Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Wake at 5, type. Breakfast, shave, walk to Gare de Lyon the long way around.

A lady from Alsace asks directions and accompanies me along Boulevard Bercy as far as Rue de Bercy. What is left to prove? I am in France, helping a lady from Alsace find her way around The Big Smoke on foot.

At 8:50 I am in Gare de Lyon, but get confused in Gare de Lyon, so many levels, so many halls. I am sure I want the RER-D, so I go there and those trains only go as far as Meulun. My train for Montereau doesn't depart until 10:49, and it's only 9:00. My research back in May suggested a train every 20 minutes. What have I not understood? In the end I decide to take the RER to Meulun and let the fast train catch up to me.

But first I'll follow the signs to the toilets, I've been waiting to use one of these new systems. The signs lead me to a set of stairs; at the foot of the stairs are two ladies and a machine that takes €0.60 and dispenses a ticket which gives the right to one of the ladies to point behind me to a regular men's urinary (or Pissoir if you prefer). So the old ways are not dead!

Two ruffians sit up-carriage from me, one is loud and obnoxious, and cranks open a window and begins smoking. At Villeneuve-Saint-George he suddenly asks if this train is for Juvisy, and I respond instantly “No, Juvisy is on the other side of the river [[you moron]]” and he leaps off. Turns out I was right, Juvisy IS on the other side of the river, although he can switch trains here and grab the next one to cross the river.

What interests me the most is that I decided to tell him “No” because I didn't want him smoking on My Train! I am an evil little bastard! Anything to get rid of the twit.

It turns out that beside the Metro and the RER, there are grandes lignes and then there are Grandes Lignes!

I ought to be on a Grandes Lignes train for Montereau, which I can do by waiting for a really Grande Ligne whose first stop Montereau (and then proceeds to Marseille or Greece or whatever). Then there is a Grande Ligne which is a sort-of RER but isn't a RER, and it is in effect a local that, it seems, runs between Meulun and Montereau.

I begin to understand this when I arrive at Meulun around 10:00 and find that the Montereau train leaves Meulun at 10:50, just one minute after it leaves Gare de Lyon!

The lady in the information booth sets me almost-straight. Turns out that if I had just trusted myself and jumped on the RER-D that pulled in as I arrived at Gare de Lyon, I would have been in Montereau (or Champagne) over an hour ago. So I think the trick is to take the local train to Meulun, then the local train to Montereau; the express is good only if you know what you are doing!

Too, she says, there is a strike on. Huh? I'd not heard about it, and it doesn't seem to have affected my trips today; maybe it's the TGV on the Grandes Lignes that are affected.

I have time for a quick one at the Brasserie across the street; I plunk down €20 and get €18.80 change; the guy took the time to answer my question so I left him a €0.80 tip for a €1.20 coffee. I'm happy, and I hope that he is.

The ride out to Montereau is good, but I give up on trying to find a side of the carriage is not in bright sunlight as we snake up-river. It feels quite good to recognize the place names and find that they have houses, vegetable plots and small industries.

Chartrettes! I stared at this spot for ages for four months or so, and now I'm just rolling through it! How Sweet!

I watch each local station closely; at a guess over half of them have a local bus service.

At Montereau I ask the lady in the Relay where I can find a hat, and I'm sure her directions were excellent, except that I probably took Tout Droite (straight ahead) to mean To The Right, so I wandered all the way down Rue Leo Lagrange to Avenue Marechal Leclerc, then north until I reached dear old Rue Jean Jaures and hence to a mens-wear shop, where the two charming ladies sold me a baseball cap for €15, emptying my wallet!

I found the tourism bureau just before they closed for lunch, and the nice lady there gave me a street map – just what I wanted – and a nice chat about administrative errors and Napoleon.

This part of Ile de France is known as “Two Rivers”, the Yonne joins the Seine right here in the heart of town, which you might think is incredibly good planning. Except that strictly (EULA from Montereau to Paris) speaking, the Yonne should be the Fleuve and the Seine, being smaller at this point, should be the Riviere, but an administrative error (as she politely put it) got it wrong there were, of many years ago. So it is The Seine that flows through Paris, not the Yonne.

It's a bit like the two Niles: everyone thinks of the White Nile as being THE Nile, but it's really the Blue Nile that brings the floods.

I walk to where the Green Seine and the Brown Yonne merge and wonder whether it might have been cheaper to go to Pittsburgh and watch the Allegheny and the Monongohela make the Ohio river.

Come to think of it, the same spot in Pittsburgh is known as “Three Rivers”, as in the old “Three Rivers Stadium”, now gone.

As I ponder this, a barge comes screaming down the Seine, would have slammed on the brakes if it had any, but anyway, uses its bow thrusters to execute a hairpin turn and heads up the Yonne. I didn't know that they could do that! If burning water had a smell, I'm sure it would have been in the air. I stood up and saluted as he went by me, but he was busy looking ahead and ignored me. Quite sensible, really.

Napoleon’s last victory took place in Montereau, but it seemed impolite to raise the subject.

I re-read the PDF timetables later tonight and find that I had just missed the 8:49 to Montereau, and that, yes, indeed, the next one – non-stop from Gare de Lyon - was 10:49. Now that means every two hours. My guess is that the trick really is to take the RER to Meulun (every 15 minutes, say) then catch a train from Meulun at one of 08h15, 08h30, 08h50, 09h00, 09h15, 09h50, 10h00.

I check out the church, built over the 12th through 16th centuries (500 years) and then bombed sometime in 1940 by someone who was supposed to be aiming at bridges.

After the church it is off through the old quarter, which is what I think Salle Rustic translates into. Along Rue Danielle Casanova to Pepiniere Royale to Varennes, Liberation and De Gaulle.

Madame Relay is closed, so I can't thank her by showing her my new cap, and I type a bit while waiting for the 14:12 train. I am pooped.

We leave on the dot of 14:12, and I note that there is a train like this, stopping five times before Meulun then direct to Gare de Lyon, every hour. This means I could, if I chose, hop off at any station, stroll around for 50 minutes (cafe SVP!) and just hop aboard the next one. 50 minutes is about the right time for a little stroll.

Sixty minutes after leaving Montereau we arrive at Gare de Lyon via Fontenay, “Direct” from Meulun. Whoosh!

I steer an old Italian couple towards Information for Bobigny.

Next I find that no one in Paris seems to have bus maps for sectors, like they say they have. One kiosk suggests I go to Fontenay aux Roses to see if they have any there. Why isn't there at least a central Metro place where they are guaranteed to have everything. I can understand a rinky-dink station like Dugommier not having them, but at Gare de Lyon?

I catch the 29 bus home, collect my key, sit with a mug of tea, and at 5:30 head out to collect my laundry. They haven't started it yet, so off for supper (Chicken Fermier with green beans) and a coffee, then collect Le Monde for tomorrow, wander Monoprix, and home.

I feel twinges of sadness. These are good days, all of them, but only 5 days remain. How shall I spend them? Two or three weeks from now I'll look back, and what will I regret? Probably not visiting more towns outside Paris. I can do the inside of Paris in a week, no sweat; I can do a TGV and a few days in the country no sweat; but this trip was predicated on the Transilien network so, tentatively:

Wednesday: Chars, Us

Thursday: Coulommiers

Friday: Saint Remy les Chevreux

Saturday: Survilliers?

Sunday: Paris, again?

And here we are in sunny Meulun.

I know they have winter here – I lived through at least two of them – but except for last Sunday every day has been clear skies, I think. Sometimes the only clouds in the sky are vapour trails from big jets.

Of course, right across from the station is a cafe.

Of course I go grab a coffee. I'm not a local, but I can learn how to be one.

Then I am off to explore the beautiful town of Ile de France.

Once again: Just look how much fun I can have on the buses with my Navigo pass! These are local buses that would let me tour Melun for “free” with my Navigo Pass.

On the next train, the second leg to Montereau, we cross the Seine and a train of barges is barging its way downstream.

Around the corner they go ...

I can see the river through the trees and am getting excited about today's destination.

But at the speed of this train, getting a clear shot is a matter of chance.

(Movie) View of the Seine as we pull in to Fontaine-le-Port

I walk from Montereau station to the heart of town. This is how you park your car in Montereau. Note that the parking space is painted, legally, across half the footpath.

Note also that the car is facing in the wrong direction.

Here we are at the roundabout for D605/D28, or if you prefer, the George Pompidou bridge.

More cubism! I am still without a hat, so I walk up Avenue du Marechal Leclerc by dancing into the shade of each tree as fast as I can.

The day is hot.

Put a couple of Tricolors on this and it could be a town hall.

A closer look; beautiful.

It's hard for you to make it out, but here we are at Rue Jean Jaures; I lived on Jean Jaures in Montrouge.

One could make it one's life's work to visit every Jean Jaures, or every General Leclerc in France. Pick your name then spend your life.

At last I have reached the shopping district; now for a new hat.

I'm getting warmer, in a manner of speaking. That clock-tower in the distance is encouraging.

OK. I've bought a baseball cap, beige, muted, but you'd never know it!

Rue Emile Zola; dear old Emile.

The church has a new facade, but its not clear to me whether it was old age or bombing that brought about the restoration.

My first view of the merge-point of the Seine and the Yonne. The Yonne arrives between the piers, extreme right-hand side of the photo; the Seine arrives between the piers peeking out behind the shrubs that are at the junction point.

In a few minutes I'll be seated at the top of the steps, right at the point, next to the bushes.

Now these are High-Rise buildings!

The nice lady in the bureau de Tourisme said the Yonne was bigger than the Seine. You be the judge.

This is the Yonne, arriving from the south-east.

And this is the Seine, arriving from the east, or even the North-East.

Here comes a barge, a-barging down the Seine.

I didn't know it when I took this shot, but this barge was going to execute a hairpin turn right before my eyes and head back up the Yonne.

(Movie) The Barge at Montereau

The tiny clip above gives you some idea of the speed of the barge as it arrived down the Seine, direction Paris.

(Movie) The Barge at Montereau

This clip shows the barge a few seconds later, still bopping along, but getting crossways of the river. Towards the end of the clip the current from the Yonne is trying to push the bows downstream, into the bank, but the barge pilot is trying to point the bows to Port, to head upstream up the Yonne.

I have abandoned movies; here is the barge moving, but perpendicular across the Seine; we are looking downstream and the barge has two strong (and swirling) currents to fight.

Almost completed, but presumably busy countering the rotational movement of the barge, needed to execute the turn.

I take out my baguette and stare down the steps.

Who remembers the war of 1814 nowadays, eh?

One of the inscriptions at the base of the statue.

The view downstream from the junction of the two rivers.

And I admire the wild flowers. Who'd be on The Champs Elysees when one could have all this and conversation too?

I stopped and asked Napoleon for directions to the RER station.

Montereau was the site of the last battle that the great man won. The nice lady in the bureau de Tourisme said so.

Most army leaders lose their last battle.

Back on the bridge; a look towards the town centre.

I am struck by the congruence of the spiritual church building and the commercial grain silo. Each is a block with a tower.

The bridge is lined with huge pots of flowering plants.

The two-rivers tourist office. Such a nice lady ...

More bus routes.

To generalize, most towns seem to have at least two local bus routes that travel out in a circle and return, and at least one linear bus route that goes to another town (and returns).

Here is the bus stop at the church, served by six different bus routes.

Theory is I could just jump on the next bus and use my 1Km map to work out where we are going and, possibly, how to get back or go forward.

Yes! The church WAS hit during World War II.

The interior of the church.

It's almost certainly not the most {your superlative here} church in France, but it's the most {your superlative here} I've seen so far.

The interior of the church.

I am struck by the number of Japanese restaurants; almost every town has one.

The one right next to my hotel is usually empty, while the green parisien cafe next to it is often jam-packed with noisy diners.

I liked the stone facade on this house.

And I chuckled here. “You want my parking spot? Then take my handicap too!”

Time to go home. Only six stops and we'll be back in Paris!

The typical, beautiful station building.

Eight minutes into the trip home. “Nestled in a quiet valley ...”

Meanwhile, back at my ranch … Rue de Reuilly is blocked off with red plastic barriers and a policewoman. What's going on? A riot in the Green Cafe?

Nope. Everything is normal, it's just that I've never been home this early on market day.

At the lower end of the street by Dugommier a buzzing swarm of angry department trucks and smaller vehicles is removing every last trace of fish except the smell.

I've seen better precision in Scottish Country Dancing, but only just.

There you are. I sat at the point. My ship came in from the top right and executed the hairpin turn where you see the tied-up barge, although of course the tied-up barge wasn't there today.

My stroll around Montereau.