What a day. I now know what it’s like to wake up, not know where you’ll be sleeping that night, get an idea, have it shattered, get a train to a city you don’t have any sleeping arrangements in, meet a friendly guy on the train who helps you find some, and finally crash in a bed a few hundred miles from where you were in the morning.
It all started with Carcassonne. We thought we’d go there. But, after finding out that there were no tickets there from Valencia, we just sort of had to take a train to…well…anywhere but Valencia. We really wanted to be in France though, so the only place we could get to on the train was Montpellier. A bustling student-dominated town of 200,000.
So we got on the train after trying unsuccessfully to use the phone to call ahead for a hotel or hostel. To make things more complicated, we had to transfer once at Tortosa, Spain, some middle-of-nowhere oasis of buildings, and again at Barcelona. We figured it out though. Throughout the trip we saw some spectacular views of seaside villages tucked away in mountain crevices, and we saw a massive forest fire near Beziers, France. Pictures of these things below...
Speeding through the Pyrenees without knowing for sure we’d be sleeping in a bed, we started up a conversation with the elderly French man, Roger, sitting across from me. We chatted for a while and then got around to the fact that we had to look for housing when we got in to Montpellier at 9:00 PM. He had sympathy for us and called his hotel after remembering that they had one other room open. No luck, it had since been occupied. But, After arriving at Montpellier, he had us follow him to his hotel, and had his concierge call a hotel around the corner that he knew of to see if they had room. Success!
Not only did he find this hotel for us, he had someone from the hotel with room walk over to where we were to help us with our bags and show us the way! What a nice guy. Merci mille fois, Roger. The guy from our hotel, called Hotel Kalliste, was really nice too. We chatted on our way over, and they got us a room for 3 nights. Not a bad deal either: 59 Euros a night for the room. Actually less expensive than our place in Valencia. And it’s very quaint. I’m just glad I can settle in somewhere for the night.
Well, after such a day, Amy and I are going out for a drink. It’s only 10, the night is young!!!
EDIT: I wrote this last night when we arrived, but only in microsoft word since we didn't have internet access. Hence there will probably be another entry with the same date.
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2 comments:
Michael--another great story, we all are enjoying them. It is great to have to plan on the fly, at least if it works out well.
By the way, I looked on the map, and Montpellier is on the coast of the Med. near Marseille, and about 60 miles from Avignon(which is in the heart of Provence). You should try to see some of the smaller towns in Provence or on the coast east of Marseille.
yes, there are many cool things very close. we've decided on our next destination though, as you'll see in the next blog post!
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