We spent today traveling by train from Brussels to Nantes, France where we will begin our France bike tour following the Loire River going east. Not much excitement, which is good whenever it involves public transport. The biggest issue has been getting all our stuff and bicycles onto the right train in time. These French high speed trains don't allow bicycles on board, which is partly why we have the folding kind that you can hide in a bag. The problem is that we had 9 bags that we had to move along and jostle with the other passengers for valuable luggage space. Trying to figure out which platform the train would be and where on that platform our train car would stop was a real game. It really worked out fine in the end and got help from others in the whole process..
We made it to Nantes around 4pm and assembled the bikes back together on the train platform. Rode out of the train station and proceeded to look for a place to stay for the night. Linda spotted one right in the middle of the town which turned out to be really nice. Spent the next 2 frustrating hours getting a new data SIM card for the IPad which was way more complicated than the same experience in Holland. Linda's French could help to a point where it became more of a technical problem. In the end we got it to work which was a miracle..
We had a great evening with dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant and birthday ice cream afterwards!
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| Linda and the bags on the right platform.. |
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| How do you move these bags up and down stairs... One at a time in this case |
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| Near our hotel in Nantes |
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| Yes, blue skies here so far too! |
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