Europe – “Riding the Rails” (1)

The forces of Hurricane Dorian have been doing their best to “derail” the start of this month-long Eurail trip. We were scheduled to fly out of Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday to connect with a flight in Charlotte to Paris. Watching the path of the hurricane and the timing, we grew nervous. Fortunately American Airlines agreed with us as they graciously agreed to change our flight to leave from Fort Myers to Charlotte where we spent the night to then take the Paris flight.

Although we have traveled lots by train in Europe, this was our first time as Eurail pass users, so, there were rules to follow. The first and essential dictate was to have the passes validated before usage, which we did (this is the “royal we” as since I am the one who wants to do all these things, it falls on me to do all these things).

The TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse, or, in English, high-speed train) was right on time, sleek and fast to Lille, arriving at the Lille Europe station. With nothing ever being easy, we had a 10-15 minute trek, dragging our luggage, to the Lille Flandres station to catch a local train to Lens, still in France. Although also right on time, this was a totally different experience with a much older, more “used” train that stopped every 7-10 minutes; it was definitely a local train. Arriving in Lens, we then had to figure out how to get out of the train station, down one level, walk to another elevator and then back up a level.

A quick taxi ride, and, we were at the Hotel Louvre-Lens, where we are spending two nights. The hotel is a structure of authentic row houses that was originally called Cite 9. The old miners’ houses were turned into a 4-star hotel.

Although this is not a town one would normally think of visiting, there are some compelling reasons to spend a few days here. With the next post, perhaps you will share my enthusiasm for this small town.