Eurail Passes: To Buy or Not to Buy

As I mentioned in my Paris post and probably others, Eurail passes are a mixed bag.  It's unclear if we actually made up the amount of money that we paid for ours, although based on very rough estimations, we think we may have.  I'm not sure I want to run the numbers, though.

The passes are wonderful for hopping on and off regional trains at will, which we did many times. Without one, we may not have just hopped over to Pisa for a few hours.  It was also nice not to have to wait in lines to buy tickets every time we wanted to catch a train.  Some of those ticket lines were long!

Also, Switzerland has some lovely benefits for Eurail pass holders, namely that a pass covers the ferries in both Interlaken and Lucerne.  Woot!

However, there are a number of downsides:

1.  People aged 26 and older are not able to buy a second class pass.  We had to buy a first class pass, which was over $400 more per person (and that's with the discount you get for buying one 'group' pass for two people instead of two individual passes!).  I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed first class.  It was easy to get a seat because it was so often empty, and it frequently had some cushy benefits.  But not being allowed to buy anything else seems silly.

2. France severely limits the number of seats available for Eurail pass holders.  It would seem it is especially limited in first class.  We were told there were no first class seats available on a train that we noticed was very empty when we boarded.  And first class was usually much more empty than second class.

3. France charges a lot of money for reservations.  We paid 54 Euro (for the two of us) for a 3 hour first class train ride from Paris to Basel (Switzerland).  However, we did get breakfast, which was pretty exciting to me.  We paid 109 Euro for the first class "super reclining seats" on the overnight train from Spain to Paris.  As a point of comparison, we paid 6 Euro for local trains and 20 Euro for longer trains in Italy.

4. Making reservations for future train rides is an extreme pain in the arse, except in Italy where you can make reservations online using your rail pass (France allowed online reservations, but you couldn't tell it you had a rail pass).  As I mentioned in the Paris post, we spent 2 hours trying to make reservations for a Swiss train.  Not fun.  After Austria (or maybe even starting in Austria), we avoided all trains that required reservations.  Of course, that was easy to do since few trains require reservations in those countries.

5. Eurail ticket offices are not easy to find (thanks, France) and sometimes are even closed and long gone (thanks, Spain).

6. The pass itself is ridiculously flimsy!

This shows the front side.  I folded part of it to hide personal details.

Back side of the pass.   This is the full size of the sheet.

The official pass part is two little pieces of paper stapled to a much larger piece of paper that folds many times over.  There's a huge section where you must write down every train you take.  If you don't, ticket checkers may fine you or tear up the pass (supposedly).  This makes sense for those who have passes that can only be used for a certain number of days.  Ours was continuous, so what does it matter?  I skipped writing down a few of the small train hops, but wrote down the rest, mostly for our own records.  Only a couple of ticket checkers looked at it on the over 80 trains we rode.  Not to mention, the space provided isn't long enough for all the trains, so here's the very official piece of paper on which we recorded the remainder:

7.  If something happens to your rail pass (stolen, lost, etc), you must report it within 24 hours, and they will not replace it.  Your only option is to keep all receipts and records of any money you spend on trains, and they will supposedly reimburse you.  This made me paranoid, so I kept ours in my money belt the entire trip, which is why it looks rather wrinkled.

In the end, I am glad we had one.  Not having to buy tickets was awesome.  However, for a shorter trip, or one that includes fewer countries, it may not be worth it.  Especially if you'll be spending a lot of time in France, where reservations are ridiculously pricey, or in Italy, where trains are actually really cheap without a pass.

23 Hours in Paris

On our way from Spain to Switzerland, Paul and I spent 23 hours in Paris on June 15.  This followed a night train from Barcelona to Paris, which was rickety and less than comfortable, so we weren't running on the best night of sleep.  I mention that to preface a little accident I had in Paris, which I'll get to later.

We arrived in Spain before 10am at the Gare d'Austerlitz train station and walked immediately across the river to the Gare Lyon train station where there is a Eurail ticket office.  We needed to make reservations for a train from Switzerland to Austria, and apparently all the Eurail aid offices in Spain have been closed.  I reported this to the Eurail folks, who had no idea and are still looking into it (Eurail passes are truly a mixed bag, but perhaps that's info for a future post).

Over two hours later, we had our tickets.  A large chunk of this time was spent waiting unnecessarily in the long distance train line because the folks at the information desk did not know of the existence of a Eurail ticket office in their own train station.  And it's not like we were being confusing, we held up the pass and asked specifically for that office because we knew there was supposed to be one in the Gare Lyon.  The long distance ticket lady was able to point us to it, which is good, because there is no way on earth you will find that place without help.  It was tucked downstairs away from just about everything else.  Then, we waited in line for ages while two British girls tried to get out of Paris that day.  At that time, Paris had just completed a 36 hour train strike, so I'm amazed that they managed anything at all.

After that, we caught the metro (man, do I love public transportation in Europe - it's wonderful!) to our hotel, checked in early, and then went for a food hunt.  We found a market where we bought falafel, some sort of large pita stuffed with spinach and cheese (it looked like a ginormous pierogi), and fresh strawberries.

Next it was back to  Gare d'Austerlitz to join up with the Blue Bike Tour folks for a 4 hour whirlwind tour of Paris.  We were turned on to this company by the Canadian folks we met in Carcassonne who couldn't speak highly enough of it.  The bikes all had fun names - Paul chose Blaise Pascal.  I forget who I had.  We saw Notre Dame:

with its nearby bridge covered in an insane amount of locks (Paul and I wondered how much weight this added to the bridge):

the Eiffel Tower:

along with the Louvre, bridges, statues, the golden flame sculpture the US gave France as a thank you for the Statue of Liberty (to which the French were apparently like "what are we supposed to do with this?"), and more.  The sights were great, as was the information provided by the guide.  The tour is intended as an intro to Paris where you can get a sense of all the sights you want to go back to later, so we only paused briefly at the sights - not enough time to walk around or anything.  But it allowed us to see most of the important things in just 4 hours, which will be helpful in deciding if we'll pass back through Paris later, or just skip it in favor of crashing in Belgium with cool peeps for a while (the latter is more likely at this point - we are travel weary).

However, I'm not sure I recommend this tour as highly as others do.  It involved an insane amount of pedestrian dodging while trying to keep up with the other 10 folks in the tour,  look at all the sights around you, AND keep an eye out for all red lights so as not to run them and be smushed by a car.  It's a level path but you go over a lot of curbs and around a lot of sharp, blind corners.  So, as you can probably guess, this is where my little accident comes in.  While rounding a corner and trying to dodge a pedestrian at perhaps too high a speed for little old me, I wiped out.  Gracefully, I'm told.  Honestly, it even felt graceful and rather slow motion to me.  As far as bike accidents go, I am very lucky.  Just a bit bruised and scraped - scraped a knee (didn't even tear the pants - woot!), scraped my chin (less than desirable for pictures, wish I had some makeup with me...), and have a few bruises on my right thigh.  More embarrassed than anything, really.

You can see the mark on my chin from my fall.  However, the 5 bruises on my legs are much more colorful.

Moral of the story?  Be careful on bike tours.  :)

After the bike tour, we went back to Notre Dame so we could get a view of the famous flying buttresses:

The cathedral was still open (it was past 7pm at this point), so we poked around inside.  Definitely neater on the outside.  At this point, we've seen so many churches that they all start to look the same (minus the Sagrada Familia, of course).

Then, we went back to the hotel to clean my pants.  And me, too, I suppose, although my scrapes weren't very dirty and barely bled.  Then, out for a view of the Eiffel Tower at dusk:

And a little people watching (this shot is taken from where we were sitting but in the opposite direction from the Eiffel Tower):

It's really cool that this huge lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower is a gathering place at dusk for locals, mostly of the 18-35 age range, I would guess.  Groups of people sat in circles with wine (I wish outdoor drinking in the US wasn't banned in so many places!), picnics with all sorts of random food from grocery stores, and even hippy singing circles.  The one near us regaled those around it with a variety of US songs.

We ended the evening with dinner at a Thai restaurant which was absolutely delicious, due in no small part to the fact that the meal included no bread or cheese.  We are thoroughly sick of bread and cheese and sandwiches at this point, so curry and spring rolls were a welcome reprieve.

Carcassonne by the Numbers

This post is for our nephew, a lover of numbers and the game Carcassonne.

There are two parts to Carcassonne - the really cool old walled city and the modern city.  Our hotel was in the modern city and as we made our way to the walled city of Carcassone for the first time, we realized that great things were in store.  This guy was clearly giving the city +10 points.

And he was right, it's definitely neat!  Paul pointed out that it's an interesting situation - no one actually lives there, it's just for tourists.  I thought it felt like a Renaissance fair.

We also saw this cute train that we think a certain Mr. F. might like. +5 points!

After wandering around for a while, we came upon a church and had a look inside.  It contained many beautiful stained glass windows. +5 points

While we were wandering around the church, three men began singing a song somewhere between a hymn and chanting.  I am sure they would have sounded lovely on their own, but the sound of their voices amplified by the hollow space of the church was breath-taking.  +10 points!

We also saw a gentlemen using a remote control tractor!  +3 points

Having not had enough sugar, we gorged ourselves on nutella banana crepes, orange juice, and a delicious cappuccino.  +3 points

Then, Kate got in trouble and this very serious guard told her to behave. -20 points

But then a nice couple from Calgary, Canada, bought our dinner after a wonderful conversation about Canada, the Rockies, and not to buy into that tourist nonsense by purchasing bear bells - you just sound like "dinner's coming!"   +10 points!

What is the total number of points for the city of Carcassonne?

Playing Carcassonne in Carcassonne!

Then we thought that even better than awarding points to all the cool things about Carcassonne was to play an actual game of Carassonne - IN Carcassonne.  Can you figure out who won?

Paul claimed this finished road that went all the way around the city (12 tiles):

Kate claimed the city of Carcassonne (4 tiles):

Paul claimed the farmland outside the city that touched two cities:

And finally, Kate claimed a smaller, 1 tile city (okay okay, it was part of the larger city, but for the sake of this game, we are considering it separate):

Avignon

Since Avignon was only a short 20 minute train ride away, we went there twice during our stay in Arles.  Avignon is bigger and more popular with tourists than Arles with many more restaurants and shops.  We wandered around quite a bit and were impressed by this huge church:

I think it might have been called the Palace of the Popes or something.  We did not bother to go inside.  It seems a bit shameful but by this point in our trip, we are a bit church-, museum-, and ruined-out, so we aren't spending as much time learning about these places.  My favorite part about this church was the lady who sang opera in the square outside it while her dog wandered around enticing people to throw it a stick.

Part of Avignon (the part we spent our time in) is surrounded by a wall, which is pretty neat:

They also do dreadful things to trees in Arles and Avignon.  And I thought Lake Como was bad!  They left more leaves on those at least.  This just looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

I have no idea who he is, but I like this shiny, happy fellow:

And I really knew I wasn't in the US when I saw a sign for a happy hour at Subway:

I must say, I really like France so far.  Everyone is super nice here.  Maybe it will be different in Paris, but so far, I have seen no evidence of the whole "the French don't like Americans" thing.  They go out of their way to be helpful, they smile in amusement at our pitiful attempts at French, and they even have an American store (albeit with a rather interesting selection of items - apparently we are all cowboy bikers?):

Paul and I both agree that France, at least the few parts we've seen, feels the most like the US so far, which has been nice.

The Pont du Gard

On our first day in Arles, we took a day trip to the Pont du Gard, which required catching a train to Avignon and then a bus out to this incredible aqueduct bridge, the second tallest remaining Roman structure (the Colosseum is the tallest).  At 48.8 meters tall, and spanning 272 meters, this is an impressive bridge in a beautiful location:

The arch that goes over the water is the widest one.  At 25 meters, it is one of the widest arches constructed by the Romans using a mortar-free technique.  We climbed up to several viewpoints for some other angles:

And checked out the aqueduct channel at the top of this bridge where water would have passed through:

The site of the Pont du Gard also includes a museum where we learned a number of interesting tidbits.  The Pont du Gard is just one part of a 50 km aqueduct from Uzès to the city of Nimes.  The route chosen for the aqueduct is by no means the shortest but was the most efficient in terms of elevation.  Construction began in about 19 BC, and the aqueduct supplied water to Nimes for about 300 years.  Then, from about 300-600 AD, the water was diverted for agricultural purposes before it reached the city.  After that, it was no longer in use.  The Pont du Gard withstood an incredible flood in 2002 that brought the water level up to the triangles you can see on the lowest level of arches in the first photo in this post (on either side of the widest arch).  Sure says something for Roman construction!

And finally, Kate and Paul at the Pont du Gard:

Market Day in Arles

We spent three full days in Arles, France, with side trips to Avignon and the Pont du Gard (separate posts coming!).  Arles has some ancient Roman ruins including an amphitheatre that is used for bull fights, mostly of the nicer variety where the men in the ring are merely trying to pull a ribbon from between the bull's horns.

In this shot, you can see the metal bleachers that have been added inside.  I love when these ancient structures are still in use:

Arles also has a regular theatre (of the non-amphi variety):

However, my favorite part was the market (held on Wednesdays and Saturdays) where you can buy fruits and vegetables, looseleaf tea and spices:

Mattresses!  I guess you never know when you are going to get the urge to buy one of those?

A hacksaw and cleaver set... for the butcher-in-training?

And let's not forget Nutella crepes:

Paul and I also purchased some tomatoes, bread, cheese, olive tapanade, and other such goodies for a picnic.  That scary looking bottle of Coke in the picture below is actually iced tea made from some looseleaf tea we picked up:

On another picnic, we enjoyed a fabulous three chocolate cake.  I may not speak much French, but I can interpret a sign that says "trois chocolat" when I see one (never mind the gorgeous cake sitting next to it that is a dead giveaway):

One might say that we are eating quite well on this trip.