Day 7 Paris to Rome

April 2, 2010  Friday 
Big travel day. We woke up for breakfast at 9 a.m. then packed our bags. Check out was early (noon) so the concierge was kind enough to store our bags until we were ready to leave. Our train didn't leave until later that day so we had the afternoon for last-minute shopping and bidding Paris farewell. It began to rain, another dreary grey day. We took the Metro to Opéra to find Beau’s H&M store. I’m going to miss these Rob-spottings — averaged 18x daily in Paris alone.

I will also miss the cheese… and patisseries that we saw but never sampled. 

The Metro took us to a square with the Academie Nationale De Musique.  

It poured, and I was relieved when we found two Gallerias and H&M. We had just enough time to try on a few outfits, shop and head back to the hotel for our luggage. It was 3 p.m. and we were starving, so I did the one thing I said I would not do. We stopped at the McDonalds by our hotel for a quick meal. We quickly retrieved our bags and the nice men at Classics Hotel Paris Tour Eiffel bid us Bon voyage! 
Before leaving the Metro, I spotted this at Ranelagh. 

We took the Metro to Paris-Bercy to catch our train ride to Rome. At the station we had a couple of hours to spare, so we relaxed, snacked on shortbread and Nutella, and talked to a lady from Alaska. She was a chatterbox. Looking back, I regret not buying dinner sandwiches at the station before leaving. By 6:30 p.m., we boarded the (RailEurope) train. It was a 6-seater cabin with fold out beds — a la Harry Potter. 

This was our first overnight train ride. It’s the oddest feeling sharing a cabin with complete strangers. The train finally took off at 7 p.m. and we shared the cabin with a nice, older French couple. I take in the French countryside while Beau naps. The ride is bumpy and slow, quite different from the modern Eurostar we took from London to Paris. By 8 p.m., our friendly cabin mates retrieved bottled water for us. The attendant collected our passports — this seemed strange to me — and kept them until we arrived in Rome. The French couple ate the dinner they brought and I went to the front to look for food. I thought it was sweet how the husband was concerned about helping us find food by checking the signs. I went on my own and neglected to check our cabin number before leaving. I walked through several sections of the train, bumping around like a pin ball. I was frustrated by the time I reached the first-class section where they were selling food. The line was very long and the staff was quite rude towards the people waiting in line. It took 40 minutes to wait and buy two plain, dry Paninis with ham for 8 € Euros. We should have bought food at the station. Then I couldn’t find our cabin on the way back. The attendant insisted I was in section 85-87, but Beau was waiting in section 83. I finally found our cabin and we ate our late dinner. At the next stop, more people came in and another older French couple joined us — filling the last two seats. Talk about feeling like sardines in a can. We waited for the attendant to turn down our “beds.” It was after 10 p.m. before we all settled in. I barely slept, waking up at 3 a.m. when the train stopped for half an hour. I was tangled up in the thin, long sheet they provided along with one blanket. The uncomfortably hard bed and loud snoring kept me up. Beau was out like a light — she could sleep anywhere! 


By 9 a.m., the attendant returned our passports, and we cleaned up and gathered our things for Rome. Before leaving, the French couple warned us about the pickpockets in Rome and wished us a safe trip. 
Photos: Beau and Ren Reiske © All Rights Reserved.