Eze to Pau-
Out of respect for She whose passion is not flying, the train was the method of transportation for this day-long traverse of south France. 6 1/2 hors from Pau to Toulouse (which we are renaming ToulooseShe - more on that later), then a change of trains for a 2 1/2 hour ride into Pau (pronounced PO).
For whatever reason our ticket indicated a 20 minute gap for the change of trains in Toulouse however it ended up to be about 6 minutes when our SNCF train rolled into Toulouse. She has never experienced the Europe train action so I knew we needed to be ready to go into high gear for the change of trains. Since you essentially travel with your bags about 10 minutes out we got our bags off the storage racks and headed to the exit door to be the first off however when we got to the door we were beaten there by an elderly couple with 7 bags and a small dog. When the door finally opened for disembarkation, even with assistance, it seemed like 5 minutes before monsieur and madame were off the train and it was our turn.
First order of business was to find out what track the Pau train left from and She took care of that by running immediately into a porter and asked where to we go for “POW” (that after countless briefings on how to pronounce Pau)!!!
We arrived on track 4 and needed to go to track 3 we learned so I said to She we needed to cross tracks. Like a gun, She was off, rolling her bag along the platform through the masses-one mistake though-She was doing the end run around the cue to go downstairs. So zoom in/zoom out here I am now at track 4 looking for She and of course she is nowhere to be seen and the conductor is at the train door saying the train departs in deux minute- in my best french I asked cinq minute sivoul plez monsieur? Madame is lost!!! I bolted down the platform with the fear that she was already on the train and it would leave while I was on search patrol. Any ways I carried on and decided to go down to the level that you crossed tracks thinking she may be looking frt he right stairs to track 4 - still no sign off her so the last place I could look given the time was back to track three where we had arrived and so I ran up the stairs and lo and behold there she was like a deer caught in the headlights. Without saying a word we both bolted down the stairs along the hallway and then up the stairs to track 4 and thankfully the train was still there and all the conductor could do was shake his head. We loaded the bags and got to our seat and collapsed in a pool of sweat (and She’s tears!!).
The good news is that when we finally arrived just before 7 pm in Pau the silence had been broken and happily we found a taxi to our Hotel and dinner in a nice Italian outdoor cafe for a carbo load. Early to bed in preparation for the start of our cycling week the next day.
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