Thursday, July 2, 2009

Day 4 - People Get Ready, there's a Train A'Coming

With hindsight we should have booked our train tickets earlier. Yesterday Dave & I had looked for a metro station in the dying stages of the great BatoBus trek, but not finding one we had resolved to get them first thing on Sunday.So there we were : off on the metro at 7.15 to find Gare de Lyon station and get the tickets. After a false start going the wrong way we eventually made the transfer,bought the tickets,and were back at the apartment by 8.45 and leaving 10 minutes later.This time - with luggage - we caught a taxi and left on the 9.55 train to Lyon, arriving midday.It came as a bit of a suprise that the airport, where we were picking up the car, was half an hour out of town and a different train ride would have taken us straight there. Merde! But we eventually picked up our brand new car lease, a Citroen Picasso, and began the learning process of driving on the wrong side of the road.Wipers went on instead of indicators; turns provided momentary confusion, and there where moments of panic when we veered instinctively onto the wrong side of the road, but we finally found our cottage - despite little help from the landlord- and were most surprised to have a quaint rural cottage that was clean and well equipped. Being a Sunday the only thing we could find open in Chauffailles was a Patisserie but we managed a dinner of homemade quiche, pizza and strawberry gateaux.In a nice stroke of fortune, our landlord has a vineyard in the area so the cottage has its own cellar - a literal cellar with a stock of their wines in there. This was duly raided (to be paid on departure!) and we had a very relaxing evening celebrating our success at actually getting here.

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