This is a tough day for us as we are bidding farewell to Horst and Elfi and after such a wonderful 10 days with them, it is very hard. We don’t know if we will ever be back in Germany to see them again as we very much doubt they will ever make it out to Australia as they are in their mid to late 70’s. We often have the comment made to us that we are so lucky to have made so many friends around the world. As true as this may sound, and it has been wonderful and we have shared so much with all of them, there now comes a downside. We are all into our 60’s and 70’s and travel is now no longer becoming an option for some of us. Even we are now struggling to be away for more than a month at a time as we get tired. Di especially is struggling as she finds the hard European beds most unwelcoming to her back.
We spent our last few hours together with Horst teaching Di a game called Kakoru – it is sudoku on steroids – she was hooked. She also told Horst her secret to sudoku was to use a 2B pencil with an eraser on the end of it. When Elfi dropped us at the train station, Di snuck into the stationery store and bought four of them as a farewell gift for Horst. These are the sort of things that make memories including butter plates, stick/seals and 999 Oh my gosh – all inside jokes for us.
DHL arrived nice and early and Fras helped the guy load his bike into the van. Fraser’s neice Imogen received an email saying it is on it’s way, so fingers crossed it is going to make it to Paris. Our biggest sticking point is the delivery to the apartment. More on that saga as it develops.
It was then a 35 minute train trip from Aschaffenburg to Frankfurt with of course the train arriving late into Aschaffenburg. Luckily for us we had a 56 minute transfer time in Frankfurt.
We caught the French TGV (stands for “bloody fast train”) at midday and all going well should be in Paris by 4.00pm.
The TGV inside looks a lot like a bordello. Over the years of travelling we have learnt some short cuts and tricks. One of those tricks relates to train travel and Horst confirmed this with us this morning. You book 90 days out from your travel date which is when the tickets come up for sale. You get half price tickets. For an additional €10, it is worth upgrading to 1st class and reserving your seats. All European trains are so damn busy and the last thing you want to do is stand for a four hour train trip. You get free WiFi and hopefully a toilet that works and is semi clean. You tend not to get screaming out of control kids which we have experienced a lot on the regional trains where we travel 2nd class as they are shorter trips.
Our train trip felt super quick and comfortable. We came into Gard du E’st train station ahead of time. We decided just to jump into a taxi and make our way to the apartment where we will be staying for the next 8 days. By the time we unloaded our bags, got some food shopping in and had dinner at home, we decided to just have showers and crash into bed. Will update more on our apartment where we are staying in tomorrows blog.
Steps – 5,968
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