12 February 2017

Winter travel

This is not a message I wanted to read this morning. The temperature outside is right at 0ºC, which is the freezing point. And it's raining. Or sleeting. Walt is supposed to drive me over to the TGV train station in Tours in a few hours. This e-mail came in last night:
Chère cliente, cher client,

Vous avez prévu de voyager avec SNCF le 12/02/2017 sur le train 5264 au départ de ST PIERRE DES CORPS et à destination de AEROPORT CDG2 TGV.

Nous vous informons qu'en raison de pluies verglaçantes sur les régions Ile de France, Centre, Pays de la Loire et Poitou Charentes, la circulation de votre train 5264 est susceptible d'être perturbée.

Nous vous invitons à consulter régulièrement le site horaires.sncf.com ou l'application mobile SNCF afin de connaître les conditions de circulation de votre train.
It's from the French national railways. "You are scheduled to take the train from Tours to Paris CDG airport tomorrow," it says. "We want to inform you that because freezing rain is predicted to fall in the Paris region and the Centre [where I live], etc., train schedules might well be disrupted ("perturbed"). Please consult our web site for the latest information."

Freezing rain! It's an hour's drive over to the TGV station in Tours. And then two hours or so on the train to get to the airport north of Paris. If I can get there at all. Sigh...

20 comments:

  1. Oh no ! Not something you want to read at all, but there's always that risk when travelling at this time of year. Hope all goes well, in spite of the freezing rain, and you make it to the airport.
    Wishing you a safe journey.

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  2. Hope it works out and you get there without too much stress and bother.

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  3. You're scheduled to spend the night at the airport, aren't you? That would give you the time to reroute. Whatever the case, I hope it all goes well and you make it in time.

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  4. French railways protecting itself by giving out warnings, no matter how wrong they may turn out to be. You have been warned.

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    1. I agree with you about that. The French weather service seems to do the same.

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  5. Keeping all my fingers crossed. Hope everything will go smoothly and on time. Wish you a safe and pleasant trip.

    Now, an awful French calembour: Un bon navet rôti en vaut deux!

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  6. It never fails .. when you have to be somewhere, an important appt etc ..
    Stay safe and warm !

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  7. We made it. I'm at the hotel at CDG airport and Walt is back at home with Callie and Bertie. What little ice there was early this morning had mostly melted by 10:15 a.m., when we left to drive to the TGV station in Tours. Trains were running mostly on time. Tomorrow, off I go.

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    1. Ouf! Glad you made it to the airport. Now, relax and enjoy your evening in Paris and have a pleasant and safe trip to the US. Bon voyage!

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    2. Glad to hear! Now, indeed: relax & bon voyage :-)!

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    3. I'm glad I decided to stay at the airport this time instead of reserving a room in the city. It's too cold, damp, and gloomy for me to enjoy walking the streets of Paris this time.

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    4. Yay!!And Walk and "kids" are fine .. no worries now. Relax and off you go .. I think the US will be ready for you. <3

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  8. Oh, so glad to read that all of this is behind you and Walt now, and he's home safe, and you're safely arrived in Paris environs, and things aren't dicey. Too bad you can't enjoy time walking around Paris, but at least the trip will happen without further delay. :)

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    1. I'm sitting in my warm and tidy hotel room at the airport Ibis and watching a long Arte TV documentary about the history of the Louvre from the Middle Ages to the present. I'm thinking this is a lot more pleasant and instructive few hours than a cold and gloomy walk in old Paris would have been today. After all, I've been to the Louvre a few times in my life, starting in 1970, when, as the documentary confirmed, the museum was a cold, dark, silent, and forbidding place. One interviewee said he thought the works of art held hostage there were probably as bored and demoralized as the visitors were. I remember that back then, it was hard to even find the museum's entrance! The space where the light, spacious glass pyramid now stands was... a parking lot for the employees of the Ministère des Finances, which occuppied one whole wing of the old palace. It almost makes you believe in progress. And it makes me really sad about the situation the world finds itself in now compared to the wonders the French Socialists were able to accomplish under president François Mitterrand in the 1980s and '90s.

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    2. In my days, the parking lot was a small park with lawns, trees, shrubs and sculptures, notably the Bourgeois de Calais by Rodin! It was very pleasant.

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    3. Yes Ken, we are a long way from the utopian world of Mitterand and the socialists. We have now a scary world of Brexit, Trump and the cynical snout-in-the-trough Fillon. This contemporary world is contracting into a corporate-dominated, greedy, intolerant, environmentally-destuctive dystopia.

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    4. I agree with Tony. Sometimes I don't recognize this material world. I do enjoy its technology though and can only hope that right will make might one day.

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  9. Traveling Mercies to you! May all go well. And you be well.

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