Saturday, September 17, 2016

Please take a moment to download and read my file Fully Funded Public Transit .

The day dawns cloudy. The weather forecast indicates grey skies and rain. I walk to the cafe and back, it is Jour de Patrimoine here in Poissy. I walk home around the Collégiale, where folks in medieval dress are busy hammering and sawing, but Aaargh!! I forgot to bring my camera with me.

It seems to me to be a good day to circumperambulate the town. It will be a long time before I can get to use that phrase again, Toronto growing as it is.

I must too buy a pair of nail-clippers. My "trip" list has '"nail scissors", born of years of experience, and while I remember not to pack scissors on a flight, it has not sunk into my brain that I could pack nail clippers. I will perambulate with my plastic mac as proof against the wind, and drop in to every cafe and patisserie that I come across whenever I feel cold, hungry or thirsty.

I have a feeling that I have done a good job of covering the region by bus, and it is time to walk and to engage more in conversations.

Date de voyage : le 23/09/2016

Départ : à 19:17 de AMSTERDAM CENTRAA

Arrivée : à 22:35 à PARIS NORD

N° de train Thalys: 9388

Placement : voiture 16 siège 44

Tarif : SENIOR

Classe : Comfort 2

Prix : 94.00 euros

Dossier voyage : TSBCKQ

TCN : 874009393

CIN : 30840601359366149

Date de voyage : le 23/09/2016

Départ : à 08:25 de PARIS NORD

Arrivée : à 11:42 à AMSTERDAM CENTRAA

N° de train Thalys: 9315

Placement : voiture 18 siège 38

Tarif : SENIOR

Classe : Comfort 2

Prix : 94.00 euros

Dossier voyage : TSBCKQ

TCN : 874009382

CIN : 30840601359366149

The morning dawned with a mixture of cloud and sun, and the cloud won.

Either I am incredibly relaxed or else I am tensed out of my mind - I set off for the paper and coffee without my camera. I already think of it as a camera rather than a phone, in part because it is really neither - it is a computer. After crossing to Jean-Claude Mary I realized my omission, but gamely didn't break stride, strode bravely on, determined to see the next hour through without taking a single photo.

Brave little man! I didn't feel so brave when I sat down with the paper and found I'd left my pencil behind. How can I read Le Figaro without circling words I don't know! (Note to self: Buy more leads for propelling pencil).

Apart from not taking any photos and not circling any words, that first ninety minutes went quite well. Actually, a bit of a load off the mind, not feeling that I should record a crocus for posterity.

I walked back via the Collégiale which is almost all barricaded off and the grounds filling up with medieval construction machines readying for the two day Festival de Patrimoine. I'll attend tomorrow, but today I plan to walk the town of Poissy.

I was all showered and armed with a town map to leave the hotel and head East. The plan was to walk east to the outskirts of town, and then follow the old and disused SNCF line back to the A13 highway, and then drop back into town from the south-west.

So off I went along D308 aka Boulevard Robespierre, getting only as far as the Monoprix where I ducked in for a quick purchase of a pair of nail clippers. If you have ever joined a line-up behind me you'll be well aware of the impact of your decision.

There is a sort of Quantum Dynamics that goes on, simultaneous action of particles at a distance, and as soon as the old guy joined the queue behind me, the cashier was unable to scan the last item of the guy in front of me. Happens every time. I will swear on a stack of uncatalogued DVDs exactly like the one the chap wanted to buy that the operation lasted over five minutes. For one thing I had three separate conversations with the guy who was behind me, the one who triggered the event.

Cashier swipes bar-coded DVD, gets no response, repeats three times, rubs cellophane liner, swipes three times, punches some buttons, swipes again, tries keying in the UPC digital code. Twice. Swipes again, clears the screen, rinse and repeat. Picks up phone and calls for Philippe, the manager, who comes at the trot and goes to the wrong checkout thereby screwing up THAT transaction that was going fine until he erred. He cleaned up that mess then came to us. Swiped a few times, muttered something that sound close to "Have to type the bloody number in by hand" and typed in the UPC. Twice.

I was not too unpleased. I am, after all, on holiday. But the old guy behind me was regretting unloading his entire basket onto the conveyor belt because it was going to be so much work to load his basket and move to the other line up which was going at buzz-saw speed.

Philippe graciously admitted defeat, and he and the customer left to confab privately. Which left me moaning for the good old days when a customer could shrug and propose “Five Euros?" and the clerk/manager could agree or not, and the world could get back to spinning on its axis. Can't do that now, because it would upset the computer come inventory-time.

I left the Monoprix and joined a stream of people heading east with carrier bags and bundle buggies, and we know what that means.

I hit the first fruit stall and asked for "Jazz" apples. he didn't have any, but he had "Pink Lady", I think, imported from Australia, so for the sake of a conversation about Australia I bought two. He didn't stock carrots, but referred me to his colleague across the way, so I picked out four carrots and joined another line-up while looking longingly at the cheese-stall, which had no customers in line, and would have been a quick purchase except now I daren't walk over there with unpaid carrots in hand, nor dare I place the man-handled carrots back on the stack.

The vegetable man is proud of his fruit, and between each conversation, I mean, customer, he whips up a huge peach and whittles of slivers to offer to everybody in the line up. Marketing ploy, I think; the longer the line up the better the demand for your product must be, and that attracts curious customers. After fifteen minutes I paid €0.60 for my carrots, stared briefly at the seven people lined up for cheese, and left.

I was pleased that nobody commented on my French, neither correcting me nor praising me. I know I look a little out of place, so I suppose they just took me for a foreigner with a bit of a rough edge. Of course, buying food is what I did for a couple of years, so I'd had a lot of practice in that type of conversation.

According to the time-stamps on my photos, I have covered 250 metres in 30 minutes, or about the length of your bedroom every two minutes.

I continued heading East (well, ENE is more like it) until I reached the city limits about fifty minutes after I had set out, so if you subtract the twenty minutes standing in lineups you can see that the city of Poissy isn’t all that big.

My next objective was to reach the SNCF line marked on my maps. My Geography teacher, Pierre de Kurloi, taught us map-reading and navigational skills, and the prediction was that the rails would be rusty. I wanted to test my theory.

Up I go and sure enough there are railway tracks, so what would a curious young scientists do but vault a two-foot high concrete wall to stand on the berm. A seventy-year old curious scientist would attempt the same feat, but slip and have the shoulder bag disgorge its contents onto the wet grass. I straightened my feathers and stood up, took a photo, and carefully hopped down, which must have amused anyone who was watching because a few feet further on there was an at-grade pedestrian crossing. Only a fool would try to jump up two feet to take a photo instead of walking twenty feet further along the sidewalk, right?

I got TWO lovely conversations out of the little gate on the far side. A cyclist was following me, so for him I tried to push the gate open. Wouldn't budge. I had squeezed through the gap sideways without, as far as I know, ripping what is now my only pair of pants. I called out to the cyclist, sprinting across the tracks "It won't open" and he called back "You have to pull it, not push it", which seemed to be the case. I told him I was from Australia where everything is upside down and back to front, to which he laughed and rode off. I told the same story to a young lady who was crossing in the other direction, and she laughed nervously and sprinted across the tracks away from me.

Around about lunchtime, the drizzle started, so I put on my blue mac and made a detour to the downtown core (have you guessed that Poissy is neither long nor wide?) and ducked into a cafe for a Croque Monsieur. No, they didn't serve those, but the waiter pointed to the board with today's special - Brochette du Boeuf with salad and home fries, so I sat down and ordered that.

I've said this before: It's all coming back to me. When you walk into a cafe and see some tables set with place mats, cutlery and a glass, and some tables bare, you are to sit at the bare tables if you want only a drink, and at a clothed table if you want a meal. More to the point, if you see clothed tables, you know that they serve knife-and-fork meals. It's easy once you know the signs.

Another trick: You ask for the bill, and a saucer is brought to your table with l'addition. If the place is dead quiet, you can wait until change of shift to have someone come and take your money, or you can pick up the saucer with your €20 note added to the bill, and take it to the cash register, where change will be made, and you can leave the coins in the saucer as a tip.

But if the place is crowded and the waiter is stressed out shoveling plates and dishes to the tables, rushing back and forth to the kitchen, then you sit tight. For one thing, the waiter will collect your saucer on his way to or from somewhere and your change will be returned lickety, as they say, split. For another thing, the waiter would rather that you stayed seated and didn't get in the way of the frenetic passage.

So for an hour I sit in the cafe, eat, think, and suppose that had it not been for the 20-minute delay in the markets, I would have kept walking past downtown and been caught in the heavy drizzle, so all in all - perfect timing.

Crosswalks abound, and I adopt my "Hand on the Pole" pose to let drivers know that I have no intention of crossing yet - that they may safely breeze through the crossing, and my near-patented gracious sweep of the hand to which they respond by taking one had of the steering wheel to salute me in thanks. I miss the days when I could carry an object recognizable as a camera that practically shrieked "I am a tourist and don't know WHERE I'm going". I could wave the camera in the air to convey the message “It's OK; you go ahead; I'm a tourist". Things were so much simpler back then.

My perambulation this day. I started off at the hotel - outlined in yellow - and walked clockwise around town. The appendix partway into my trip is my foray into town for lunch. Towards the bottom of the map is the cul de sac that caught me by surprise at the A13 auto-route

And here is this morning's weather forecast. The air is chilly and damp. I brought with me only a thin plastic rain jacket and shirts, no undershirts. If it gets much colder I shall buy a ton of newspapers and stay in bed all day.

I am used to drivers parking their bus under my window, and then closing the doors with a switch inside a panel at the end of the front bumper. As the driver turned his back and walked away, the front doors re-opened. There was a bus, all inviting-like, engine running, doors open. I waited to see if someone would hop in and drive off with it before I did, but no-one did, so I didn't either. Ten minutes later the driver returned, hopped pretty smartly into the bus and drove off.

At least, I think it was the driver.

I have just crossed the street at the start of my walk. These shrubs are dead. I don't think these leaves are the fall foliage, because a shrub further back has leaves which are burned from the outside edges partway in to the centre of each leaf; the centre part looks as if it knows it losing the photo-synthetic battle.

I continue along Robespierre. I have seen these little restaurants from my seat in the buses, but they flash by so quickly. Now I see that within three minutes walk from the hotel I have a little Creole restaurant. Maybe one day next week ...

I am learning how to time my photos. There is a delay of about two seconds after I tap the screen to take a photo. Perhaps this allows me time to steady the camera after the tap. Usually when I tap the two-second delay is enough time for a car to enter the scene, so today I am experimenting with tapping the screen AS the car enters the scene in the hopes that as the shutter clicks, the car will have had time to exit the scene.

The sidewalks here are shocking; the far edge or lip of this mess is enough to trip one up. Why, since we fall when we trip, do we not Trip Down?

This hole was big enough to swallow my shoe and then some!

When you come to a fork in the road, take it! Rue Saint Sebastien veers off to the left; I will continue along Robespierre to the right.

Here is a problem I had when I first arrived in France I would read the sign as "E. Leclerc Achères", and not knowing that Achères was the name of a town, I'd go look it up in my teeny-tiny dictionary and not find it. This did not boost my confidence in the language. I figured Achères was a word for something that someone did, like Laverie, or Ingénieur or similar.

Never mind what routes. It's a bus shelter. That means that (a) I am on a bus route should I get tired (b) I am on the right road and (c) there will be shelter from the rain when, not if, it arrives.

The market. Not a large one, but with two fruit stalls, one vegetable stall, a couple of meat stalls, a bread and a cheese stall. Also a stall selling stuff made of plastic.

I bought my carrots from the long stall in the foreground. My apples came from the stall in the background on the left side.

And I leave the market and continue East. At first glance this part of the street looks interesting, but the few stores soon are passed and the street reverts to housing.

On a side street, the vines have completely enveloped this utility pole, right over the crown of the pole.

Buses turn left here to head upstream along the left bank towards Conflans, where the Oise joins the Seine.

I used to be a tree that they thought was dead, and so they chopped me down. I am here today to tell you that I come from a long line of survivors!

OK, so you can't really see it, but I could hear it until it turned around and went back towards the market. The truck played music through a loudspeaker, and a man shouted above the music. What a racket!

Here I am at the city limits and about to walk up Rue de la Marne. Pirmasens is near Rupertsweiler. Think "Just inside the German border at the easternmost point of France”.

About the neatness of the hedges. It looks to me as if first day of Spring the owner trimmed back every square inch of hedge, and over the next five months, the stronger shrubs have pushed out an inch of growth.

Here I am, risking my neck to bring you a photo of a few feet of some rusted rails.

Staggered concrete barriers stop all but the most determined cyclists from riding across the tracks.

Even a fool could see, if he chose to look, that this is a gate to be pulled open from the outside, to be pushed open from the track side. I, of course, couldn't pull it open from the track side, so I squeezed myself through the gap.

Anyway, here I am walking along the Rue de Bruyere, and for a reason:

Woo-Woo! At long last I am about to walk through part of the vast Forest of Saint-Germaine-en-Laye. Thirty-five square kilometres.

This area is a municipal park, so be nice, don't light fires etc. Parc Forestier de la Charmille.

I think that the building dead-centre of this photo is my hotel. If it is not my hotel, then it is pretty close. The valley walls of the Seine form an ever-present backdrop.

The street is relatively long for a Poissy street. Bordered on the left by houses and apartment buildings, on the right by the old railway line of the SNCF.

Two or three times I walk across the end of an alley-way that leads directly into the park.

And just before I took this shot, a man walked towards and past me and - he was carrying a baguette. Now in France you walk to the bakery to buy a baguette for your lunch meal, so this can only mean that a boulangerie lies just up ahead, and where there is a Boulangerie-Pâtisserie-chocolater there will be a butcher, a cheese shop and all sort of shops selling delicious stuff. I am encouraged and pick up my pace.

A lovely alley-way runs underneath the railway lines.

This too is a good navigational sign. people waiting in a bus-stop means that a bus is due shortly. If I were tired, I'd join these folks and wait for the bus.

So much for the Boulangerie-PâTisserie-Chocolatier, Butcher, Cheese Shop and all sort of shops selling delicious stuff.

The drizzle begins, I don my coat and am encouraged to pick up my pace.

I check my map. I am approaching D190 aka Avenue de Gambetta. If I turn right here I will fall directly into the hotel. I continue on, as does the grotty drizzle.

And here the rail lines pass over Avenue Fernand Lefebvre. I turn right and make my way towards the downtown core

We both recognize that church spire; that's how close I am to home.

Not a good shot. I was trying to capture the yellowness of the clay. I need to work more on exposure level, I know. I've got zoom worked out.

I approach a little cafe-tabac. I have in mind a Croque Monsieur for lunch, but a cafe-tabac generally sells only coffee and drinks and smokes.

Which is the case. Also Greaves’s Rule #372 of eating out comes into force: Never eat in a place that has a soft-drinks can dispensing machine right by the door. I walk alongside the bar and straight out the other door.

I have walked past and photographed this octagonal building before, having reached it from my hotel, so now I have "closed the loop"

I had not noticed this before. The laneway between the bollards is one-way, south, past the post-office, and the yellow box is a drive-through letter-box. Cars pull up, pause for thirty seconds, then drive on. Note the rain-slicked streets in this photo taken by a rain-slicked photographer.

Here I am sitting at a dressed table. The small board to the left advertised "Brochette du Boeuf P. Sauté Salade" which left me wondering how and why they would sauté a salad. It was explained to me that "P" stands for "Pommes", so it is "Pommes sauté" and "Salade". I had an excellent meal with a coffee to follow for €12.00 all up.

Here by comparison are the un-dressed tables for drinks only.

A bit more about that octagonal building - it was the toll-booth on the road to Paris This was, in fact, "The Paris Gate" out of the city.

Here it is, with a bust of General de Gaulle staring down the Avenue named in his honour. This shot of the building hides the street Avenue Fernand Lefebvre down which I strolled three quarters of an hour ago, and up which I will now return.

Here's the view for my return to the railway bridge. I must turn right, south-west, just before the bridge.

One last look. This view looks familiar to me too.

"Big Market" street. OK, got that. The covered market is right behind me, the Boulangerie is on the corner.

It all comes together now. The old section of wall I met twice before already was the city wall. And of course, The Paris Gate is the gate in the city wall. And the meat market would be on the edge of town so that you drive your beasts into the market without having them poop all over the city streets.

I plod up the hill via Rue des Capucines and Rue Beauregard. This is a very indiscreet veterinary clinic, no?

Les Hautes de Poissy beckon. Another penny drops. We speak of someone being "haughty"!

I turn to look back down the hill, and on the far bank of the Seine a village is bathing in a pool of sunshine. There must be a break in the clouds somewhere.

And you knew you were going to see more lovely houses, didn't you?

The forest of Saint-Germaine-en-Laye beckons me.

I mount the steps and see a notice board; I can't resist an opportunity to practice reading French.

And a path beckons me deeper into the forest.

Poissy is at the top-left corner. I suspect that the Collégiale is marked with the symbol for a church. The two railway bridges, I walked under the more southerly one to take lunch, and we are now near the centre of the photo.

St Germaine en Laye and its Gare(RER) are marked at the lower right-hand corner of the map. Maisons Lafitte lies above the legend (note the circles and radials) and the tourist office is marked immediately above the legend.

There is a note about the natural life of trees, that they grow, live, and die, and are consumed in death by the forest creatures.

"I'll take a photo and read it once I get home"

Also a bit about the oldest (known) tree in the forest, over three hundred years old.

I turn and start my long trek out of the forest. You can see how deeply I walked in.

Another view of the sun-bathed rive-droite.

I enter into a new area, a mixture of old and new housing.

This house looks old, but is possibly only fifty or so years old, built back then to fit in with existing houses - which were then torn down to make way for modern houses. Aaargh!!

Such as this bungalow. With a later additional floor.

There's that break in the cloud.

In detail, to make me feel optimistic about the rest of the day.

Chris Greaves on local weather forecasting: Find a house, tree, or lamppost and stand still. Watch the movement of the clouds relative to the object. Then look upwind at the oncoming mass of air.

Chris Greaves on local weather forecasting in areas where there is no house, tree, or lamppost: It will not rain today. You are on the Nullarbor Plain.

Here's some threatening stuff.

I am on a bus route, several routes actually. This is the dreaded #26 which looks like an RER line.

Served by the #14, #24S and #26.

I want to ride the #26 this coming week, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

We are on the appendix which wriggles down off the left-hand end of the major route. There is one bus at 18:17, but only on weekdays.

Brave little flower, standing out against the green hedge!

Closer inspection reveals that it is a selfish flower, interested only in its own propagation.

Why can't we have trees like these on our streets in Toronto. I would of course like taller trees, but healthy trees that did not die would be a good starting point.

I think I already mentioned the hedges of Ile de France.

I am, I think, on Rue de Chambourcy. Chambourcy is where I went on my first of three trips to buy an adapter at FNAC so long ago. The trees and hedges seem to go on forever.

So I walked along minding my own business when I spotted a cat which was minding its own business. And mine! Hello Fluffy!

Trees here are given more breathing space than trees in Toronto. The smallest soil area I have seen in Toronto is about one square foot, amidst acres of concrete. No Kidding! Trees here get at least a two-foot diameter circle, say twelve square feet, and then at bit extra. Hooray! for fungus.

A soccer game is in progress. Here's how to get noticed and then seduced by a top-ranking club like Barcelona FC: Run around a lot and scream at the top of your voice "Idiot!".

You're welcome.

I make it as far as the A13 and then become deeply suspicious. If I cross this bridge when I come to it, I may well be led deeper into a potentially rain-soaked area with fewer bus/rain shelters that you might imagine.

The bridge is a one-way (black and red arrows) traffic lane for cars that are in a hurry to evacuate Poissy, and what's more, it ends in a dead-end (red-barred T) for cars. And for me? Later on using Google Maps I found that the track led to the Cimetiere des Grands Champs.

Nothing for it but to trudge joyfully back past the two soccer games. Four actually. Two fields, four teams each playing a game called "maintain possession of the ball".

Soccer is in essence a whole lot of grown men in shorts running after a ball which is, to all intents and purposes, demonstrating the statistical principles of a random Walk.

There were two stout fences between me and the players, and since one team wore dark blue gear and the other team was in light blue, I took the opportunity to scream "Allez Les Bleus!" before scurrying away in abject terror. You don't often get a chance to encourage both teams at once when you know nothing about what's going on.

The citizens of Poissy are known as Pisciacais and the fish is prominent in symbolism here. I know about a fish being Pisces, generally among the Latin languages, but have not yet worked out why HERE! (Remember that Mantes La Jolie was "Dogs"?)

Along Avenue du Marechal Lyautey, or thereabouts, I came across another stop for #26. If Monday is rainy, then I'm going to hit the #26 until I have mastered it.

I tried doing this with my green shirt a month ago, but the shirt blew onto the roof of the building next door and I had to get the caretaker to retrieve it.

As I walk a #51 flashes past me.

Meanwhile on the street, the leaves have been falling all day long, in this case, lettuce leaves, out of those cases ...

... the cases the men are loading onto the truck which is trying to hide behind the street sign. It was market day here in Place Savorgnan de Brazza ! Also, there is a pharmacy.

Suddenly I am back in bus-shelter land, but the rain has held off so far.

I have a suspicion that is one of the not-superbly-nice parts of town. Nonetheless the hedges are well-trimmed.

The avenues of trees continue to astound me ...

... all the way past the next bus shelter

This is the first of two bus shelters on this road marked as "Lycée de Corbusier". I have no idea how the locals work it out.

About this time of the day I thought I was in Singapore, with the humidity and the dark-green hedges.

Next zooms by a #50. I have spent an hour or so wandering what are essentially back-streets; it is a treat to be on a major street.

I decide it is time to eat an apple, so I haul out one of my Pink Ladies. It is enormous. Typical Aussie, always got to grow the biggest ... I eat about a half of it and then stuff it back into my bag. In the first place it is too much for me to eat, and in the second place, I feel awkward eating as I walk along the street.

I began the long downhill walk along Avenue Blanche de Castille, encouraged by the peek-a-boo game played by the buildings beyond the downtown core.

Three friendly landmarks pop into view. The first is the water tower at Puegot-Citroen which (tower) I spotted from the plane as we flew in nearly two weeks ago.

Hard to see in this photo, but a continuous vertical concrete barrier runs down the centre of the road. Any driver who tries to cross to the other lane will be deflect right back onto the sidewalk. Ulp!

Ta-Da! I am back in the downtown core at the southern end of the collection of the shopping streets.

I recognize this smooth concrete wall from my first-day trip to Chambourcy.

Also this walled street, Rue des Capucines, from which cars are emerging.

Here's a zoom-view

Why do I get the feeling that this used to be a prison?

This is why!

As I walk down Avenue des Ursulines, the sound of hooves arrives, as does the source of the sound. It is a wedding-party.

Serious bus-routes.

The spire of St Louis beckons me forwards

My other pair of pants live here for the time being.

Yes, I am definitely back from the hinterlands. There is a pharmacy.

I still do not have the correct exposure. I liked the look of this building, especially the way the colour appeared to have rinsed out of the upper shutters and into the lower.

Home at last! This is my friend the horse in the roundabout.

My nail-clippers.

How to open the blister without a pair of nail scissors? Of course, if I had the nail scissors then I wouldn't need the clippers ...