Day 31 - Monday 30th October 2023

Today we'd be leaving our river cruise and getting a train to Paris.

Scenic has an excellent system for arranging disembarkation. They issue everyone with coloured tags for their luggage according to their departure time. They organise taxis and vans to take passengers to the airport, railway station or hotels.

Some people left as early as 4am whereas a few didn't leave until the afternoon. Our taxi had been booked for 11:30am to take us to Lyon Part-Dieu railway station.

Everyone had to vacate their room by 8:30am and so we had a few hours to relax in the lounge after breakfast before our departure. We shared the taxi with two other couples and reached the station at about 11:50am.

Danielle had given us advice about the train travel including that we buy something for lunch before boarding the train because the food onboard wasn't great. So we bought some baguettes and found a waiting room to sit and wait.

In the waiting room, we saw another couple from the river cruise. It turned out that they had a French speaking guide and so we decided to tag along with them because the guide knew where to go.

Eventually they allocated platform B to our train and we followed the guide. They are very long trains and we were on carriage 11 and we had to wait in area W on the platform for this carriage. The areas go from A to Z.

Originally the train was due to depart at 1:04pm. The display board said it was running 10 minutes late, then 20 and then 25.

They was another train waiting at the platform and when our train arrived, they hooked them together.

It wasn't easy getting our luggage on board. Luckily Suzy had booked seats downstairs so we didn't have to carry the bags upstairs. She'd also booked first class and so the seats were comfortable.

The train took a few minutes to reach top speed. There was a screen at the front of the carriage displaying information such as a map. At one stage I noticed that the speed was 266km/h.

The scenery dashing past the window was mainly rural with sheep in green paddocks. Because of the mist and rain, we couldn't see long distances. You could tell we were going fast when we passed a train going in the other direction - at least I assume it was a train because it was just a noisy blur.

When we arrived in Paris at the Gare de Lyon station at 3:20pm, there was some sunshine. The platform was very long and narrow. Although it was busy and crowded, at least everyone was carting their luggage in the same direction.

Outside the station, we joined the queue for a taxi. The ground was wet but it wasn't raining. While we were waiting, Suzy made the comment to me about how pushy the French are.

It took the taxi about 10 minutes to travel the first 100m out of the station precinct. I was glad I wasn't driving because the traffic through the city was chaotic.

We reached our hotel, Hotel Moliere, safely at about 4:15pm. This is a boutique hotel in the heart of Paris a couple of blocks away from the Louvre Museum and close to many other attractions.

Our room on the fourth floor overlooked a courtyard. It was spacious by Paris standards but smaller than most other hotel rooms we've stayed in. It was hard to find space for our bags.

The room had a queen size bed, work desk, carpet, safe, fridge, wardrobe, separate toilet (without its own handbasin), walk-in shower. The wifi speed was about 70Mb/s in both directions. It had heating but no air conditioning.

Downstairs there were tasteful lounge areas. The staff were very friendly an helpful. It had a very different atmosphere to a big hotel.

The hotel is in a narrow one-way street, Rue Moliere. At the beginning of the street, there is a statue of Moliere with a fountain. Moliere was a famous French playwright in the 17th century. When I was learning French at school, we studied one of his plays, Le Malade Imaginaire.

The hotel reception had recommended the Bistrot Richelieu for dinner and so we booked to go there at 7pm. It was a good choice.

After dinner we went to a small supermarket nearby where they sold wine. It was very cheap. I bought a nice bottle of cabernet shiraz for 3.49 Euros (less than $A6).