Verdun

Verdun lies in the peaceful Meuse river valley with wheat fields and dense forests.

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All the pieces must fit together properly today as we ride three trains to travel from the London to Verdun, France. Yet many of life's stories emerge at the derailment of plans. Eurostar, the first train and the one passing through the Chunnel from London to Lille, France, departed late and then had a power problem in France resulting in our missing of the second train departing Lille. Carol and Reed met a doctor on the train who took control of the situation for them. She marched up and down in the Lille train station between SNCF and Eurostar ticket offices seeking compensation and assistance in rebooking train transportation. I listened to her share stories about her work and scuba diving in the Philippines as I made the march with her. The solution was a piece of paper with a Eurostar stamp and what trains to catch.

We walked the short distance from the Lille Europe train station to the Lille Flanders train station. Because I am using the Eurail pass, I needed to make train reservations. A nice SNCF gentleman at the Lille Flanders station gave me three train tickets for the second train we needed to catch with the verbal message to catch the train sitting on platform 4 for Marsaille to connect with the second train in Marne la Vallee Chessy. Confused yet? We managed to board the train for Marsaille by waiving our tickets and the piece of paper with the Eurostar stamp. The lack of reserved seats meant Carol and Reed and to change seats a couple of times. In the process we did meet a pleasant young French woman who'd lived in London (so she spoke English) and who's parents were from Africa. Thankfully this is when the dust settled. The second train to Meuse TGV station and bus ride to Verdun went smoothly.

In the background, Reed was working feverishly to obtain instruction to enter the VRBO he'd booked in Verdun. The host had yet to send access instructions. We used my phone as a hotspot and to make calls to VRBO. VRBO was finally able to get the host to send an email to Reed with the instructions.

The walk through the sleepy town of Verdun gave a feeling of almost being deserted. The VRBO is charming. The place and area stands in stark contrast to London. Verdun is heartbeat quiet compared to London with people partying loudly and packing the streets.

What a day of travel!

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Where yesterday we spent the day traveling on the London Underground, high speed trains and a bus, today we couldn't find any forms of transportation. Reed wanted to come here to visit the Verdun Memorial Museum located 3.5 miles outside of town - a little too far to walk. Verdun lies in rural France and on a Sunday most things are closed or just plain unavailable: no buses, taxis, rental cars, or bicycles.

We walked just down the hill toward the Meuse river and to a lovely patisserie for breakfast. The coffee and quiches were delicious. Wandering along the river we came across the Office de Tourism and it was open! And, they rented electric bikes!

So, in the end, we took a quiet ride through the beautiful forested countryside to the Verdun Memorial. It is another very well executed museum in French, English, and Germain. The return route took us down a dirt road that likely once was a train grade through quiet dense forests and straw colored wheat fields. in 1916 this area was denuded of vegetation with trenches, bomb craters, and the place where 350,000 people were killed.