Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Live from St-Cirq

Hello, Fodorites - I'd have posted sooner, but Bill Gates decided I needed some authorization code to use my own version of Word on my laptop, and getting it over the phone on a weekend in France was not the easiest thing ever. Tout va bien, though, and I hope to post a few installments over the next few days.

7/26/04

My son Taylor and I board United flight 914 at about 5 p.m. on July 26. I've taken this flight countless times. I know the stewards and stewardesses. There are no surprises. We are in the hellish seats 41 G&H at the very back of the plane, because we waited so long to book no doubt, but it doesn't matter. We're on our way to St-Cirq, so all is right with the world. When the stewardess passes out the headphones, I ask her if my tv screen is working - it doesn't appear to be so - and she confirms it's not and says there's nothing the crew can do about it. I joke with her and tell her, truthfully, that there must be some note in United's computer system, because inevitably when I fly this flight I get the only non-functioning tv screen. No matter, I tell her, I've got books and I'm not much of a tv watcher anyway.
Twenty minutes after takeoff the same stewardess comes up to me and asks me and my son to follow her, bringing all our stuff. She takes us up to business class and installs us in two seats there, apologizing for the fact that we are going to have to eat coach meals. Are we complaining? No, we're too busy trying to figure out all the positions the seats will go in. We are directly over the wing of the plane, and as my son points out, with the smooth-as-glass flight we are having, the view looks supernatural, as though we are playing some oversized cybergame in space. The food is marginal, but the seats recline to almost sleepable positions, and though neither of us actually sleeps, we doze in comfort and appreciate the amenities. We note that business class is almost empty and wonder why United didn't also invite the man in the wheelchair and the elderly couple with problems walking up to business class also - surely it would have been good PR. I almost feel guilty having ended up there for such a trivial issue, but then I remind myself I made it clear that I wasn't put out by the lack of tv. In retrospect I think maybe they checked our mileage status and saw we were pretty loyal customers. Or maybe it was just the luck of the Irish.
We land in Paris at 7:15. As usual, it takes forever to taxi to to the terminal, and we are there at about 8:00. We race ahead of the slow people so as to get to the taxi line as quickly as possible and are in a Taxi Parisien by 8:30 on our way to the Gare Montparnasse. The driver is skillful and fast, and the peripherique is pretty normal - light, even, maybe, it being the end of July, but the cost is 50 euros for two of us and two bags. Maybe the AF shuttle would have been a better deal this time of year. Hard to say - last time I took the shuttle it got caught in traffic and strikes for 3 hours. I'm happy to pay the taxi fare after spending the night in business class - I feel I've been given a vacation bonus already. And not inconsequentially, I feel a whole lot better than I usually do upon arrival at a Paris train station.
Montparnasse is the usual zoo, smelling of exhaust and smoke and coffee and sweat and oil and yeast. It blasts a bit of Paris into one's nostrils - enough to get a sense of the city even if one is taking off immediately for other parts of France. You can't leave Montparnasse without realizing you've whiffed the vrais Paris. We sit at a cafe and have two tiny iced teas for 6.60 euros! Paris prices to be sure. We buy two sandwiches, one a thon crudites and one jambon beurre, for 4,40 euros to take on the train.
We've bought two PREMs for Bordeaux at 25 euros apiece, and our TVG glides into the station 10 minutes before departure. We're on and in our seats easily within minutes. There are no restrictions with luggage anymore - you can pile it up at will at the end of the car or over your head. The TGV leaves exactly at 10:10, and we are on our way to Bordeaux.
At lunchtime the family across from us - a young girl and boy, mother, and grandmother - empty a large hamper onto the table between them. Out comes the Tupperware - a large rectangluar one filled with ham sandwiches on American-style wheat bread, a container of hard-boiled eggs, another of radishes, one of grape tomatoes, one with a sliced baguette, and a small tin foil package full of sea salt - and two large bottles of mineral water. The girl, about 7 years old, eats at least two dozen radishes, dipping each one carefully in sea salt. You wouldn't see that on Amtrak.
In Bordeaux we have about 40 minutes before our connecting train to Perigueux. We have two more iced teas, this time for 4,80 euros. The train to Perigueux comes into the station about 10 minutes before departure and we climb on to get good seats - it's only a two-car train. Just before the scheduled departure, I realize I haven't composted my tickets (I'd pre-ordered them from the SNCF site and picked them up at the Gare Montparnasse), and there's no time to run back into the station to do so. I jump off the train and explain to a conductor standing trackside, and he happily makes a notation on them that I've presented them to him. The tickets were a good deal, btw. I got two 25 euro PREMs fares, and the total for me and Taylor for the Bordeaux-Perigueux run was only 29 euros. We used to pay 60-80 euros apiece to get to Perigueux.
In Perigueux we have yet two more iced teas to refresh ourselves before the drive home - cost 4,00 euros. Then around the corner to EuropeCar to pick up our rental car. Forty minutes later under a cloudy sky we are at the Intermarche in Le Bugue.
WHERE did all these people come from? It's been a few years since I've been here at the end of July, and I have forgotten how miserably crowded it can get. People are tripping over each other all over the store, and we are jetlagged and frazzled. We pick out a handful of items - wine, radishes, butter, eggs, ham, saucisse - and get out of there as quickly as possible.
Home to St-Cirq, where our journey ends. Madame L has lined the wall overlooking the terrace with pots of colossal geraniums - the flowers are the size of softballs! Such a cheerful sight after our long travels. There will be daylight for another 4 hours or so, so we unpack, make a light dinner, charge the laptop and cell phone, make the beds, and play Uno and Oh Hell on the all overlooking the valley until we have only enough energy to drag ourselves upstairs to bed.