” I replied with a gringo grin. In the conversation that followed, I learned this girl from Georgia had been studying for two months in Segovia. A friendly conversation ensued. Not too exciting.

When she left, I went to pick up my laundry. The snotty lady who I dealt with when I dropped off my clothes told me that my clothes weren’t ready. Then she began yammering away at me in unintelligible Castilian. I got the impression this was meant to torture me. I was thinking of appropriate names to call her, when a little old man broke in, and asked if I spoke English. He interpreted what the laundry lady said and told me my clothes would be ready in 15 minutes. Hm.

I ended up chatting with the old man, who saw my UCLA t-shirt and noted that many people think the “c” stands for Christian. This started a monlogue, offering few chances for me to interject. With15 minutes to kill, I was happy to keep him talking. The old man let go stream of consciousness story fragments that didn’t quite logically follow, starting with his father, a Tulane University Class of 1898 graduate, his own dislike for Spanish drivers and the Castilian dialect, his experience at the 1932 Olympics, Spanish anthropology, the fact that there were more Jews in Spain than in Israel (a statement he qualified by quoting Confucius who said something about not believing everything you’re told), and then the old man wrapped it up noting that he had been coming to this laundry for 20 years “in this backwards country” and he had given English lessons to the girl behind the counter. The two had been joking with each other when I walked into the laundry. This bit of oratory, and my well-timed head nods, lasted well over 15 minutes.

When the girl saw that the old guy had taken a liking to me, she pulled my bag of clothes from under the counter and proclaimed them ready. I paid and bid farewell to the old man. After that I returned to the hotel lobby and stuffed my backpack with freshly laundered clothes. I thanked the lifeless man behind the front desk and then began the death march to the train station, a 25 minute walk in the midday heat. Half way to the station, I realized that I neglected to return my room key. Under the burning sun, I considered myself well past the point of no return, so I continued to the station, or my next popsicle– whichever came first.

Tuesday, 17 July 1984, 9:30PM, Centre D’Accueil, Bayeux, France

Hot and sweaty, I sat at the train station sucking on a popsickle acquired at one of the many stands located around Segovia that dealt solely in ice cream. A sweaty Japanese tourist sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. His English was very rough, and partially explained why he laughed at whatever I said, whether it was humorous or not. We took the same train back to Madrid, and on it, he started asking me questions based on his understanding of our earlier conversation.

“So when you finish school, are you going back to East Germany?” Ok, not so good on listening comprehension.

The part of the conversation that he understood best was when he noticed the UCLA logo on my shirt, which he immediately recognized. I explained that there are many Japanese people in Los Angeles, which he didn’t seem ready to believe.

In Madrid, I bought a Coke at the train station bar with my last 100 pesetas. I don’t even drink Coke. Then I found my next train. Madrid was over 90 degrees again, so I didn’t bother boarding the train until the last minute to avoid the stuffy compartment. The train departed 30 minutes late anyway.

The 16 hour journey to Paris wasn’t a total nightmare, nor was it pleasurable (or even eventful) My fellow compartment companions included: an American woman, 40 years old, who spoke fluent Spanish (she was a flake); a young Spanish couple who were nice but not talkative; an old fart Spanish man who had smokers’ cough and an abrasive personality; and finally, a refugee from the cast of Saturday Night Fever, who spent most of his time walking up and down the length of the train to a disco beat that only he could hear.

We pulled into Paris on time. Feeling extremely scummy after the long, hot and at times very sweaty trip, I headed straight for the station showers in the basement. After getting cleaned up, I hit the information counter to find information on trains to my next destination, the Normandy coastal town of Bayeux. That train departed from the Gare St. Lazare, so I made my way there. I think I’ve got the hang of Paris now, and all of its train stations. Also picked up a bite to eat before jumping on my next train.

On the train to Bayeux, I sat with two American guys from “around Detroit” who were hilarious. Also in the compartment was a preppie jerk high school senior from Omaha, Nebraska, dressed in Argyle sweater, blazer and penny loafers (with pennies in them). It was a pleasure to listen to the banter of the two Americans. They were headed to Ireland on tonight’s ferry. It would have been fun trip to join them but I still have more of France to see, so I jumped off the train in Bayeux, the first French town to be liberated after the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Finding the Bayeux tourist office was a challenge but within an hour of setting off from the station, I had found it, set up accommodations and had settled into my new lodgings at the D’Accueil. I’m not sure what this place’s story is, but $6.11 got me my own room (with a sink) in a dormitory style complex. Down the hall are unlimited showers and toilets (no toilet seats!). I must add that the toilets contribute yet another design to the growing collection. Fortunately my digestive tract is now rock solid due to efforts to stem the flow of my couscous curse. I’m sure I’ll be using these facilities before I go, and will of course be testing out whatever the French excuse for toilet paper is.

C’est la vie!

Time for another detailed drawing of curious Euro-plumbin designs you don’t see at home. And I always wonder why if you invest in an indoor toilet, why not go the whole way and get a seat for it too?

Summer Vacation 1984

Journal entries from an awesome backpacking trip