TRAIN # 60 – 22:48 Rome to Monaco (Continued)
In the end, I slept really well and was only awakened as the train was approaching San Remo. We reached Ventimiglia around 09:00 only about 10 minutes late. FS was going out with a punctuality bang ! If I was honest. I was a little sorry to be leaving Italy, it had probably been the most enjoyable country we had visited overall.
We got off the train at the border station. I changed a final traveller’s cheque into francs and then we queued along a little corridor for the immigration and customs checks before boarding the Nice portion of the same train. We departed on time at 09:25, and on the short journey along the coast we shared a compartment with a young French couple and a guy who was the spitting image of Fidel Castro. We were into Monaco at 09:43.
MONACO
We had about an hour to kill. So, with the rucksacks safely stored, we walked down from the station towards the sea. It was sweltering hot. We got a lovely view of the harbour, the famous casino and the Pink Palace.
We walked through the old town around to the cathedral and then enjoyed more beautiful views of the Mediterranean. We walked back through the new town. It had a more expensive, “please don’t touch” kind of feel to it.
TRAIN # 61 – 11:08 Monaco to Marseille
The next train was an Italian InterCity express named ‘Ligure’ heading from Milan to Marseille. We got a bit of a shock when the SNCF conductor collected a supplement of 23 Francs from each of us. We shared our compartment with a guy who spent the whole journey doing puzzles in a book.
We had a lunch of dry Italian bread and water as we glanced out at the beautiful French Riviera with the Mediterranean glistening in the sunshine. We arrived in Marseille on time at twenty minutes to two.
We spent a while getting enough change to phone home and making the calls. We then secured reservations on the next TGV to Paris, the 14:53. The ticket office had a little booklet ‘the traveller’s guide to the TGV’ in English and I took a copy.
TRAIN # 62 – 14:53 Marseille to Paris ‘TGV’
With about twenty minutes to go, we were allowed onto the platform and we walked all the way to the front of the TGV. I saw that set number 12, named for the city of Le Harve, was forming our train to Paris. We asked one of the platform staff to take a picture of us standing in front of it. He must have been nervous and got the shakes.
We then climbed on board and took our seats. As we had reserved at the last minute, we were not sitting together. My friend was in seat 52 in coach 7, I was in seat 13 in coach 8. As I settled into the blue and green seat, my first impression was that the train felt a bit cramped. All the seats were facing the same way and their high backs gave me a slight feeling of claustrophobia.
We left Marseille on time. I had been looking forward to the journey yet I found it totally disappointing in almost every respect. I found the first part of the ride, on conventional tracks, pretty poor. I walked down to the buffet to get a coffee. It was about five coaches down. We were only travelling about 100 miles per hour and still I felt the side way movements were quite bad. The walk was hardly worth it: the coffee was overpriced and none too palatable.
The chemical toilet was not the best I had seen, although the hand drier was impressive. There was no carpet anywhere and the train felt plastically. Certainly, it was less comfortable than the Corail, German or British InterCity trains I had experienced.
At 15:55 we stopped at Avignon. For some reason someone claimed my seat. I gave it up without protest and found another. I regretted it at Valance when someone else claimed the one I had sat in. I give that up meekly and moved to the vestibule near the doors. I was actually happier there as it felt less claustrophobic.
There I met a guy from Algeria. We communicated in what little French I had and in his own rudimentary English. He was 22 and had just arrived the day before in France. He was travelling up to Paris to work in the construction industry. He had been in the army and we discussed that, my university course, the Falklands War and sport.
It was frustrating but fascinating. I wished I had better French. He shared two apples with me and I gave him a bottle of water. Eventually, my friend came out to the vestibule and joined the conversation.
We passed through Lyon and shortly afterwards entered the LGV fast line. The train accelerated to 260 kilometres an hour with a very low pitched hum. I was now travelling faster than I had ever done before. It was quite exciting when another TGV flashed past in the other direction, but on the whole it was pretty underwhelming, if I was honest.
Almost five hours after leaving Marseille, 800 kilometres to the south, we were approaching Paris. I had been standing for the last three hours of the journey. We arrived at Paris Lyon on time at 19:50. We bade farewell to our Algerian friend and we set off in search of metro tickets, the Gare du Nord and home.
PARIS
We had a couple of hours left before our train left from Gare du Nord, so we decided to go for one last tour of “the lights of Paris”. We got the metro to Concorde and walked a little way up the Champs Elysees, then we doubled back to look at the Opera. We couldn’t find a branch of Free Time so we grabbed a hamburger at a restaurant of the Quicks chain. It was a bit raw and almost immediately gave me stomach ache.
Finally, we headed back on the RER and metro, changing at Chatelet and walking through a seemingly endless set of transfer tunnels. As the train approached Gare du Nord a shouting match broke out between a group of youths who were smoking in the carriage and an old man who was objecting. We were glad to be getting off.
TRAIN # 63 – 22:35 Paris Nord to Dunkirk
The boat train to Dunkirk was formed of Corail stock. There was a strong antiseptic smell but at least it was a lot more comfortable than the TGV. We sat in a bay of four seats opposite two North Staffordshire Polytechnic students who seemed to be really disappointed that we were English and students just like themselves.
Across the aisle was a young French girl who was munching on a Free Time hamburger, lucky thing, a couple of young guys incredulously wearing French police hats and a older man with a large cross hanging around his neck. We got to Lille where the train reversed but I couldn’t get to sleep.
Forty Years Later….
- Since the opening of the LGV Rhone Alpes (1994) and the LGV Mediterranee (2001), the fastest Marseille to Paris TGV takes just 3 hours and 3 minutes.
- The original orange TGV livery was replaced with a silver and blue scheme from 1996 onwards.
- All 111 of the first generation Sud-Est TGVs had been taken out of service by 2020.
- Set 12 itself was withdrawn in March 2020 and scrapped.
- Quick, which had taken over Free Time in 1988, was bought by Burger King in 2015.
- There are no longer any overnight boat trains. The last Eurostar to London leaves Paris Nord at around 21:00.
- I have travelled on the TGV several times since, including all the way down to Nice, but I have never grown to like it.
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