Note: these are just active observations made during a travel day for my travel journal. Read them at your peril: )
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Sitting after lunch at the airport waiting for our flight to Basel and the train later into Besançon 21:46 tonight.
A nice slow start this morning with a short walk into the local town centre for our last English breakfast this trip. I likely won’t have another breakfast like it any time soon!
I think this is the only likely photo today, but you never know. We have several train stops as we roll through France and something might catch my eye.
I’m blog posting on this trip using my phone. A significant adjustment from past trips where I’ve used my iPad mini. Then again I’ve changed many things this travel, not least of all trusting my photography to an iPhone 13Pro. There are obvious limitations to using a phone, but for a trip like this there are also many advantages. One of our chores tomorrow morning is to replace our SIM cards for ones that are EU friendly. I need one that will carry me through to Rome, two full months away. Vodafone looks like a decent option. Usually a quick easy process. I also need to pick up a small Swiss knife to assist with making lunches and stuff.
We took the city bus to the airport and as we got there I pressed the button to get off, but the bus kept going. I quickly walked up to the driver from whom I had just purchased our tickets from for Gatwick not 5 minutes before and asked to be let off. We were only moving at about 5 mph. And she started arguing with me. Too funny. I calmly asked her to simply stop the bus so we could get off which she did. But she still wanted an argument which we didn’t give her the chance to have, at least with us. We jumped quickly off the bus while the doors were open and headed into the airport without looking back. An odd encounter. Hopefully her day improved.
A few reflections about our time in England. First of all the food seems to have stepped up a notch. Our meals have been better and mushy green peas don’t automatically come with everything. The fish and chips are still the best. The beers are their usual fine selves, but now a much wider selection of European beers which frankly I enjoy, and even beers from Mexico and the US are readily available. Wine selections in the pubs are still pretty blah.
Walking was quite brilliant and the scenery was lovely, though a bit browner than one would expect for this part of the world. Basically the driest summer in 50 years and a drought in SE England. We met so many lovely people along the way and enjoyed our interactions. I guess I’d recommend anyone wanting to walk the ND Way to buy the guide and for sure download the GPX tracks. The first half is poorly marked and kept me referring to the GPX. I didn’t want to carry another guide as I’m already a bit heavy on that front with the 2 VF guides.
Concerning Covid. I guess it’s pretty much over here for now, at least that’s what behaviours would suggest. The numbers are down in all categories as the latest wave seems to have rolled past. Almost no one wears a mask indoors or out. Hardly a mask to be seen in the airport today. We are wearing ours as we just can’t afford to get ill when walking, though it’s certainly in the realm of possibilities. Best to avoid. The numbers on the continent are higher, and it will be interesting to see how things are in the upcoming countries. Enough on that subject for now.
We’ve now moved to our gate with easyJet and our flight is only 15 minutes delayed. Not bad these days! Hopefully no further delays. Folks around us are all speaking French. We will need to change things up fairly quickly. As poor as my French is, I can get by with a bit of walking in France experience these past 6-7 years. A nice immersive lesson awaited! That’s another thing about walking in England. We can communicate so much easier. Comes in handy!
On our plane. No masks required anymore on board. They announced strictly a personal choice based on the requirements in France. All very interesting to us after our experiences at home.
Ah travel. You have to learn to love the unexpected and know that it will happen. We sat at the gate port for ages after a passenger reported to the air crew that she saw them not put her bags on board. An investigation resulted and turns out the crew at the boarding gate were so busy chit chatting with each other that they neglected to properly check this passenger in. Because of their poor behaviour we think our flight is too late departing and we will miss our train connections. If this happens we will have to find a place to stay in Basel and train to Besançon in the morning. This will mess up our plans to see this World Heritage city and get our chores done. Worst of all we will miss our much anticipated French breakfast of pane de chocolate and tea! It will all work out.
I’ve never seen Britain looking this brown and dry. Even in the summer it’s usually pretty green. For sure there is a drought. We know first hand from walking across bone dry, cracked earth fields the past 2 weeks.
The French coast!
We were told to expect a rough ride in places as all the heat has created significant instabilities and huge thunderstorms are expected over the next few days.
Our pilot just told us we’ll be landing at 17:55 so just maybe we can catch a taxi and catch our 18:50 train. It all comes down to getting a quick exit from the plane (sitting in row 3) and getting quickly through customs then finding a taxi. Fingers crossed! The pilot also announced that the thunderstorms have moved away from the airport so instead of circling for 15-30 minutes we will get right in. Things are shaping up!🤞
Things are much greener in this part of France.
They’ve had heat here, but not for as long this year snd no drought in this area. That’s presently happening in SW France where massive fires are burning in the Bordeaux area.
We were the 3rd and 4th off the airplane and as it’s a small airport we were quickly through customs. Once we figured out whether to use the Swiss exit or the French exit (we chose the French as it’s cheaper in France, lol) we were out to the front of the airport and there were no damn taxis. We knew immediately that we had arrived in France! The shuttle bus to the wee train station looked unreliable. So we walked. We had a google map image Annemarie had taken on her phone so we knew it was an estimated 20 minute walk. We must have done it in 12’!
And now we wait as trains race past at 120 kph! Just about blows you off your feet!
The trains in France seem less bumpy than in the UK and the train stations play one of my favourite tunes whenever they make an announcement. Nice to be back in France after 4 years. We’ve been fortunate to spend a fair amount of time here, particularly during the past 8 years. This will be our 4th walk in France during that time and we also also cycled from Paris to Bruge, Belgium plus several other transits. I earlier took a solo trip across France after walking the Via de La Plata in Spain in 2014. So we are both quite comfortable here.
We made our two train changes and during the second change at Belfort I stuck my head out the station door for just a moment and was rewarded.
Three very tough police gendarmes just got on our last train to Besancon with a heavily muzzled dog and detained someone. A reminder that every country has their issues.
The third train brought us into Besançon in the dark,
and we walked into the old town and checked into an Ibis Hotel, our home for the next two nights. Simple, but you know what you get at an Ibis. It’s almost 22:00 and time to head out and find dinner.
That was quite the day, but then that’s half the fun!
I'm so happy everything worked out in the end! I like Ibis hotels--we stayed in a nice one in Edinburgh. Enjoy dinner!
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