Monday, September 22, 2014

If in doubt, follow people; it is easier to move around the corridors of the Metro by staying in line; I wish I'd known that in Toronto (grin)

Today the plan is Etampes, at least, from Austerlitz, and possibly Etrechy or Bouray, or even Dourdan!

I arrive via Bastille and take the outside route by mistake, I circulate across the platforms for mainline trains and ultimately descend to the RER. Of course! The RER is underground in Paris!

On the RER-C there are 5 terminuses, but many more trains; for example, there is a train that goes only as far as Juvisy on my line, which means at least two different trains heading towards (but one not going TO) Etampes.

Trains are coded e.g. JILL, FOOT, ELBA and I want to know what the four-letter code signals.

I miss the train from Austerlitz, but it's only 15 minutes to the next one.

We run through the local stations (e.g. as far as Juvisy) far too quickly for me to read the signs; a great many stations appear to be called “Information”.

Ablon-Sur-Seine looks like a sweet little town; Athis Mons is right on the riverbank, but we don't stop.

I think a general rule is that the town centre will be found on the same side of the station as the main old-fashioned station building, but in newer stations the dormitory suburbs are favored by the modern station hall.

We are at Carmarande. Hah! I was going to walk here from Etampes.

In Etampes I discover a bus to Dourdan – I can do two towns in one day without walking!

The local buses are all 913.nn where nn is the local route.

I catch a local bus 913.02 that takes me on a tour of the town; I swipe my ticket but alas! It comes up RED; the driver says “Try the other (swipe station)” Same deal. Then she reads the station and sees that it says “Deja Pasee”; perhaps that's what happened in the Metro last Friday?

We tour the town, then I take a coffee for 30 minutes because I've seen that there is a bus to Dourdan at 11:45, except on Wednesdays, but since today is Monday – instead of retracing my steps by train through Bretigny, I can ride through the countryside and in 30 minutes pick up an extra day's town. What a deal! Why didn't I think of this before? Because I learned about it at this little station in Etampes.

While I am staring at the timetables a horn sounds behind me. Drivers!

The horn sounds again. I turn and see that the driver of bus 913.01 is looking at me hopefully; he thinks I might be wanting his bus and he doesn't want to leave me stranded! I smile and wave him off and give him a little salute!

Thirty minutes later he is back, so I get to walk to his open bus door and thank him. I think that was very considerate of him; I look like a tourist, and he is looking after me!

Because I don't trust myself, I ask a guy my age if I've understood the 11:45 bit, because FWIW it is already 11:44 by the station clock, and no sign of the bus. He carefully reads back what I already know, but points out that the “ne ... que” means that the bus runs ONLY on Wednesday. Rats! I lost that day as easily as I had won it.

I take the train back to Bretigny, then wait 20 minutes for the train to Dourdan.

I see a crew of SNCF folks wearing bright violet vests, so I stop the trailing guy and ask him why the purple vests? We work here. I can see your red SNCF badge but why the purple vests? He rabbits on at the speed of the 12:37 “Direct a Paris” about this law and that minister (“stupid”) until I manage to get him to slow down.

Turns out he is the chef d'equipe, this equipe, and asks me if I've been up the Eiffel, through the Triomphe etc. When I tell him I prefer people to batiments and but-de-ligne to Paris, he brightens up considerably; we get as far as him telling ME that Melbourne is the world's second greatest Greek city and my train pulls in, then pulls out with me on board.

Two stations down the line a violet crew boards and begins checking tickets. I convince my (new, young) guy that he should let me watch him validate the Navigo Pass, which, to my great delight, he does. I watch him scroll through an interrogation of my card, valid until next Sunday, five zones etc. I'm glad I asked.

The train goes on to Dourdan le Foret, but the chef convinced me to forget that, so I exit at Dourdan, do a quick tour by foot (the bus driver not in evidence) and return to Cafe La Gare for an Orangina and two pate sandwiches, one of which I'll take home. I buy a paper Le Parisien and read the politics. Payment for the paper is €2:20 and for the lunch €10:50, payment being made separately at different caisses, but through the same lady.

After lunch a walk around town, and I'm bursting for a pee. No toilets in the railway station, but at the bus station “gare de routiere”; I must find out why its a Routiere and not a “gare des autobus”.

Back in time to catch the 16:08 which I finally work out is for Paris, despite the announcement board saying “St Quentin”, the timetable shows it going only to Champ de Mars (Eiffel Tower to you).

Then the announcement that due to problems somewhere in Paris, the 16:08 (“SARA”) is cancelled and will be the 16:38. Perhaps.

I sit down and do some typing, why not, listening to 72GB of classical music on my jukebox. C'est La Vie, Non?

DEBA to Le Foret runs in with cars 202963 and 202964; probably joined at the hip when they were born.

The fete is over; time to take down the banners.

And what better time to do that than peak-hour Monday morning, while traffic swooshes underneath, the man in the lift-platform snips the strings that hold the banner.

In Toronto there'd be orange Glo-Cones, two cops with guns, ...

I took a panoramic shot of Gare de Austerlitz. I had inadvertently popped out the Metro, extreme right, dipped into Grand Lignes dead centre, before locating Ile De France extreme left.

Where would YOU like to go today? And this is only the RER-C line. The Transilien lines are labeled A through P.

Nestled in a quiet valley not far from Paris, readily accessible by train ...

Another scam; the guy walks through the carriage dropping a €4 calendar in front of everyone, walks slowly back up the carriage, even more slowly (and hopefully) down the carriage. Hopefully because, I guess, he thinks that folks like me will toss him a €5 note.

What he doesn't know is that where I'm going €5 will buy me a handful of crevettes, a piece of fromage and some sweet raisins and still leave me over enough for “Un espress!”

I don't know why I shot this; it's a fluke that I captured that hill.

As we speed through the stations I'd like to note which ones have local buses; trouble is we go by so quickly that I can't read the station names.

I got this one because we stopped here. Now; are there any buses?

Cranes Cluster; I don't know whether the idea is to set 8 cranes to work on a building to speed up the erection and reduce the road blockage, or whether the principle is to raze the entire block and have a block of cranes raise new buildings.

Boray looks nice enough.

Bit of a commuter-town, if you ask me.

The Etampes local bus crosses a light tramway; light because the catenary is just a thin wire. I suspect the tram is no longer in service because our bus didn't stop-and-look before crossing.

We are encouraged to exit by the rear doors. The front doors of the bus carry red faces with a sad frown.

I love this transport system. I can both tour Etampes and Meuniers, and than choose where to eat or shop.

This is how I thought I could save a day with a 30-minute bus ride, but the bus runs ONLY on Wednesday. Must be market day.

Park your car as you would in Paris. I must admit that the van bore the name of the shop, so perhaps this is allowable.

I start to walk down the delightfully narrow streets.

Turn left, turn right; the next street is a pretty sight.

Little courtyards catch both the sunlight and my eyes.

If this isn't the town hall, it ought to be.

Through the market square; today is not a market day, it's a park-it day (Franglais pun)

These delightful side streets hold tiny shops that work just fine.

The centre of town is riddled with selling-alleys.

We have a few modern stores, of course.

If I had to guess, I'd say this was a convent.

More narrow streets.

And narrow footpaths.

Some smart-arse has parked his shoulder bag just to demonstrate how narrow these footpaths can get.

OK. There's enough room for one smart-arse, as long as he isn't swinging his shoulder-bag.

They haven't exactly strewn flowers in my path, but most towns have pretty baskets of flowers along the streets.

Sometimes the flowers tell you not to drive down an alley.

Tower. Chance of a shower later this afternoon.

Talk about threatening!

Speaking of towers, there's a decrepit castle overlooking the town. Look above the roof of the blue car.

Here is a better view. I think the French Tricolor indicates that it is a national monument.

Are these small old town attractive just because they are different, or are they just naturally pleasing to the eye?

By the way, here's the other end of that florist's van.

A better view of the old castle.

See the (1) immediately below the “02 September”? The footnote has the bit that says the bus runs ONLY on Wednesday; I read it that the bus does NOT run on Wednesday.

Another sweet building. Hah-hah!

Not quite up to Paris standards, where they use a template, but you get the idea: The train will stop with the carriage doorway right HERE!

I'm beginning to wish that I'd visited that castle after all.

The trains don't use this side of the platform, do they?

(five minutes later) OK, so I was wrong about the trains.

I think we are in the valley of the Essonne.

The seats are well-worn, but at least the entire carriage is mine.

My orange bag is about eight rows in front of where I stand.

Stay healthy!

Security cameras are everywhere; I think this means that if you get mugged to death, they catch the mugger. But you're still dead.

I remember this disaster when it was reported. I didn’t know then that I’d be here now.

I found myself wondering why there is no track “7”!

I could have gone for a short stroll around Bretigny, but ended up talking to the boss of the platform queue.

I have come to love that green-leaf T symbol.

Not a very good shot, I am afraid, but just look at the number of bus routes I could take from here.

Each station has one or more of these alarm posts, numbered uniquely I'd have to believe.

I can't remember why I took this; we've all seen a mattress being aired before, haven't we?

Still waiting for my train at Bretigny. The staff in violet jackets are invisible in the shade of the station canopy.

The staff are just visible in this zoom shot.

Here comes my train: It is a long train (full-platform-length) and will arrive within one minute; and it does.

(Movie) Train passing through Bretigny while we sit

Picking up speed out of Bretigny.

I have cranked the window open; the window slides down. A protective sheet of glass angled inwards would deflect any rain coming into the carriage while the train is at rest, but in motion the seats would get wet. Newer carriages do not have opening windows.

About 50% of any trip was spent watching trees flash by. The other 50% I could actually see the countryside.

Dourdan has a chateau guarded by a castle!

I zoom in; I'm too excited to actually walk there!

The base of the tower has a doorway you could ride a horse through. If you could ride a horse.

The walls are largely intact.

Down the street I go. Note the iron posts meant to dissuade folks from parking on the sidewalk.

I enjoy these strolls around the towns. Each town is different, but every town looks delightful.

Dourdan has the square-tree bug too!

I am trying to keep track of where I walk.

But sometimes I just enjoy reading the names off the signs.

Another avenue of boxed trees.

That's a lot of trees; a lot of work. How do they do it?

In the centre of the roundabout (“traffic circle”) is a sculpture of bees, all floating around in the wind. A giant mobile.

Bee mobile in Dourdan

I have found myself in the park behind what I think is the town hall.

Just to the left, out of this image, a schoolteacher is conducting a class. Outdoors. The weather is so fine.

The back of (maybe) the town hall.

This is a nice little park, a beautiful spot in a beautiful town.

Although I don't believe all I see. The taped note says “Wet paint”; the bench looks rather weathered.

Large flower beds grace the park.

Back into the streets with a good view of the parish church.

Zoomed in for the contingency shot.

Another few steps, another park.

I decide to walk to the end of this street.

Planes are flying low; I suspect they are going to land at Orly-Sud.

This copse is at the foot of the park behind the town hall.

Oops! I think I've walked too far; I didn't come here for a supermarket.

Nor for the new housing development.

So it is time to turn around.

Back past the copse. A bit of the town hall can be seen peeking through the trees.

Little gateways lead into private courtyards.

Back through the narrow streets.

Etampes! I've just come from there.

This was the story of my two weeks here; I found only one library open, and that was in Bures-sur-Yvette.

The Orge. I think the ducks thought that they could have a piece of my baguette.

Wrong!

Here is a view of the (closed) library.

This was quite striking: one school teacher; sixty (I counted) well-behaved school-children.

Another view of my navigational point in Dourdan-Sur-Orge.

If this is a covered market, it's a very small one by comparison with other towns.

There you go: The first house was constructed by Capet in the tenth century.

I think this is the dungeon.

I had difficulty getting a vertical panorama; the sun was too bright for me to line up the images!

We have a moat, dried up.

I am still trying to keep track of where I've walked.

This lout is trying to look manly.

I think he looks like a twit trying to be a man.

I think he knows what I'm thinking.

Make no mistake; Egly is beautiful. It's not ugly.

I envy the households with vegetable gardens.

All the places I've been in the Ile de France are completed in a yellowish-cream stone or paint.

And some of the houses look quite dinky.

The fence along the edge of the platform struck me as odd.

Pulling into Austerlitz I see the two large chimneys that lie alongside the lines into Gare de Lyon. Another navigational landmark.

Home again! This is the verandah where I take my breakfast.

And, of course, I want to make a green feather pillow cover when I get back to Toronto.

It really is quite cute, but I don't know how functional it is.

First I must catch a green bird ...

And look! The rest of my stay here should be just perfect: Sunny, but a little bit cooler.