France, Royan (getting there!!)

Now my lovely time with Ralf and Jacqui was over I was meant to get on a train to Paris and then exchange for a train to Angouleme and then on to Royan. That all sounded OK except that I was supposed to pick up my tickets at the train station from the ticket counter. While talking to Ralf he mentioned that he wasn't sure that there even was a ticket (fahrkarte, billet) machine on the French side of the Basel SBB (trainstation).

Guess what, after a bunch of Internet queries and phone calls (mainly in French by Ralf) we found out that he was right. So we got the tickets reembursed and decided that I would stay in Germany for 1 more night and get the tickets again the next day at the train station.

I got dropped at the train station by Ralf the next morning and asked the guy at the counter to book me through to Royan (it took 3 tries and me spelling it out before he got it). He booked me on a train that was to take me to Noirt and then on to Royan. This was good except that I needed to change trains at Paris and also change stations (Paris Est -> Paris Montepanasse). I managed to quite quickyl get between the stations using the Metro (underground trains) but still missed my connection. I used all of the words I knew in French to talk to a guy at a ticket counter to get my tickets reissued and he also pointed out that the other guys in Basel had booked me to Noirt and then the connecting train actually was more than 50 km away and so would have been pressty useless to me. So he sorted that out.

I finally made it to Royan at 12 midnight on the day I had meant to arrive at 12 midday. But was picked up by Ali, Bastien and Alice (another Aussie) at the station.