It’s a long hard road out of Paris.
Up early and attempt to get everyone shipshape and inline so we can get down to Le Puy without us all losing our minds.
It’s a pretty straight forward trip from our apartment in Batignolles on the metro, make a change and get to Gare de Lyon which has an overland TGV to Lyon and a quick change at Lyon Pernasse to another (slower) train to Le Puy en Velay. Simple. Surely.
It’s pretty busy at Place de Clichy metro, and there’s never anybody to assist mad foreign families with massive bags to get through the barriers anywhere. So we bustle on as streams of Parisiens surge past us and to the platforms. It’s a pretty easy system to get used to if you’ve used the London tube system before, might be a bit confusing if it’s your first taste. The french system is to just throw up a million signs and let you solve the path, it’s a bit ergonomically weak.
Once at Gare de Lyon it’s easy again to find your train as when you arrive the departure board tells you which of the two halls you need to be in well before it notifies you of the platform at boarding.
The TGV is quick alright, it blasts across the wheatfields at 390km/hr and we have completed the trip to Lyon in just over 2 hours. It’s at this point it gets confusing. We find the train and platform that’s meant to be going to Le Puy but it seems to be stopping early based on the onboard signs. Unsure I test my weak french with the conductor that the train is going to Le Puy and she says “Oui”. Fantastic. Then she lets loose a barrage of high speed french that I cannot even begin to get a grip on. I manage to drag Alissa into the conversation and she being actually equipped to function in this country determines we are heading for a bus transfer. Hooray.
Honestly it’s not that bad but we are still feeling a bit jetlagged and every hiccup seems ridiculously unnecessary and my head hurts. And as I’m typing this the bus driver seems to have taken a wrong turn. C’est la vie.
We get there. Le Puy is classic and medieval and fantastic. Time for tents and snacks. The taxi to the campsite should be the last time we use any vehicle for a couple of months. I guess we walk to Spain now.
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