It was a late night due to Julie’s wedding. We had abandoned any plans other than to meet the train at 12:18 and get on our way to Lyon.
We (Di actually) are now quite practiced at backing bags and getting underway. We called our friendly Cambodian taxi driver and asked him to meet us at 11:05, which he did, despite it being his day off. Our first trip was about 1.5kms to Julie’s to pick upmour summer gear. When we got there, Julie not only had our gear but a small pack of Belgian goodies for us including a heap of very nice Belgian chocolates. We are amazed by her generosity and also her powers of organization of being able to arrange this as well as her beautiful wedding.
After bidding Julie farewell, for a few days at least, we headed off in our taxi to Brussells Midi train station. We boarded our train on schedule and headed towards Lyon. We had four reserved seats but only two together. One lady moved to give us three and Chris quite happily sat a few seats removed from Di and the tired kids (what a sacrifice). We arrived at Lyon and we were immediately stunned by it’s beauty and by the cost of the taxi ride. A 2.5klm taxi ride cost 16.5€, this extravagant fare was as a result of a surcharge for baggage, a fee or picking up at the train station and a fare uplift for being Sunday. I normally have a lot of sympathy for taxi divers but this guy had a potential of earning around $150k AUD per year. After our short and expensive taxi ride we arrived at our apartment which had been recommended by our dentist’s wife. It was an excellent recommendation the motel overlooks a lovely old theatre and is decked out in a early 1900s French style.
We sat in the motel for a couple of hours trying to make arrangements to get from Bras in Provence back to Charles De Gaulle without missing any acton and without going broke. Once we had arranged logistics we went on a quick walk to find somewhere to eat. We ended up in a nice pizza place close to cinema. Dinner was very nice with generous portions. The wait was playing games with a tired Sophie. By the time we finished dinner it was 9:30 so we decided to wander around the block and head back to our motel. When we got back Chris left again for a few minutes to try and capture some long exposure photographs of some nearby old building while Di tried to cajole the kids into bed.
It is now 3:26am and I (Chris) am paying the price for having pizza late at night, that is, bizarre dreams and indigestion. Di is now snoring loudly so it may be difficult to get to sleep at all. At least the blog is up to date.