The Adventure Begins

To misquote Dickens, it was the best or journeys and the worst of journeys.  We had to start a day early thanks to a strike by French air traffic controllers, and trouble on the trains as well.  We flew in to Heathrow, train to Paddington, tube to St Pancras and Eurostar to Paris.  Although long and incredibly tiring, that was relatively plain sailing, and we seven managed to find a Shepherd Neame pub near St Pancras for a rather good lunch.  Once in Paris, we had to get out to Charles de Gaulle airport, where we had a cheap hotel for the night and were going to get the TGV to Bayonne.  The Paris metro system is notorious for pickpocket, something that I forgot to warn the boys about, and sadly they fell victim to a nasty group, and we lost a phone and a wallet with drivers license.  It was all rather distressing, and filling out a police report was also stressful and time consuming.  Actually, finding a policies officer to get to a police station to give the details was a story in itself. However, we finally got it done, and found out that there had been a similar incident earlier in the day.  Fortunately these things can be replaced , no money was lost, and we finally got to the hotel and to eat about 3 hours later than I had anticipated.

The hotel was cheap - a room with a double bed, and single bunk bed over, and  communal toilet and shower rooms at the end of the hall, and no air conditioning.  Of course, by now, I was in a much heightened state of emotion, and couldn't decide what to do in the morning. Sleep was needed but not forthcoming, and we all tossed and turned through the night.  We had a hotel booked in St Jean Poed de Pont, and also at the airport.  The phone lines were jammed for information about which trains were running, and having decided not to try to travel, having changed my mind again, we packed in10 minutes, got the hotel shuttle and went to the train station.  A train was running, we jumped on it and got to Bordeaux. There was a train to Bayonne an hour later and the person at the information office even called Bayonne station to check on the train to St Jean.  Then across the road for a coffee and dessert ( crime caramel, mousse au chocolate and tarte aux abricots ).  

I am not sure if the boys will get over my dithering , or how well they and I will get over the pick pocketing incident, but we are on our way, and hopefully now, things will get

better.