I was reading one of my favourite travel blogs, Picnic at The Cathedral and WOB’s hilarious reflections on missing a bus in Poland  and was immediately reminded of missing a train in Bordeaux on Bastille weekend and the repercussions of missing that one train!

Some years age my favourite person and I were traveling through Europe with our youngest daughter, who was about fifteen at the time.

We had arranged a train trip from Bordeaux to Taormina. Yes I  know, this involves going across the water and trains don’t normally travel over water, but in Italy they sort of do! They barge the carriages from the mainland across to Messina and then you continue your journey. We thought it sounded like fun.

Back to the story. We were staying in St Emilion and needed to drive back to Bordeaux railway station to drop the car off and then board the train to Paris, travel across Paris to catch another train to Amalfi where we’d planned a couple of days sightseeing before re-boarding the train to travel onto Taormina. As I write this it now seems so obvious it wasn’t going to be straight forward but I didn’t expect it to turn sour even before we boarded our train in Bordeaux.

After a delightful Saturday morning in St Emilion, we allowed ourselves what we considered to be a more than ample time (two and half hours) to get to the Bordeaux train station. I allowed this time because the previous year I’d been in Bordeaux for work and seen how busy the traffic was.

So all packed and seemingly with plenty of time, we loaded the address into the GPS and set off for the station. It was all going well until we got into the city and then bang a traffic jam. Complete standstill followed by inching our way over the river and then to the train station. It took ages but we had time, or so I thought. Eventually we got to the train station and then started to look for the place to drop the hire car. It was nowhere to be seen and definitely not where the GPS said it was! We found ourselves going in circles, none the wiser. As we quickly came to realise, the station was being renovated and the GPS address we had was out of date.

With less than an hour until the train was due to board, we realized we needed to take a different approach. Just park the car in the public carpark and take the keys to the hire depot. Up we inched in the car park, eventually finding a spot. We then unloaded the luggage and down the world’s smallest lift (2 trips as there was definitely not enough room for 3 people and luggage) to the ground floor in search of the hire depot. Surely there would be signs?

After what felt like an eternity, we found a sign telling us where it was. In very much Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy style, the sign we eventually found was in the lower levels of the station. We still had time or so we thought albeit that it would be tight. We quickly headed for the hire depot which was on the other side of the station. I assumed once we found the hire car depot, I’d hand the keys in and all we be good. Great plan but…

As I was now understanding, Bastille weekend in France is big – very big. It’s the start of the holiday season and very much like Australian Easter, it is when everyone goes away. We found the hire depot, in a temporary building on the other side of the station. It was just us, and except for the one hundred people in front of me. It was chaos!

This was now serious!! I sent my favourite person on with my daughter and said I’d drop the keys and meet them at the platform.  About 45 minutes later and only about 30 minutes after the train we were scheduled to catch had left, I was at the front of the queue. I gave the keys back with a note showing where the car was and with a typical French shrug of the shoulders from the staff member the car was returned.  I don’t think I was the first person to do have done this. As I walked out of the hire car office, there about 150 meres away I could see the car return location. Unsigned- what chance did I have?

Now to find my favourite person and daughter and sort out how we get back to Paris in time for our Saturday evening train to Italy. Another massive queue at the ticket office awaited. We left our daughter minding the luggage while we went to the ticket counter. I have great memories my daughter, quite unflustered (my favourite person and I certainly weren’t) siting quietly reading a book surrounded by our luggage. Initially ours and then others who seemed to think they s was a safe place for them to leave their luggage as they went to sort out their own issues. Eventually we got to the ticket window, to be greeted with the news that the next train would leave in an hour and with the very clear result that we had no chance of making our connection in Paris and no, they couldn’t help with our other train connections in Italy. This meant at the very least we had Saturday night in Paris.

I made a call to the hotel we had previously stayed in Paris to see if the they had a room, they did and at least that was set. We had a pleasant ride on the train back to Paris as I started to think about how we could get our travel back on track. First a call to our travel insurer. No we couldn’t make a claim as being late for a train was not an insurable event. I sort of understood this, I guess.

Once we arrived in Paris It was obvious to us that even if we’d been on time that getting across Paris on a late Saturday afternoon was not straight forward. It would have been a challenge to make our connection in any event.

So to our hotel and dinner and a glass of wine, and did we need the glass of wine!!

What we then worked out was that it was a weekend, a long weekend and therefore we weren’t going to be able to sort out our travel plans very easily. Infact, it seemed nothing was going to be possible until Tuesday, the planned day of our arrival in Sicily.

We decided that the best approach would be to call our travel agent in Australia to see if they could help, as at least they would be there on the Monday, Sunday night French time. They weren’t a great deal of help except that they did suggest we fly to Sicily and not bother with the train. This meant our train fares were lost and our accommodation on the Amalfi Coast was forfeited as it was too late to cancel. It also meant no Pompeii! This was going to be expensive!

As we sat at dinner, glass of wine in hand and Coke for my daughter, we started to think about how our unplanned weekend might go. Bastille weekend in Paris – not all bad. After a relaxing dinner we went back to the hotel and had an early night. Sunday was a glorious day so we just pottered around finding a fabulous street party and then having dinner at agreat little pizza bar . Then Monday and Bastille Day. The highlight was seeing all the army families picnicking along the banks of the Seine.

But our travel plans were still unresolved.

On the Sunday night and with the help of our Adelaide travel agent, I found some flights to Catania where our hire car for our time in Sicily was booked from. We’d be back on track again. The flights were with a discount airline and the flight connected to Catania via Venice.

 

 

With our flight booked we set off for the airport. As we checked-in we found that we couldn’t check our luggage all the way through, which we thought was odd. That was going to  make the connection in Venice a little more complicated. This really should have been the sign that there was an issue!

Once on the plane with the other fifteen passengers, that the staff seemed to have to count at least twice,  we settled in for the short and scenic flight. As we flew onto Venice, I was surprised how big Venice airport seemed. It must have two runways or so I thought, as there was a plane descending as we were. No I was wrong, I realised as our plane steeply banked followed by an announcement from the flight deck that there had been a mix up and we were infact descending at the same time as another plane – that could have been messy!

A couple of rounds of the airport and we landed. Off to collect our baggage. While we were waiting up on the screen came the final boarding call for our flight to Catania was made. Not a good sign!

Our luggage arrived but the plane had left! What to do.? This was getting serious and now getting very expensive! There was no connection with that airline for the rest of the day and no refund available. By now, we were pretty flustered as much as anything by our arrival experience.  After wandering around the terminal for a little while we went over to the Alitalia counter and found a flight, a very expensive one, however it was to Palermo and our car was booked from Catania and our accommodation was in Taormina. I booked the new flights and then it was onto sort out our hire car. The hire company were fantastic. They understood our dilemma and arranged for a car to be available in Palermo.

We had a few hours to sit at the airport and ponder what might have been. A slice of pizza and a gelato made everything seem that little bit better – it seemed to early for a glass of wine! Mid-afternoon we were on our way again. This time an uneventful flight (the first of many we have since had with Alitalia) landing in Palermo.

Once we collected our luggage we were off to the hire depot for the car. This was well signed and easy to find, albeit a bit of a walk. We loaded the car, set the GPS and started our drive across Sicily in the early evening. Its about a 3 hour drive if you do it in one stint. Palermo is a busy and chaotic city which is its charm, but as a driver not used to driving on the otherwise of the road, it made for a nerve racking experience. Once out of Palermo, we stopped for a quick evening meal at a diner and then off again. By now it was dark. The drive was pretty uneventful.  We marveled at motor scooters with no lights passing us, seeing Mt Etna glowing and then wondered why our GPS seemed confused as we drove into Taormina, something that would be clear when the sun came up the next day and I looked at the winding, narrow and steep road I’d driven up. After nearly taking a wrong turn into the busy Corso, we found our B&B.

Our B&B hosts were lovely, quickly sorting our rooms and parking the car. All this even though we arrived at close to midnight.

After a solid nights sleep, and about $3000 in additional cost we were ready to enjoy Sicily.

It was definitely an experience, one I wouldn’t like to repeat but it was sort of fun!

 

 

Travel Tip – Venice doesn’t have two runways, so be concerned if you see another plane coming into land when you are!

We were always concerned about the original train connection in Paris, but our travel agent assured us it would be fine. My advice and one we have followed since – if the travel agent hasn’t done it themselves, trust your own judgement

Finally and most importantly, it’s a holiday, so don’t let these mishaps get in the way, enjoy them, they make the best post holiday memories!