Saturday, September 20, 2014

I am awake by 6:00am, so do some accounting and head down for breakfast. This morning's word "L'interrupteur", I think. Mon interrupteur, thanks to a lady in the verandah.

I have €400 in cash (also my MasterCard). Sat-Mon makes ten days; roughly €40 per day. My room is paid for, as is my transit except for Monday's trip to CDG and the event that my Navigo flakes out again! I can do a breadstick for one meal, a Formula for another, and a snack of fruit at night. I ought not to buy any more tea mugs! I have spent €1,450, of which €1,170 for hotel and transit, so say €280 over 5 days, just under €60 per day; take out adapter, tea mug, tea bags and milk, razors and other non-recurring costs and I'm probably averaging €50/day. I can do better than that. Indeed, today if I set off with €15 in my wallet it will suffice the day, I'm sure.

The walk from (Montparnasse) Beynes RER to Maule RER is 6.3 Km, a doddle, with a refreshment break in Mareil-sur-Maudre.

(later) The rain drifts down. Shall I abandon my plans to walk (in the rain?) for 90 minutes?

We will see. In the meantime, some programming:-

1. I have a *.doc for each day of my vacation.

2. I can locate images for each day of my vacation.

3. I can build a text list of files for each day.

4. I can paste this list into a document.

5. I can isolate the file name

6. I can embrace the name with tags and

7. Paragraph marks and styles.

8. I can then paste that into the corresponding HTML file.

9. I can then paste and type narrative text around that.

In ODT load the appropriate DOC

DOS CD the folder

DOS DIR/OD > erase.txt.

Paste this into the DOC and then eliminate all non-graphic entries.

MACRO “Delete1” CTRL-SHIFT-D to isolate just the file name and extent

MACRO “Insert1” CTRL-SHIFT-I to embrace the file name with tags

MACRO “Paragraph” CTRL-SHIFT-P to insert a paragraph tag at the start of each paragraph

NOTE while doing this, copy images to work, resize, rotate, and start uploading!

Load the corresponding HTML text file

Paste our (macro-ed) IMG text into the HTML file

Grab and paste text from yyyymmdd.odt

Save the TXT (html) file

Upload that edited HTML file

ReSIZE the set of images

Upload the set of images

Update the link in the main PARIS index sheet

I drop off my key and head out the door around 10:20; the fete “Journées du Patrimonie” is not yet in full swing, some stalls are empty, but I collect a handful of child-related items and chat with a few stall keepers, then into the Metro, board the train, and waddyaknow, another artiste, this time with a violin.

Two days ago it was an accordion, awfully hard to hide an accordion as you board a train (and switch to another car every three stations). Illegal, I'm sure, but people turn a blind eye. It is a mild form of blackmail: I have played two tunes for you, now you should pay me. Most of the passengers ignore them.

11:50 and the train for Mantes La Jolie pulls out of Montparnasse. It is Saturday and there is one train per hour, for me a journey of about 60 minutes.

I plan to check out Beynes and Mareil-sur-Maudre en passant and get off to explore Maule. I might walk back to Beynes. In any event, I'll catch the first train through the station, either back to Montparnasse or out to Mantes and back through St Lazare.

Well before we have reached Versailles Chantiers two SNCF security guards stroll through the train; they DO have pistols!

I try to take photos of the valley of the Seine through the train window, but the windows are so dirty that the photo looks awful.

I walk through Maule, right through the town and to the top of a hill up a country trail; we've had a shower and the smell of the rain on the hayfields takes me straight back to my youth in Lancashire.

I drop into the local church (most church halls or basements have toilets!) and wander around an art exhibition. Then I pop into the church proper, to sit, not for the guided tour, and a pretty Scottish lady comes to sit next to me. She married a Frenchman and came to live here a long time ago. We trade stories for a while, then she goes off to help. I sit in the cool church until the guided tour starts, then leave and continue my way down hill to the station.

I am in luck (again); the train from Montparnasse is due in 4 minutes, so I board it, a continuation of my journey to Mantes La Jolie and change trains to catch the train back to St Lazare.

I decided not to walk back to Beynes; it looks like a good walk, but the day is too hot and too humid. People have commented on the heat for mid- to late-September.

In my haste to catch the train, with literally a minute to spare, I have forgotten to tap my card, so I spend the whole trip holding my 1Km Michelin map and my camera in the hopes of convincing any security officer that I really am a forgetful tourist …

Trains run every fifteen minutes, both directions, between Mantes La Jolie and St Lazare. On a Saturday.

After we pull in to Gare St Lazare I take a few minutes to look at the alphabetical listings of station names, some of which I recognize, and wonder whether to head out again and “do” a second town, but no, I'm already tired, and couldn’t do another town justice today.

Then I notice an amazing Metro line, built since I was here in the late seventies. Line 14, five stops from Gare St Lazare and I'll be at Bercy, about ¾ Km from where I live. Whoop-de-doo! It is fast and only four stops between here and there, all the way across town.

The fete is winding down as I return home, but I chat with some vendors. It is easy to see why I stumbled in my use of French 35 years ago – most people are happy to have a shot in English, but this time around I insist “Il faut parler en Francais” and use English only to ask how to say something in French; I then say it again, but in French.

I shower, goof off for an hour or so, then dress in fresh clothes and head out for a light supper of Chicken Salad that comes on a bed of 1/4-inch cubed home fries. Yum!

The street fete is in full swing – Jours De Patrimonie – fetes across the country to celebrate and promote local involvement in the local community - as I set off down the hill to Dugommier.

A grubby-window view as the train picks up speed out of Montparnasse. I think that cluster of buildings off to the left is La Defense

And what would a photo of the Parisian skyline be without the Eiffel Tower? Taken as we rush through Meudon station.

This photo is supposed to show, quite clearly, part of the valley of The Seine; quite clearly it fails in this, not just because of the not-so-clear window.

And here is a view of the farmland around Fontenay Le Fleury.

The white dots in the distance are trucks on the highway.

Another shot of the distant highway with a feeder road leading into it.

Across the fields are villages.

I must say it is quite enjoyable to have a railway carriage all to oneself and be able to leap from one side to the other taking photos like a deranged tourist.

And here we are in Maule. I love these signs that give me so many options.

Also when so many things are off to one side, even without understanding what they are, that's probably where I want to be; right in the centre of things!

So its off along the narrow roads of Maule.

Turn left, turn right ...

... until we meet the square. The market is shutting down, a few traders are slowly dismantling their canopies and will be in no mood to talk with me, I feel sure.

The tower of the local church is being renovated. This is usually a good sign, as folks will feel the need to apologies for the mess.

The church is closed, but a very nice Thai bloke ushers me into the art exhibition; the show is carefully marked “Free”, so I know I shan't get out of here without being parted from some money. It's a game we play ...

Down into the crypt … I take a photo and escape after tossing a €2 coin into the hat. At least I got to use the washrooms in the parish hall!

Back in the fresh air I start my walk up the hill out of town.

The lane is pleasant enough, although I'm finding the sun hot.

Near the top of the hill I find that I don't recognize any of the village names.

So its back down the hill, into town.

Some caves are carved (nice Franglais pun, Chris!) into the hillside. I creep towards them; these are the things that the children of Maule harbour in their nightmares. Me too if I'm not careful!

I made a panoramic shot; there are, from memory, four large caves.

The guided tour of the church is about to start, so the doors are open and I can enter.

I'm not at all interested in a guided tour – after all, I look like the only one here and how rude would it be for me to abandon the tour partway through? It is, however, nice to sit quietly in the calmness of an old stone church out in the boonies.

Yes, it's just a skip full of small yellow chunks of limestone, but I needed this shot for a canoeing joke elsewhere.

Back to the railway station. Where next?

Well, the next train that arrives is headed west and north, a continuation of my interrupted journey, so we are bopping along towards Mantes La Jolie.

And here to prove it is a shot across La Seine.

Yes, the house has a nice facade, but check out the trees; those are what got my interest.

The trees have been heavily pruned to produce vertical trunks with just a few shoots coming out, and this is late summer; autumn you could say.

Chance of a thunderstorm in the late afternoon?

I am now on the train from Mantes La Jolie which will take me to St Lazare, so making a grand circle tour off to the west of Paris.

St Lazare provides a surprise in the form of line 14, which will be part of the Paris-Express network. In no time at all – unbelievable almost, I am deposited at Bercy on the far side of Paris.

Check out the map for line 14; I could have made it in just four stops and walked home from Gare de Lyon!

The Bois de Vincennes sign is a healthy prompt that I am headed in the right direction

The street rises slightly towards the SNCF and RER lines out of Gare de Lyon, and home.

The Fete De Patrimonie is shutting down; it's been a long day so far.

My train trips (3 trains not counting line 14) out from Montparnasse and back to St Lazare.

My walk around Maule from the station (at the right) to the top of the hill (at the left) and back again, with a little wander around the heart of town.