What to do... Life's like that...

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

About Gustis, Metros and Euros - V

Day 7: Torino/Turin, Italy:
We were already a week into our vacation and entering the final phase, the grand finale would be the French capital Paris. But before we arrive at Paris, we had around 24 hours of travel to undergo via Turin, Italy, the city that hosted the 2006 winter olympics. According to the original plan, we were supposed to take a train out of Venice to Turin, reach Turin around 2pm, board another train to Chambery Challes across the Italy-France border. At 12am the next day, we were scheduled to take a train to Paris, a sleeper coach, to reach Paris in the wee hours of the 8th day. I was not too happy with the itinerary, as we would be losing some sleep due to travel and that would translate to a more hectic schedule in Paris. We woke up pretty early as we had to be at the station at 7:45am. Breakfast would start at 7am, but it was not ready at the hotel. We expressed our concern at the front desk and they directed us to their sister hotel down the street. We gobbled up a few slices of bread and gulped down a couple of glasses of orange juice and started trudging toward the station. We reached about 10 minutes before the train could depart. This time around we didn't have an Eurostar train, rather an Intercity express (IC). The coaches are similar to the Eurostar Alta Velocita train, a little smaller individual seating area perhaps, but I thought the trains were pretty fast. On the downside, they stopped at every shanty on the way. But in between stops, the train was super fast.

An old Italian couple sat next to us, the man reading a guide on Italy and the woman reading the newspaper. A very silent couple, who were engrossed in their own little worlds, with minimal interaction between each other. Perhaps that's what happens after 30 years of marriage. The couple alighted at one of the numerous small stations on the way.

The first part of the journey, my mind was racing, thinking about possible ways to reach Paris by nightfall. I sifted through the Eurail calendar, but could not find any connection between Torino and Chambery or Torino and Paris. From Chambery to Paris, I could see plenty of TGVs, the last one leaving Chambery at 7:30pm. This means that we needed to reach Chambery by 7:30pm somehow, but it looked very bleak.

Our train took around 5 hours to reach Torino. Torino has 2 stations, Torino Porta Susa and Torino Porta Nuova. Porta Nuova is closer to the city center. Our 7:30pm transport that was supposed to take us across the border into France would depart from Torino Porta Susa. So I had made up my mind that if Porta Susa came first, we would get down there and look for an earlier connection to Chambery in France. At around 1pm, we reached Porta Susa and got down. We expected it to be a pretty big station, only to find out that it was a station that had only 3 platforms. We got down and I went up to the station master to show him our tickets for the next connection. I also tried to express our concerns about reaching Paris only early next day. He couldn't comprehend my English though he tried his best. He saw our tickets and told us that our next connection was not a train, rather a bus that took us to Chambery. The bus journey was supposed to be 3 hours and we would reach Chambery only at 10pm. I was very disappointed, first of all we would be reaching late, upon that we need to travel by road, unacceptable. I tried to ask him if he knew any other way of getting there. He told us "hard luck", this way was our only chance to cross the border. There were other trains, but they all go via Switzerland, and we didn't have visas. Since we had around 6 hours to spend, we came out of the station to find out that there were no good eating places nearby too. We again went back into the station and asked the same person for a cloak room, he gave us a negative. He directed us to the Porta Nuova station that was 10 minutes away. We boarded the next train to Porta Nuova, a spooky and empty train.

Porta Nuova is a pretty big station. We found a cloak room at the station, it was pretty expensive. The charges are around 3 euros/bag/hour. We dropped our bags and went out for lunch. We found a couple of places and had pizzas at 2 of them. The first one seemed pretty upscale and a Pizza costed around 7 euros, but the second one was a kebab house where the pizza was around 4 euros. Turin seemed to be less affluent and less vibrant too. Unlike the other 3 cities we had been too, the number of tourists were very few here. As a direct effect of this, lesser people know english and there are lesser businesses that thrive on tourism. After lunch, we went to the station and my stubbornness to reach Paris by nightfall became stronger. I marched to the enquiry office at the station and explained the situation. The person knew English, pulled up a timetable on his computer screen and showed me the options I had to get to Chambery. I had 2 options according to him, 1) Take the 5:00pm train from Porta Susa to Chambery 2) Take the 7:30pm bus, the one we had reservations for. I was determined to take the train, with the hope that I would get a ride on the TGV to Paris from Chambery. But, there was a catch, he told me that the train would reach Chambery at around 7:25pm. I calculated the possibility mentally. The last TGV to depart Chambery is at 7:30pm, that gives us just 5 minutes to look up the train location, run to the right platform, hoist our and board the train. I thanked the guy at the desk and broke the news to my wife. I wanted her to be mentally prepared to sprint across the platform and board the other train. Of course, plan B was to wait till midnight at Chambery, Turin or Chambery we had to wait if things didn't go our way. But by chance we made it, wow, 11:30pm we would reach Paris, a night's sleep and plenty of joy seeing Paris. The odds of this was low, but we had nothing to lose.

We boarded the next train back to Porta Susa and I went to the ticket counter to ask for reservations to put us onto the 5:00pm train. The old man at the counter said that the train was full and we couldn't take that train to Chambery, my hopes were dashed. I discussed this issue with my wife. We were pretty disappointed. But my persistence self told me that I should gate crash the train, what would happen in the worst case? The ticket collector can't throw us out, can he? We had our passes, that were applicable on any train in Italy and France, we were legally safe. At worst, we may have to stand all the way till Chambery, a two and a half hour journey. I was prepared for it, if it helped us reach Paris that night. The platform was now getting crowded with people who wanted to board this train. The electronic board splashed a sign, indicating that a train to Paris would arrive at 5pm. I didn't know that the same train would go to Paris. But what time would it reach Paris? Since we didn't have our reservations, we didn't want to stand for 7-9 hours and decided that we would get down at Chambery at any cost and catch the TGV that would take us to Paris quicker.

At 5pm a red train, streaked with blue and marked as a TGV arrived at Porta Susa. I couldn't believe my eyes and then it dawned on me that it was the same train that would become a TGV from Chambery to Paris, arriving in Paris at 11:30pm. I didn't want to squander this chance, with my wife tagging along, I rushed through the crowd to the 1st class coach and boarded the TGV. Most seats were full, except for 4 seats that were occupied by Trinitalia ticket collectors. As soon as we boarded the coach, they gave up their seats thinking we were having reservations. In a few minutes, the train started rolling towards Chambery. A ticket collector asked our tickets and we had to shell out 18 euros per person as special train fees since this was a high speed train. I was relieved and my dream had come true. I would be travelling on a TGV to Paris, south to north of France in 2.5 hours, amazing!!!!. My persistence and determination had paid off and I had a twinkle in my eye and a glee on my face.

There is a TGV from Milan Centrale to Paris. It takes around 6 hours to reach Paris morphing itself to a high speed train
from Lyon to Paris. The TGV travels via Porta Susa, the Italian alps and Chambery to reach Lyon. The section when the train goes through the alps is fantastic, snow peaked mountains and wild flower meadows dotting the scenery. We pass very close to the winter olympics village near Oulx. The train is very slow as it passes through the umpteen tunnels and bridges. Though we perceive that the train moves slowly, it reached Chambery on time at 7:25pm and after some brief custom and visa checks, the train proceeds to Paris. It reaches Lyon around 9pm and after that it literally flies towards Paris, the scenes changing like a fast forwarded movie. The TGV restrooms are not as clean as the ones on the Eurostar trains, but who cares about the restrooms, the speed is exhilarating. At 11:30pm, the train arrived at Paris - Gare De Lyon. We had no clue how to go to our hotels, we tried asking the ticket collector, but he was as blank as us. No information desk was open at Gare De Lyon and we directly went to a transport ticket desk. Paris was pretty cold, my wife shivering with each gust of wind. I was used to this, typical Seattle weather I should say, and having stayed in Minneapolis, I shouldn't be complaining. The station at Paris was huge and we were like blind mice lost in a maze. At last we found this transport desk, I shoved the attendant my hotel reservation and told her that I need to get there. She gave me 2 metro tickets at 1.5 euros a piece and dismissed me from her presence. I have 2 tickets, but how do I go, where do I go, what do I do with these 2 tickets, I had no clue. People around were not helpful too, everyone had a typical metropolitan air about them, an attitude wanting independence.

I went up to a map and started staring at it. For a moment it seemed that we had no hope of getting to our hotel other than hiring a cab. But then at the corner of my mind, I happened to recall a metro station by the name Porte de Champerret that was close to our hotel. We looked up the metro map to locate this station and decided to take the metro, a north line to Saint-Lazare and then a west line, line 3 to Porte De Champerret. The Paris Metro is the most amazing innovation I've seen on this trip so far, surpassing the TGV or the canal system at Venice. The Paris metro is like a grid, criss-crossing the city's underground. RER lines move N-S and the Metro lines move east-west, overlaying a mesh on Paris. Frequencies are high, a metro within 2-3 minutes at any station. Security is high too, you need not break a sweat thinking about your safety. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, even in the deserted stations. Lot of people travel by the metro everyday, perhaps Paris's lifeline.
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