Tour to Tours and the unexpected time in Vendome

We caught a high speed train from Paris to Tours in the Loire Valley. This train travels at 320 Km per hour. It’s unbelievable, like being in a plane that refuses to take off. We were travelling next to highways and going past cars travelling in the same direction like they were standing still. When we went into tunnels the air pressure in the cabin increased so dramatically that we were holding our noses and blowing the ear drums out.

The distance from Paris to Tours was 240 km we made it in an hour.

We went to the tourist office and they recommended things to do. Tours is not a very big town, so it is easy to walk around and see most of it. We discovered a Cedar of Lebanon which was planted in 1804. It is a magnificent tree.

The cathedral is also spectacular.

There are some very pretty squares.

We had asked the tourist bureau about a river cruise to see some of the castles on the river. She told us where and when so we made our way down there. While we were waiting we watched a guy carving a sculpture with a chainsaw.

We waited about 10 minutes after the time she had told us, but no boat appeared. There was a cafe nearby so we asked them and they said the boat had been cancelled. We headed back to the tourist bureau to ask about any other tours. Unfortunately we had missed them all.

Because of the cancellation of the river cruise we decided to head back to Paris. The train we took was not a high speed train and took a different route through the French country side. It was fun because we got a chance to see towns rather than just  zoom by them in seconds.

Then at one of the stops the train stayed still for a long time. Announcements were made in French and we had no idea what was going on. There were only half a dozen other passengers in our carriage and none spoke any English. At first they were indicating that there was no driver.  By gesticulating Peter offered to drive and everyone laughed. We were stuck in Vendome for a couple of hours.

As it turned out there was an accident further up the line and we were stuck. We all got off the train and of the 20-30 passengers still left on the train only one spoke some form of broken English. He was a monk,we think, by his dress.

One of the station attendants spoke a little English and he spoke of a taxi to Paris. We estimated that we were still about 150kms away and weren’t looking forward to that taxi ride. Eventually the taxi pulled up and we headed off. Luckily it turned out it was just taking us to another train station 10 minutes away which was Vendome’s station for the high speed train. Then we flew low to the ground all the way back to Paris. The return trip took four hours.

It was certainly an interesting day. The town and river were lovely. We didn’t get to see any castles, but I think we will make up for that later on. We are hoping it is not a prelude to all the train travel we have to do from now on.