Trip Report - TGV

Today it was time to leave the City of Love behind and meet up with my host family from Frankfurt. To do that, I had to leave the apartment, and Hassib and Kamel, at around 8 in the morning. That's one of the great things about European inter-city trains - you can get there as late as you want, so long as you don't miss the train.

I ended up arriving at Gare de l'Est around 30 minutes before departure, where they hadn't even announced a platform yet. Once they did, I boarded the train and found my seat. The French train system is so good that each seat has a tiny LCD display showing whether the seat is reserved and, if it is, where the passenger is getting on and off:

The French really know how to do it

There were only three stops on the way to Frankfurt - Saarbrücken, Kaiserslautern and Mannheim. We went at a decent pace for a while, and I was thinking we were going at a good pace. Then we hit second gear. And third gear. And fourth gear. All at once. There was a sudden 'whoosh' and instead of going at 100km/h we were instead doing 300. I hadn't experienced that before.

The scenery on the way was absolutely gorgeous. Once we reached Germany, the only discernible difference was the presence of German flags instead of French ones. We also slowed down between Saarbrücken and Mannheim. Also on the tracks were yet more 40-carriage-long trains double stacked with cars.

We passed within inches of sheer cliff faces and whooshed past pine forests, country roads, and all-around greenery. There was even the occasional golf course. While we were going slower we passed through some picturesque towns. My favourite was Labrecht, which was entrenched in the middle of a valley with massive hills all around it.

We rolled into Frankfurt one minute late, which is probably a disgrace to the French public transit system. I expect the prime minister will resign tomorrow.

Bis zum nächsten Mal everyone, I'll catch up tonight.