The pleasures of European train travel
(with the understanding that not everything goes as planned)
I’ve lived next to train tracks or stations four times in my life: during undergrad in a little house in Newhall, CA; for four years on a barge docked in an Amsterdam canal right below the tracks leading to the Central Station; in the UC Davis married student housing when Pieter was doing his PhD; and now, in our building high above the Gare Montparnasse. I like the sounds of trains — the rattle of the tracks, the conductor’s whistle — and much prefer them to car noise. And I enjoy so many things about train travel: watching the view, hanging out in the cafe car, and experiencing travel on a human scale. Even when the train is delayed, I’d much rather be stuck on a train than in a stifling airplane. And, indeed, we’ve had what I consider more than our share of delays this past year, although I’d need to poll other people to know if our experience is an outlier.
Delay number 1: Paris to Madrid, October 2023. Since they have yet to build a tunnel under the Pyrenees like the one under Mont Blanc in the Alps, you have to travel via Barcelona. Alas, our ostensibly very fast TGV out of Paris developed problems within an hour, causing it to run at half speed. The leg to Barcelona, which should have taken 7 hours, took 12. We had to change trains twice instead of 0 and arrived in Barcelona at 9:30pm, a half hour after the last train to Madrid had departed. Nevertheless, although the situation was certainly annoying, there were some redeeming aspects. When a group of people is beset by the same adverse situation, chatter ensues. Pieter and I fell into conversation with two Flemish guys seated across the aisle. (Yes, Dutch and Flemish speakers can understand one another.) They both worked for the German railway, Deutsche Bahn (DB) and were on their way to Barcelona. Why? To attend an international railway conference. Their colleagues had decided to fly. (Insert lol emoji here.) We were regaled with stories about how awful the DB has become due to bad management since privatization, and how the SNCF’s rail infrastructure hasn’t been maintained and upgraded, so it’s falling apart. They also gave us the name of their Barcelona hotel, which was close to the train station, and I was able to make a reservation from the train once it was clear we wouldn’t be going any farther that night. It was a nice hotel, we had a delicious meal in the neighborhood, and we walked around Barcelona the next morning. The French train system (SNCF) and the Spanish one (RENFE) had a bad divorce two years ago and refuse to speak to one another, so our request to exchange our tickets was dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. After we were sent from pillar to post five times and I had a meltdown, we caved and bought new tickets. SNCF did end up reimbursing us 100% for the Paris - Barcelona leg and 50% for our original Barcelona - Madrid tickets. According to European railway regulations, they were also supposed to reimburse other expenses, including the hotel, but they never responded to our request and I eventually gave up.
Delay number 2: Munich to Paris, April 2024. I had returned to Paris alone at the beginning of April because Pieter was teaching his final semester before retirement, and one of the trips I had planned was to Munich. During the first half of the week, I stayed with my friend, Annette, her husband, Jörg, and their young daughter. They had moved back to Germany from SF the year before when Annette was offered a great position at the Technical University of Munich. We ran and biked together, covering a lot of ground in a few days. Munich is a very green and bike-friendly city, with bike paths all along the meandering Isar river and throughout the city.
Among other activities, we had lunch in a Biergarten and watched the surfers zigzagging back and forth in the English Garden. If you’re not familiar with river surfing, do check out the link! After a few days, I moved from Annette and Jörg’s home to stay with T & M, friends whom Pieter and I have known for nearly 35 years since Pieter and M were pursuing PhDs at UC Davis. We were neighbors in the married student housing and our daughters were born a month apart. To our great disappointment, they moved to Munich when the girls were just turning three. We’ve managed to see them a few times over the years, but not often. We visited the Nymphenburg Palace
and wandered around the terrain of the Munich Olympics, which is now a lovely park. I was very curious about Olydorf — the Olympic Village that has been repurposed as student housing — having just completed the subtitles for LNP’s episode on the 1972 Olympics.
My train from Paris to Munich was direct, but the return trip required changing in Mannheim. We left Munich 30 minutes late and it was soon clear that I’d miss my connection. The railway staff have their hands full in these situations: dozens of people about to miss their connection mill around them, waving their tickets and asking what to do. I don’t even remember where I ended up changing trains, only that it was pouring rain and that the woman at the information desk was very nice about writing a statement on DB letterhead stating that I was entitled to get to Paris one way or another. But, again, a bright spot in this mess was meeting a young Pakistani woman who lives in Paris and, like me, was trying to figure out the best way to get there. We spent the rest of the trip together and have met up in Paris since, including at a performance of Richard Strauss’s “Salome” at Opera Bastille.
Delay Number 3: Rotterdam to Paris, May 2024. This delay was nobody’s fault nor a mechanical issue, but a sad reality. When we visit Ben and Taliah in The Netherlands we hop on the fast Eurostar (used to be Thalys) from Paris Gare du Nord to Rotterdam, which only takes 2.5 hours. And then we take two local trains plus a bus, totaling another 2.5 hours. I find it very puzzling that the town of Wageningen, the home of a large and prestigious research university, has no train station, when virtually everywhere else in The Netherlands does. But oh well, at least there’s other public transportation. Anyway, about a half hour into my return trip to Paris last May, just outside of Antwerp, the train abruptly slowed and stopped. It soon became clear that someone had jumped in front of the train. This method of suicide is all too common in Europe and, of course, there’s no way to prevent access to the tracks. It must be terribly traumatic for the driver of the train. Once the passengers were aware of the circumstances, the grumbling stopped and we all settled in for however long the wait would be.
The three trips described above stand out because that’s what negative events do. Benjamin has accused me of complaining that it’s always crappy weather when I visit, which, as he has painstakingly explained, isn’t true at all. He’s right: there was a visit in early January, 2023, when lousy weather is to be expected, and an unseasonably cold and rainy one in late May, 2021, but all the others have been lovely. The weather during our most recent visit, in October, 2024, was glorious. And the trains all ran on time.
You are missed, Ruth, but you are clearly enjoying your days in Paris and the surroundings.
Maggie