Goodbye Poland - Hello France

Monday, 30 October 2017

When you're travelling you generally don't have much time to take pictures, or you have your hands full with luggage, tickets, passport, etc.  The only time I could take a picture was on the plane, because for a change I had my mobile phone in my hands.

Anyway, casting my mind back to early in the morning. We had a shower and breakfast and as we had already packed we chatted with Renata until the taxi arrived.  A bit late, as it was early Monday morning, but with enough time to spare to get us to the airport in time.  This driver spoke very well English, which may have been because he was a tour organiser as well and we chatted all the way.  We talked about geocaching and he wanted to know all about it, so we may have another convert. ;-)

At the airport we bought a new puzzle book (too much time on our hands....) and sandwiches, because we didn't know where exactly we would be around lunch time. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the plane to leave, which wasn't too long.

Next we had to say goodbye to Kraków, so I took a last picture on the plane:

When we landed at Charles the Gaulle airport after a short while we first sat down and had a cuppa, so we could get orientated on the next part of the trip: the train to Rennes.

It was quite a long wait, on uncomfortable wooden benches, but finally the time came that we were informed of the platform from where the train would leave.  We wanted to get down the stairs at S (platform Sud-South), because the train would travel south, but were re-directed to platform N (Nord-North).  We came down the stairs at point C, but had to walk all the way back to point F at...... you guessed it: platform S!!!  The train is very long and all the numbered carriages will stop at points A, B, to whatever the length of the train is.  At least, that part was well organised.

We would have been very comfortable had it not been for having seats at the top deck of the train.  There we were, no room for luggage downstairs so we had to lug our suitcases up the narrow, winding stairs to the next level, and, at the end of the trip..... down again!  However, the train trip was uneventful otherwise and when we arrived at Rennes Michelle and Jean-Pierre (Vanessa's parents) were waiting for us.  Next an hour's drive in the car and then we were at our destination: Fougerolles-du-Plessis.

We had some conversation, with each of us our limited English and equally limited French, but we got the drift when something needed to be told or asked.  Michelle and Jean-Pierre live downstairs; our apartment, two levels, is upstairs. Michelle lit the fire for us in the wood stove and we were quite comfortable in no time.  It didn't take long though before we started looking for our beds, as we had a long day behind us.

So, we went upstairs and these are going to be my 'sleeping' quarters for the next month:

Bedroom

En suite

Spa (which I am not going to use)