Today was one never to forget…….starting in Bellegarde against all the odds and with the help of the gods we travel from Bellegarde near Geneve to Bordeaux despite a nation wide government services strike.
We wake in a small place much like he opening scenes of the stalker and the manager refuses to say bonjour despite his wife’s urgings. Only after I work my French does he come across grudgingly. Then to the lonely station dawning over an autumnal scenne cliffs of sun touched turning birch, sunlit houses and a rusty train station being renewed….
The ticket office is ferme I suspect nothing…
The train arrives and we are told that there is a nationwide strike and that our connection in Paris is touch and go., We have 1 hour and 16 minutes to get from Gare de Lyon right bank to Montparnasse 1+2 Rive Gauche. No Metro no buses n high taxi demand and disruption to services is what we are told. The guard laughingly suggest we ride as everything else will be pas possible…..
Pony is sick with a throat infection and we are trying every alyernative to alleviate extra duress. To no avail we must unpack the bikes load the baggage and ride across town only to reverse the process all in I hour and 16 minutes. I’m confident knowing the route and not quite comprehending the democratic process a la Paris……but hope that it is not a burden on my travelling companion..we resolve to stay en paris should the trains be kaput or gone by the time we get there...wonderful to have such freedom .Pony bravely agrees to ride across town….after the rest day in Evian there is a need to cycle in us both....
We arrive with 6 extra minutes in hand god given….we unpack and reassemble the bikes in a record 10. We then take off to the Seinne from Gare de Lyon.
Sirens everywhere and large police vans with lights bl;ocking streets .. We plough on down the Quai Henry IV bike path…..less traffic than usual and the police are everywhere arround the Bastille….
We cross the palais pont in front of the terrible tower where they tortured Marie and her child the Roi de France….Treess against sun obscure my view and a taxix is all of a sudden in my path ..I brake with enough time not to hit but the experience slows us down a bit….
Then on and up BLvD St michel, Pony suggest the time to turn on from behind and we roar up almost empty street (for Paris anyway)…The we see the police blocking the end of Blvrd Montparnasse….our station is at the end..can we pass yes why not…and then it dawns on me…Montparnasse is empty and we are riding down a huge empty boulevard…..far off is bright colours and huge noie…a manifestation…through which we must pass….we duck across to a nearby rue ….
More people loud banging cheering whistling crowds thousands of people are all about us….we are trying to go against the surge of noise and orange colours…there are fascisti also near by trying the same thuing whistles and boos fololw us….pamphlets trhust into our hands and Pony finds the side of barriered street to forge ahead.. I see her far off and wonder will we be separated… the clock insists…..
I plough through as far away from the fascisti as possible… I carch up as we go past tablse with petit noir drinking observeres…the roar intensifies as we reach the Tour Montpanasse..therr are bands with great rythyms and good rhymes in the back of vans being broadcast all over Paris….
We reach an eddy and land in front of the Tour.
Now where is La gare? A bloke laughs and suggest that it has been bombbed and pas existe….then a woman directs us…..I assits Pony up the escalator and onto the main playform and then return to get my abandoned kit…..
We still have 10 minutes a kind souls suggests as we run down the length of the train to Voiture huit….
The we repack the bikes…I breathe deep thinking that we have still time when Pony wakes me up with some kind women who grab everything loose and we are suddenly whoosh behind closed doors and in a pile in the TGV answering to a complaining conducteur…
Now Bordeaux which is grimy and self interested and yet has very cheap very nice red wine which we are enjoying. Pony is breathin deeply now and I will be soon.. Thanks to all good and kind energies for today which I thought was pas possible and yet somehow came to be……
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