Les Miserables

That's us in France, particularly Richard. He has good reason – we are now more than two weeks into our trip and he has been ill most of the time. I have tried to cheer him up by saying we've had sunshine every day on the holiday so far but it's not quite working. So here I sit once more in a hotel room while he sleeps and I nurse my twisted and aching muscles, thanks to SNCF. 

We do not love French rail. And while you can be excused for not speaking any English (how many Australians could transact in French), why do you have to be so off-hand and unfriendly to visitors? No, it's not the Parisians – it's many people in the South of France including railway employees. It's also rather dismal and there seems to be more grime and decay than the alternative. 

In Toulouse we decided to take the boat trip - the Garone and one of the Canals, recommended by the Office of Tourism. Don't bother – it's the most non-tour tour we've been on, there was only French commentary and we only discovered there was a printed English commentary when we were getting off the boat - no need to give tourists information.  

This was after being castigated by the ticket seller because we had CASH. She did not have change but had already taken our money so made us wait until everyone else was queued up even though we had arrived almost first … and when we decided to call it quits she refused to give us our money back even though she had no change for us declaring that the tickets were non-refundable. At which point we buckled under and became Les Miserables for the rest of the trip. About the only things to see in one hour of sailing are the totally unremarkable tobacco factory and a marble relief sculpture on the side of one of the bridges. On the Garone itself there is nothing to see given the high walls and tall trees. 

On our last day, we went to the station in Toulouse early in the hope of getting on an earlier train to Carcassonne. Bad move though at least the Metro trip featured escalators. As I was sitting in a waiting area for Richard to try to exchange our tickets, we got evacuated from the area so I had to rush with two suitcases to find Richard upon which we were evacuated from the entire train station. Full marks to the crowd – the whole exercise took an hour in which time everyone calmly did what they were told and waited quietly outside in the sunshine for the all clear. Meanwhile fire tenders and police arrived, each lot of new arrivals calmly walking up to the top cop and shaking hands while camouflage-suited soldiers guarded the station facing us, weapons at the ready. No-one told us anything – you just had to observe and draw your own conclusions.

Finally, some special guys arrived with heavy black protective gear so I assumed it was a bomb threat. They went inside the station - where I had been sitting - carrying a large portable fire extinguisher and other equipment and after some time there was a small explosion at which point the crowd heaved a collective sigh of relief and began to pick up their luggage in expectation of continuing on with the day. Clearly, this is something that happens often and appeared to be no more than an abandoned package. 

But now we had no chance of getting an earlier train. When our train finally pulled into the station, it did so more than a train length further down the platform than was advertised so we had to run with our luggage to make it. Later we assumed it was a ploy to try and discourage people from attempting to board what was a much shorter train than was supposed to arrive. Everyone crammed on and we faced the prospect of standing for 45 minutes in the aisle with our luggage. But no, that is unsafe so randomly they made people get off the train including us without explanation as to why us and telling us they had put on a bus to Carcassonne that was leaving 50 minutes later. 

OK – fortunately we had had a similar experience a couple of days before so knew where the bus station was and roughly where the SNCF replacement bus would probably leave from. Was any information forthcoming? Not until we and some German unfortunates in a similar position to us had hung around the bus station for 20 minutes trying to find someone on duty to give us some information. We finally arrived at Carcassonne at around 4.30pm when we should have been there at 2.30pm. At least the taxi driver made us feel better – "Welcome to France " he declared with a shrug and a smile on hearing our journey had been somewhat challenging so far. 

But wait, there's more. Chastened by our experience we decided not to risk leaving for Avignon late on a Sunday afternoon during school holidays – wise move in only one sense. At the train station we were told no way can we do anything – all trains are all full. Lacking faith in bureaucracy I went to a ticket machine and found we could get a train to Narbonne (our connecting station) a whole hour earlier by simply paying for some new tickets which I did. When we arrived in Narbonne we found out we could get on an earlier train to Avignon using our original ticket which we did … this is the wise bit. By the time we got to Nimes it was standing room only. Of course, when we tried to get a refund for the leg so far unused we found out that you have to claim a refund at least one day before – before what? Possibly not being able to use your ticket? What a joke! 

So what have we learned – do not buy rail tickets in advance if you have any expectation of changing your journey.  On the other hand, if you do not buy them in advance you may not get on any trains that are vaguely right for the journey you must take. And even if you do have a ticket, do not expect that you will be allowed on a train that's too full even if there are no alternatives.  In addition, disabled people clearly do not use the rail system in France. There are no elevators or escalators to get you up and down on to platforms. So make sure you only travel with hand luggage. 

On the positive side, French bus and taxi drivers in the South are calm and friendly and appear to be local unlike what you find in many other parts of the world.

The Spanish rail system runs rings around the French. I would go back there any time in preference to France.