France by vinterriket

[vinterriket]

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The old city wall

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The port


The Breton flag

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The port again


The city wall

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The return was a bit more complicated. From Vannes to Poitiers you have to change 3 trains, even tough the distance is relatively small: one to Nantes, one to Tours and a TGV to Poitiers. Since "all roads lead to Paris", it a bit difficult to go in a different direction than the radial lines that start from Paris and go to the corners of the country. Another fun fact: if you want to go from Poitiers to Rennes, you have to change trains in Paris (Massy). That's like going from Bucharest to Bacau through Cluj.....

Anyway, while waiting for the train on the platform in Vannes, they've announced us that the train is already full from the previous station and that we cannot board. Also, they will provide us with a bus to take us to Nantes. We had a connection in Nantes and another one in Tours, so I started to get nervous, since I didn't suspected the French of being particularly good at organizing things on short notice. And indeed, the bus came after about 20 minutes, and I was almost sure we will miss the train in Nantes. Missing a train wouldn't have been such a terrible thing if the French had regular InterCity trains, like the rest of Europe. Instead, if you want to go anywhere out of the region, you have to take a TGV, which requires booking ahead, seat reservation, and so on. And on that day, they were already fully booked.

To make matters worse, the bus driver had no intention whatsoever of catching up with the time-table of the train it was replacing, and instead gave us a slow and relaxed sightseeing trip along the French Atlantic coast. It was even better when there was a green light ahead and he would hit the brakes, and then go to a full stop, because it was already yellow. At every traffic light in Nantes.

Luckily, we arrived at the train station in Nantes with precisely 1 minute before the train left the station, and we caught the train, as well as the following connections.

A pic from the bus


And one from the train from Nantes to Tours

[Robi_damian]

Originally Posted by vinterriket

The return was a bit more complicated. From Vannes to Poitiers you have to change 3 trains, even tough the distance is relatively small: one to Nantes, one to Tours and a TGV to Poitiers. Since "all roads lead to Paris", it a bit difficult to go in a different direction than the radial lines that start from Paris and go to the corners of the country. Another fun fact: if you want to go from Poitiers to Rennes, you have to change trains in Paris (Massy). That's like going from Bucharest to Bacau through Cluj.....

Anyway, while waiting for the train on the platform in Vannes, they've announced us that the train is already full from the previous station and that we cannot board. Also, they will provide us with a bus to take us to Nantes. We had a connection in Nantes and another one in Tours, so I started to get nervous, since I didn't suspected the French of being particularly good at organizing things on short notice. And indeed, the bus came after about 20 minutes, and I was almost sure we will miss the train in Nantes. Missing a train wouldn't have been such a terrible thing if the French had regular InterCity trains, like the rest of Europe. Instead, if you want to go anywhere out of the region, you have to take a TGV, which requires booking ahead, seat reservation, and so on. And on that day, they were already fully booked.

To make matters worse, the bus driver had no intention whatsoever of catching up with the time-table of the train it was replacing, and instead gave us a slow and relaxed sightseeing trip along the French Atlantic coast. It was even better when there was a green light ahead and he would hit the brakes, and then go to a full stop, because it was already yellow. At every traffic light in Nantes.

Luckily, we arrived at the train station in Nantes with precisely 1 minute before the train left the station, and we caught the train, as well as the following connections.

Funny, I always thought of France as quite organized. Sure, it is not as good as Germany for sure, but when compared to its Latin sister Italy, the difference is huge! From the Romanic countries, maybe only Spain is more orgaized, but only in a couple of areas...

[vinterriket]

Indeed, most of my travelling experience has been in the Germanic part of Europe, so my expectations might have been set to high. I did, however, saw a difference in this field between Paris and the rest of France. In fact, Paris gave me the impression that it was the place where everything in France was happening, and the rest of the country was just extra territory. I guess it has to do with how France was centralized over the centuries.

[Robi_damian]

I think also with how France is populated. You have Paris with 10.000.000 people and in the rest (which is the size of Germany, England and Benelux put together) you have maybe 2 with more than 1.000.000 and the rest spread out in smaller size cities. Some regions do have a life of their own, like Provence or the Lyon region, but for sure there are no massive regional centres like Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt in Germany, Barcelona in Spain or Milan in Italy.

As for the organization, I would recommend a trip to Italy for standard-lowering.

[alexandru.mircea]

Excellent report so far, thanks VR! Great pics, too.

Good to see you had good weather. We had a very ugly weather in Paris during that time. Interesting choice for a tour, too - was it your first time in France or you wanted something different this time?

Sorry to hear about the problems with the transport. Not sure why you would say there are no Intercity trains in France, though, aren't the TGVs and TERs just that? TGVs for longer distances, and TERs for medium distances (the TERs require no advanced booking from what I know).

But yeah, the system is organized in a radial logic which makes sense for 99% of the cases. Personally I find the railway system here absolutely amazing (probably because I've always been in those 99% of the possible cases :P ). The only problem is when you want go from one relatively small city to another one. They usually don't have direct lines between those, and you have to change lines in the larger cities. I am a bit surprised there is no line from Nantes to Poitiers so you had to go via Tours, but maybe there is no traditional mobility between these two cities so the demand is little (?). In fact, considering that the Quimper-Nantes TER you wanted to board was full, there surely must be demand around the area. Googling things a bit now, it looks like there certainly is a strong demand for Nantes-Poitiers, which they've been responding to with buses so far. Maybe they'll consider a railway line in the future.

In fairness though, your route looks to me more like Bistrita-Sighisoara rather than Bucharest-Bacau via Cluj. Sighisoara and Bistrita are themselves small/medium sized historical cities and you need to change train two times (in Deda and Targu-Mures) to get from one to the other, and there will probably never be a direct line between them.
And if SNCF would be doing a Bucharest-Cluj line, it has to be said that the travel would only take about two-three hours at best.

Really looking forward to the rest of the report! There is one problem I'd like to highlight, though. I don't know what's wrong, but loading one page here freezes my browser for at least 20 minutes, sometimes even more than 30 minutes. I know it's an old computer, but it only takes it 2-3 minutes to load a page with many more pics per page in the neighbouring Constanta thread. Maybe it's something wrong with Imageshack?

[vinterriket]

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

Excellent report so far, thanks VR! Great pics, too.

I'm glad you like it

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

Good to see you had good weather. We had a very ugly weather in Paris during that time.

Oh, I know, I'm getting to Paris soon I was in Paris on the 1st and the 2nd of January, and on the 1st, especially in the evening, I went through a winter rain-storm on top of Tour Montparnasse. The next day was better, though.

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

Interesting choice for a tour, too - was it your first time in France or you wanted something different this time?

My first time in France was in Colmar, in Alsace, a few years ago (see "swiss winter" in my signature). But that was just one town in Alsace, so I guess you could consider this my first real contact with France. I picked this route because to me, Bretagne was more interesting then other places in France within reachable distance from Poitiers, where I was based. And Paris and Bordeaux were the largest cities close, so I had to see them too.

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

Not sure why you would say there are no Intercity trains in France, though, aren't the TGVs and TERs just that? TGVs for longer distances, and TERs for medium distances (the TERs require no advanced booking from what I know).

Well, the TER doesn't leave the region much, right? I mean, if I want to go from Poitiers to Bordeaux can I do that without a TGV? Or Poitiers - Paris? I know the distance is long but there are many occasions when I would chose to do 4 hours instead of 2 to Paris just to get rid of compulsory ahead reservation and cosmic prices.

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

In fairness though, your route looks to me more like Bistrita-Sighisoara rather than Bucharest-Bacau via Cluj. Sighisoara and Bistrita are themselves small/medium sized historical cities and you need to change train two times (in Deda and Targu-Mures) to get from one to the other, and there will probably never be a direct line between them.

Yes, I think that could be a good analogy But I still find it strange that from Poitiers to Rennes I had to change trains all the way in Paris.

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

Really looking forward to the rest of the report! There is one problem I'd like to highlight, though. I don't know what's wrong, but loading one page here freezes my browser for at least 20 minutes, sometimes even more than 30 minutes. I know it's an old computer, but it only takes it 2-3 minutes to load a page with many more pics per page in the neighbouring Constanta thread. Maybe it's something wrong with Imageshack?

It might be with imageshack, indeed. In the past couple of weeks it started to move at the speed of smell. I hope they manage to fix whatever is not working properly. As for me, I already tried to lower the number of pics to just 2 per post. Also, I wouldn't make them even smaller, because resizing them from 14MPx to just 1 is quite nasty on the quality. But 30 minutes? Damn, that's quite long We could also blame it on the French internet What is it, Orange?

[alexandru.mircea]

Nah, it surely must be my old computer. I'm now on a powerful computer and it loads in a few seconds. Even on my old computer most image hosters run very well, only Imagehack is slow. I'll check out all the thread updates from here from now on so don't decrease the quality of the pics.

There are inter-regional TERs, namely five bi-regional TERs and three tri-regional TERs, plus several TERs who cross the border into neighbouring countries. The TER Bourgogne doesn't appear in the list I'm looking on now but I used it a lot in Ile-de-France. Plus, I completely forgot about these but there also is a number of actual intercity lines (Intercités). In conclusion, I think you were a bit unlucky that your desired route wasn't covered of a more direct fashion. RE the question about Poitiers-Bordeaux or Poitiers-Paris, well, people here wouldn't understand the logic of having a slower train too on a line that is already served by a TGV, but I also understand you because the ticket prices that are OK for a local can be very expensive for the budget of a young Romanian tourist.

Speaking of Poitiers, I have a friend there (Romanian), and I got to see Poitiers a bit when I paid him a visit. I liked the historical centre, which could use some renovation works. What I did not like is how deserted the city feels when the students are gone home. That reminded me a bit of Cluj. The Baptistery is spectacular at the inside, with some wonderful Romanesque frescoes.

I did not know about the issues with the road to Mont Saint Michel, the photos around the internet are all showing a maximum of water around the island, lol. It's on our plan to visit sometime... But I would prefer going during summer.

[vinterriket]

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

RE the question about Poitiers-Bordeaux or Poitiers-Paris, well, people here wouldn't understand the logic of having a slower train too on a line that is already served by a TGV, but I also understand you because the ticket prices that are OK for a local can be very expensive for the budget of a young Romanian tourist.

Indeed, even at those prices, the TGVs are packed full all the time. But it's not only the price that bothers me most on a trip like this, but the lack of flexibility, which is is more important for a tourist than for a local who commutes regularly between two cities. Before visiting France, I did some complete country tours of Switzerland and Belgium. And it was heaven on earth from this point of view. If I wanted to visit X town today instead of Y or Z, I could just jump in the first IC and go there. Not possible by TGV, where even the time, not just the date, is fixed, usually one month ahead. Which is why I had to go to Bordeaux on the 30th despite of the bad weather and my 38 degrees fever
PS: Yes, I know both Belgium and Switzerland are about the size of Burgundy, I was just explaining a concept
PS2: To make things even better, tgv-europe.com was not working outside of France in November and December. In fact, you can't even use it now, but it redirects you to RailEurope...

Originally Posted by alexandru.mircea

Speaking of Poitiers, I have a friend there (Romanian), and I got to see Poitiers a bit when I paid him a visit. I liked the historical centre, which could use some renovation works. What I did not like is how deserted the city feels when the students are gone home. That reminded me a bit of Cluj.

If I understood well, the city centre went through a renovation just before I arrived, and most of the important buildings look quite "fresh". The city was also deserted when I visited

[vinterriket]

6. Bordeaux



Bordeaux is one of the largest cities in France, capital of Aquitaine region in South-Western France. It's probably known best for the Bordeaux wines. The old centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for it's "outstanding urban and architectural ensemble of the 18th century". And indeed, the old centre has a unitary and distinct look, made entirely out of stone (looked like Travertine to me), which gives it a distinct yellow look. It's still under an ongoing restoration. It's also full of elegant people and restaurants. Too bad I was there in a rainy December day and not during a sunny summer afternoon.

Outside the old city, however, while still in the centre of Bordeaux, the situation is a bit different. The city looked quite filthy dirty to me, and roamed by the highest concentration of aggressive-looking uncivilized dickheads I saw so far. I really felt safer in the poor immigrant neighbourhoods of Brussels than in the centre of Bordeaux.

But of course, it was just one visit and I might have simply been unlucky, so I'll try not to form a solid opinion until a second visit to the city. However, I'm not sure it's going to happen very soon.

Anyway, pictures:

[vinterriket]

Grand Théâtre