Day 11 - (Travelling to) [M]arseilles (in theory)

An ill-directed journey

My carefully made travel plans went to custard today. This entry will be brief because it became a day lost to transit.

I got the first train leg successfully and travelled to Mannheim in comfort and productively, creating my long blog post of yesterday. The train arrived in Mannheim about 5 minutes late, but I had an hour layover, so no drama. However, this is where my plans first came unstuck.

Mannhiem Station

When I’d bought the seats for the trip from Innsbruck to Marseilles, the train people had said that they could not sell me the seat on the TGV from Mannheim to Marseilles – something about their systems not being compatible, or something. They said that I should buy a seat when I get to Mannheim; that was my plan. When I got to the ticket counter at Mannheim, they said, you have to have bought the seat the day before, you cannot buy it today! Anyway, realising the depth of my predicament and being sympathetic that I’d been poorly advised, they looked to get me a seat, and the train was full! No seats in First Class or Second Class, in spite of me having a reservation! What’s more, the train person said there was no other option for riding to Mannheim today, after some looking around.

The anxious traveller was doing breathing exercises to keep from flipping out. I tried to think through a solution, focused on getting to Marseilles because that’s where I had accommodation for the night. I did some surfing on Google and discovered there were train journeys to Marseilles, ultimately including one that ended on a night train to Marseilles from Paris. I went back into the ticket office and negotiated with another staff member to buy that journey: Mannheim to Karlsruhe, change trains (2 hours), Karlsruhe to Paris Gare de l’Est, change stations (~1 hour), Paris Gare l’Austerlitz sleeper train to Marseilles.

Karlsruhe Station

I got the train to Karlsruhe and waited in the station, reading. When the time came for me to make my connection, I checked the board for the platform and discovered the train was 45 minutes late! I checked with the train information staff and they confirmed it was late and that I was very unlikely to make my connection, especially with the need to change stations. I’d already determined that the station change could be achieved on the Paris Metro in 14 minutes. If my train to Paris caught up some time and my train out of Paris was slightly delayed, maybe I could make it!

Once I finally got on the train from Karlsruhe, the staff on-board told me I would definitely not make that connection. They said: “‘they’ will put you up in a hotel in Paris overnight and send you to Marseilles in the morning on the TGV”. I was to wait at the wooden table at the end of Platform 8 and ‘they’ would help me.

In due course, the train arrived in Paris 50 minutes late. I wandered down to the designated wooden table and waited. Four other French people joined me, one of them very upset about being inconvenienced. He gave a heated diatribe to the first train staff member he found and then repeated it (more concisely) to the guy who showed up to make our arrangements. His passion placed him last in the queue for service.

Eventually, the guy told me that he could put me on the TGV in the morning and urged me to take the 6:29 am direct service (over my preference for a 7:00 am service that would have granted me a little more sleep). He would only give me a Second Class seat because the sleeper train that I had missed was only Second Class, in spite of all the rest of my journey being First Class. I was pretty disappointed by that, but didn’t want to compromise whatever he was going to do for me by pressing the matter. More disappointing was that he would not offer me accommodation. His reason was that it wasn’t his train business (SNCF) that caused my delay, it was the others (DB). I should seek compensation from them. I reiterated that the train staff had told me that he would arrange accommodation for me. He said, they were mistaken. The TGV departs from Gare de Lyon. He advised getting accommodation near there. There are many hotels nearby, he said. I could catch the Metro from Gare de l’Est to Gare de Lyon downstairs.

The Metro

Because today was going so well, catching the Metro wasn’t even as simple as I know it to be. For some reason, the ticket machine that I chose wouldn’t issue me a ticket “for technical reasons” – that’s what the error message said! I found a ticket office and the guy there sold me a Metro ticket and then told me when asked that I needed to catch Metro 4, change at Gare de Nord, and catch Metro D. Of course it couldn’t be easy.

I managed to navigate by the signs to the right platform and get on the Metro trains going in the correct directions; two stops on Metro 4, two stops on Metro D. Fortunately, the metro was pretty quiet at this time of night (after 9 pm) so I wasn’t too pressured by the crush of passengers while wandering around looking for directions. I have to mention, the majority of people travelling the Metro at the time I was on it were of African descent. That resonated with my recollections of visiting Paris in 2018 with Aunt Cath, when I had noticed that the African refugees and immigrants were a large presence in the Paris population.

The Novotel

I got to Gare de Lyon without trouble and found the part of the station (it’s huge) where I was going to depart from in the morning and walked outside to find a hotel. I looked up hotels on Google Maps. There were a dozen within 250m, all of them over €250 per night. I decided to visit the Novotel which was literally next door to the station as I’m an ALL member. The staff there were very helpful (of course) and gave me a standard (accessible) room for a discounted member’s rate of €320, plus taxes. I took advantage of my Welcome Drink from ALL at the foyer bar, went upstairs and went to bed.

During the afternoon, I reflected on my impromptu arrangements and have concluded that I took a sub-optimal path. My over-riding desire to get to my accommodation in Marseilles distorted my thinking. Ultimately, I should have bought a ticket for the direct Mannheim to Marseilles TGV for the next day and found a place to stay in Mannheim. Much less stress, much less expense (I imagine) and it would have fitted into my name theme ([M]annheim) which has now been disrupted.

Daily facts: Location: Innsbruck, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Paris (not [M]arseilles) Temp: ~17 Weather: Raining (AM); overcast (PM)