I appear to have accidentally got a new job, which involves not being where I was before. At first, I was slightly hesitant, but then they offered to pay the rail fare for an unexpected trip somewhere new, so this morning a friend ran me to Angoulême to get the TGV to Saint-Étienne – via Paris.
This was my first time doing Angoulême – Paris on the TGV since the LGV Sud Ouest opened, so I was quite excited to watch the world blur by as I snoozed post-croissant. It stopped only in Poitiers, getting us to Paris in just over two hours and then – after a quick but unpleasant ride on the métro – from the Gare de Lyon to Saint-Étienne in just under three. One of the strange things about rail travel in France is that it’s often quicker to go up and down again than across due to the Massif Central being in the way.
I momentarily forgot that I don’t like Paris Montparnasse, but quickly remembered when I had to walk to métro line 4; the magic walkway wasn’t working (apparently hot having been fixed since I left Paris in 2012) and the Parisians were in a super-tutty mood. Again. Add to that that the older métro lines don’t have lifts – which is not fun when you’re trying to transport a month of your life in one bag – and it’s a memorable experience for all the wrong reasons.
Another time, when I have plenty of time on my hands, I’ll try going through Saint-Pierre-Des-Corps – officially Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (à 4km de Tours) on the SNCF site – and have an easier same-station change rather than a slightly unglamorous dash across the capital.
The Gare de Lyon is a station I have never taken the time to explore as I have always been in a bit of a hurry to get somewhere else, normally on my way from Austerlitz. Today was another of those occasions. Nonetheless, I took some time to peruse the menu outside Le Train Bleu but had no intention of eating so didn’t risk trying to snap a picture. Instead, I went straight to my TGV and flopped for the next three hours as the world blurred by again.
There are many mountains and churches, the further you travel from Paris. In fact, I got to have a particularly enjoyable one-person game of “Church or mountain” as the train approached Saint-Étienne, which indicates it could be the perfect place to live. The scenery as you arrive is magnificent, but marred – as is often the case – by inopportune trees or the barriers the SNCF put along tracks, either to keep noise in or people out.
There wasn’t much time to explore on arrival, but Saint-Étienne is home to many things, according to the Interwebs. For the purposes of this blog, it is home to one end of continental Europe’s first railway line – opened in 1827 – to Andrézieux, which is 18km away. It’s also home to one end of the continent’s second railway line, to Lyon, which was opened in 1831.
The station, opened in 1857, is currently under scaffolding so there is little to see, but I look forward to exploring it and its destinations in the future. TGVs depart – via Lyon – to destinations including Marseille, Milan, and Barcelona – among others.
It looks as if that Carte Avantage Weekend might come in useful.
