To Montauban yesterday morning to catch the 09.17 to Paris Montparnasse train that had started from Toulouse. A second class, window seat upstairs not far from the on-board café is a snip at Euros 36. It is a two-hour journey noth-west through Agen to Bordeaux and then another two hours north-east to Paris.
Yesterday’s rain has cleared up but it is grey and overcast as we slip out of Bordeaux across the Garonne. We had been travelling at about 100 km/h but are now picking up speed and touch 300 km/h. It’s slower by road. President Macron has introduced a blanket 80 km/h speed limit on all secondary roads without a central reservation. It is a two year experiment (July 2018/20) and so most speed signs are unchanged from the previous 90 km/h as are most sat navs. A lot of tourists will be caught napping. On the train the seats face backwards, something I don’t like. On the other hand if we unexpectedly slam into something we are a lot safer. We are skimming through big, flat fields studded with woods and hedgerows. Hay and crops have been harvested and they will soon be ploughed. The TGV line circumvents Poitiers. There were three swingeing English victories in The Hundred Years’ War: Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415).
Blue sky and sunshine as we whizz across the Loire leaving Tours to our west. Then, confusingly, we cross the Loir leaving Vendôme to the east. I never knew there was a Loire and a Loir and that they were so close to each other. My neighbour, an American pastor travelling with his wife, has brought a Salade Piémontaise for lunch. It is a potato salad with tomatoes, gherkins, ham, hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise. I already had a croque monsieur and coffee for brunch and resist visiting the bar for something stronger.
It’s good to be back in Paris on a gloriously warm and sunny autumn afternoon.