Trip to the South of France: Katrina's Expert Train Travel Tips

For a bit of variety, I traveled to Toulouse today.

A week or so ago I brought TGV tickets to go to Toulouse and return to Paris, and it turns out the cheapest time to go out here was New Year's Eve Day, probably because Paris is a hot destination for New Year's and so people don't particularly want to be going away from Paris right now. But since I'm by myself and the apartment where I'm staying is prohibitively far from the celebrations, I don't particularly care if I'm in Paris for the new year. Being freezing cold and by myself in the middle of a huge crowd and unable to go home for hours and hours isn't exactly my scene.

So anyway, this morning my train was scheduled to leave Paris Austerlitz station at 7:53. I decided to try to get out of the apartment I'm staying in at 6 to leave a safe amount of time for getting there and finding my platform, but unfortunately I didn't leave until 6:20, and when I got to the train station I had a longer than usual wait for a train, and I was starting to get pretty worried that I'd miss my train. Fortunately the train that I took was one of the ones that skips a lot of stops, so I made up a lot of the time, but I had to change train lines to get to Austerlitz, and it was a change that I hadn't done before. Signage for train changes tends to be pretty clear, but often involve quite long hikes through tunnels, and I was worried that I might take a long time carrying my heavy suitcase up a lot of stairs.

I tend to be good about doing homework, so I had written down the information for the RER train change, including which direction I needed to go when I took the C line. Both RER and metro trains are designated by where they terminate, and the C line has a lot of forks, so I knew I would need to choose between two lists of several possible destinations, so I had written down a list of places in the same direction as I was going. Unfortunately, when I got to the station I saw that the list of places I had written down was actually split between two possible platforms. Oh no! I had misread the train lines last night. I went to look at the map of the lines again, and between getting up several hours before I usually did and being really stressed about missing the train, I was having a hard time reading the big spiderweb of lines. Someone asked me if I needed help, and I couldn't remember the name of the station I was going to (yeah, I was pretty tired) so I had to dig out my tickets to tell him. Then he actually wasn't so familiar with the route to get to that station actually, but then he pointed out that it was one of the destinations of the metro line that goes through the same station. Eager just to make a decision and get on a train to Austerlitz, I thanked him and left for the metro line, but after going up a set of stairs (my suitcase was getting steadily heavier... regretting packing those extra socks) and two escalators and the metro platforms still not in sight, I realized that it would be better to go have a look at the two C platforms, where I could see the details about where the train was going, so I turned back, irritated, and went to one of the C platforms, running when possible. Just as I got to the platform, a train was pulling in, and so I asked someone getting on the train if it was going to Austerlitz and she said yes, and fortunately, it did. The C line train also had an insane step up into it, so I had to lift my suitcase up and push it onto the train before hauling myself up.

I got to Austerlitz about 20 minutes before my train was set to depart. At this point I was trying to relax since I'd probably make my train, but it was quite a distance to the TGV trains, so I was still pretty worried. There were a few sets of stairs, and the one escalator between me and my train Toulouse was not operating. Then when I got onto the TGV train, tired and stinking of stress, the only storage option for my suitcase was up high, so I had to lift my giant suitcase overhead. Even once I was in my seat with some time to spare, the adrenaline from forcing myself out of bed really early, panicking that I was going to miss my train, and the impromptu workout of carrying my bag up and down many many stairs made it really hard to unclench my muscles for quite awhile.

I can distill my travel experience today into several Paris train travel tips:
1. Even if they are at the same station, the distance between two lines of one type of train can be quite far, and the distance between two distinct types of trains is even farther. When estimating travel time, include the time for changing trains as well as the time that the train takes. If you're not familiar with the station already, you might be surprised by how far it will be.
2. Elevators and escalators are often unavailable, or if they are, hard to find, so only pack something you can carry up stairs. Not only carry up stairs, but lift over your head if you need to. So pack light. Or start lifting weights at the gym more often. Really, it's best to do both.
3. Don't necessarily trust the nice person who tries to give you directions.