Sunday, May 1, 2011

April 30 By TGV Basel to Paris

The TGV came in on time from Zurich and we were quickly across the border into France.  At Mulhouse a second TGV set was added on the front.  There was some engineering work in the Mulhouse area and we lost time.  The new SNCF tram trains now run to a new station we saw at the National Railway Museum.  By Strasbourg we were 30  minutes late.  There was right hand running on the line in Alsace and we didn't change over to left hand running until we entered the high speed line.  As usual, the HSL was pretty boring as there is a significant amount of cuts and the lines tend to go through open country.  We clocked our train at 300 kmph (1 km in 12 seconds).

We arrived in Gare de l'Est 30 minutes late.  After saying goodbye to Martin, we found the Metro was very crowded and decided to take a taxi which brought us to the apartment.  It felt very much like coming home with lots of familiar landmarks and many memories.

Sophie arrived at the apartment just after we did and the hand-over was made quickly.  Bill and I went along rue de Levis to get some groceries before Mary arrived - she got in around 1530.

After this we went to look at model shops on the rue de Douai (3) and rue d'Amsterdam.  The stock is amazing - just the sheer number of different locomotives.  The prices are very high.

This evening we had dinner at Le Village, a bistro close by.  The confit de canard was very good with the Saumur Champigny.

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