Paris or Bust...By Bus!

I suppose I should start blogging about my Paris experience while it’s fresh on my mind. The problem is, there’s just so much to say that I don’t know where to begin. So, I think I’m just going to break it up day-by-day and in chunks, and take it from there…

18 February 2012:

Saturday morning started at O’Dark Early as my old friend and coworker Teresa used to say. The bus that was to take me from London to Paris was scheduled to depart Victoria Coach Station at 8:00 AM, but I was supposed to be there by 7:00 AM. Under normal circumstances, it would only take me about 50 minutes to get to Victoria Coach Station from where I'm living—except, the city’s transportation authority decided to shut down a portion of the District Line between my flat and the station. Fortunately I found out the day before, and was able to plan an alternate route by bus.

Yes, the bus. 

Now, almost everyone in my immediate circle knows how much I detest the bus, and they also know that I will usually take whatever out-of-the-way routes are possible to avoid taking the slowest, most irritating form of transportation (that was surely developed by the Marquis de Sade) ever concocted! Nonetheless, at such an early hour, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and climbed aboard a friggin’ bus. 

Over an hour later, I was finally at the station and, finally, at about 8:10 AM, we set off for Paris!

From Victoria Coach station, we crossed over to the ‘southside’ of London and down through Lewisham. (In fact, we passed near Blackheath, and I even saw the side-road where KG&MM lived when Nic and I stayed with them back in 2008!) From there we headed toward Kent, passing within 6km of the beautiful Leeds Castle, and then on to Dover (though, sadly, I was not able to see the famous cliffs).

Our Approximate Route Across England

At Dover, we approached the entrance to the chunnel (a.k.a.the channel tunnel), where we encountered the following sign, leading to generalized excitement amongst the passengers:

'Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics!' ~ Benjamin Disraeli

However, said-sign was misleading: first we had to go through the border crossing process (which, in hindsight, took far less time that the nightmarish crossing back—but that’s a post for later). We sat in front of this sign for about 20 minutes, at which point two agents from the UK Home Office finally boarded the bus. We were all told to give them our passports, which they collected and disappeared with for another 20 minutes or so. Eventually, the agents returned and gave our passports back to us with the appropriate stamps in-place.

Cleared, the bus was allowed to move toward the chunnel. Now, I don’t really know what I expected the channel tunnel to be like, but it was nothing like what I encountered. I suppose I had a vague assumption that it would kind of be like a regular tunnel—you know, like the kind that cuts through a mountain, or the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel or something—and the bus would just drive through.

I was wrong.

The area was like some kind of bizarre mining operation—or, perhaps a better example, like the Fright Zone from the ‘She-Ra’ cartoon!

Inspiration for the channel tunnel?

There were tracks as far as the eye could see, and these massive train cars—tall enough to hold either two rows of cars stacked on top of each other, or conversely a single row of double-decker buses. 

I watched with a profound sense of wonder as our bus actually maneuvered its way into one of the giant cars, and we settled in for the crossing.

Once we were loaded up and en route, we were free to move about the train. Of course, there wasn’t much to see—the windows looked out onto a dark tunnel, no different from a typical subway—and the only places to go were the bathrooms at either end of the massive train. Nonetheless, I got out and walked around for the sheer fact of the experience.

Now, some things worth noting about the undersea journey between England and France:

1. Yes, your ears do pop a bit.
2. To pass between the massive cars, you have to press this scary looking red button for two seconds which, I guess, equalizes the pressure between the cars long enough for you to cross between them.
3. There are these lovely placards everywhere that tell you what to do in case of an emergency, and they are accompanied by a lovely graphic (drawn in a sedate, calming blue) of the train pausing at a special ‘emergency access tunnel’ between train lines, and letting off a bunch of happy, walking passengers in an orderly fashion. Upon seeing this image, I couldn't help laughing because I remembered the airplane scene in Fight Club and pictured the chaos that would ensue should there be an actual emergency—you know, like 250 feet-worth of water crashing down on top of us!

Fortunately, there were no emergencies, and we emerged on the other side successfully and, at last, I caught my first sign of the European continent!

Calais, France, the town in which we (basically) emerged, looked to be a charming place from what little I could see of it from afar. And there were old steeples absolutely everywhere! The effect was quite pretty.

However, I must confess something here, as it was around the time of our emerging from the channel tunnel when I had this realization: 

France smells, Now, I know that’s a positively horrid thing of me to say, and I’m sure a great many people worldwide would say the same about the US. But, whereas (for instance) Ireland was possessed by a pleasingly sweet scent, which danced in the air and just slightly graced one’s nosehairs every now and again, France was filled with a heady, somewhat overpowering perfume-like smell. You know the kind I mean—that stuff the older ladies in Atlantic City use. And there was no dancing in the air or graceful tickling with this stuff—it hit you in the face like a can-can dancer’s…well, I digress…

But enough about unpleasant odors...

Within about twenty minutes, we had started the longest part of our journey—about three hours through Northern France’s countryside. I wish I could regale you with tales of its beauty, but—owing to the time of year, and rainy weather—there wasn’t much to see. 

Honestly, it kind of reminded me a bit of a cross between Montross, Virginia, and Galway, Ireland. And many of the houses were somewhat reminiscent of the Dickens Village houses you see at Christmastime: tall and skinny, with angular roofs. Immediately, the song ‘Little Town’ from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast came to mind:

 

 

In fact, after watching the above video in setting up this entry, I realize just how accurate my initial recollection and comparison of the architecture was.

Aside from these occasional ‘provincial’ towns, the only other things worth noting from this portion of the journey are a preponderance of high-speed trains (why, oh why, don’t we have these in the US yet?), and a breathtaking glimpse I had about 40km from Paris of two people in full, navy-blue horseback riding kit galloping down a steep hill atop their beautiful horses!

Eventually, the bus reached our penultimate stop: Charles de Gaulle Airport. Now, I didn’t get off at this stop, but I kind of which I had. It was a huge facility, and designed in such a way that it was like being in a giant honeycomb—or maybe an ant’s hive is a better comparison. The roadways were all massive, looping and corkscrewing! And neither time I was there—either on the way in to Paris, or on the way back to London—did the drop-off and pick-up area seem clogged, no doubt owing to this ingenious layout! It really was stunning! (Of course, much like the traffic circles in London, I’m sure this is an engineering marvel that simply wouldn’t work in the US because we’re too stupid to use it properly.)

After leaving Charles de Gaulle, it took about 20 minutes to reach Gallieni, where I debarked. (FYI: according to Wikipedia, Gallieni is named after General Joseph Gallieni, who commandeered 600 taxis in order to get his troops to 1914’s First Battle of the Marne. Don’t know if that’s true, but—if it is—it’s an interesting story!)

And now that I was in Gallieni, it was time for my Parisian adventure to begin...