Perfidious Periferique
Nilly told me you see. That you can load the car on the train in Paris and then take the night train to Bordeaux and that one arrives early the following morning in the south west of France all refreshed and ready for a holiday. Fantastic idea. .
The fact that we had to board the car at the Gare de Bercy and then make our way to the Gare d’Austerlitz to take the a second train at midnight hardly mattered. The SNCF website was pretty lousy and we were unable to fathom how to book on-line. Instead we left it up to a travel agency to organise.
The info package that arrived with the tickets indicated that we had all day to leave the car at the Gare de Bercy – between 9 and 19:30. Plenty of time really. But, on the morning of our departure G. still had to go to some fancy graduation ceremony and later I still had to do some last minute shopping and what with getting everything sorted out and packed and locked up it was three o’clock before we hit the road. Not to worry its only three hours to Paris and the Gare de Bercy – that’s close to the Stade de France. Isn’t it? We pass that all the time when we drive to Bordeaux. Don’t we? Must be a big station being so close to the Stade de France. Impossible to miss. Signposted right up to the entrance. Right?
We arrived at the outskirts of Paris at a quarter to six on a nice sunny Saturday evening. Stack load of time to get the car onto the train. The kids were all in high-spirits clutching their over-night bags and chattering in the back. In front of me I had the route planner that G. printed out before we left. I have failed to persuade him to buy one of these sat-nav things. (“Biggest reason for cars being broken into” he always asserts) and so we rely on AA print-outs, only this time for some reason it was a Michelin print-out. Having remembered to pack just about everything else in the house for some reason we didn't pack a map of Paris. Things were going really well. We passed the first sign as indicated, the second and the third. Next one should be the Porte de Bercy. Our exit – but we found no signs for the Porte de Bercy and so we drove on along the ring-road around Paris…and on…and on….and on…and
“Shouldn’t we have passed the Stade de France and signs to Bercy by now G? I think we’ve driven too far?”
“No. It’ll come. Be patient. We always pass it and we haven’t seen any signs for Bercy yet. Don’t worry.”
“O.K”
In the meantime J. had taken up some game with R involving arm wrenching and lots of screeching and giggling.
“Can you stop that please. Daddy is trying to concentrate. We are in the middle of Paris you know and traffic is heavy.”
J and R ignored us and went on making the most annoying, distracting sounds. It was true the traffic was beginning to build up heavily and G. had to concentrate hard. We drove on…and on… and on. The time by now was edging towards a quarter to seven.
“G. are you sure we shouldn’t have passed Bercy by now? The town looks as though its thinning out a bit.”
In fact by now the only signs, well more or less, were those directing us to the A10 and Bordeaux. I had this distinctly uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that soon we would be hitting the toll station leading us onto the motor-way direction south-west. G. finally admitted that it looked as though we had indeed passed Bercy and we would have to turn back. He got off the ring road. Somewhere. I forget where exactly. By now it was five minutes past seven and we had just 25 minutes to make it to the Gare de Bercy through the late evening Paris traffic. I looked at our tickets again.
It said: the car train for Bordeaux leaves at eight o’clock. The deadline for passengers to leave their car is seven-thirty.
I rang the station up.
“Errr – I think we may be just a bit later than seven thirty. Does it matter?”
“Well, where are you? You must hurry the train can not wait.”
“I know. We are doing our best we are in …” I gave him the name of the suburb we had just left.
“But that’s miles away from Bercy. You’ll just have to hurry and be here for 7.30.”
“We’re doing out best but if you could just old on a few more minutes….” But he had already put the phone down.
By now the children were beginning to pick up that something was wrong and even J. decided to quit playing with R.
“Are we going to miss the train?” J. asked quietly “because I really want to catch it and get to Oma and Grandpa tomorrow.”
“Look don’t worry J.” G. said trying to sound reassuring. “I have a plan B. If we miss the train you can still catch the midnight train from Austerlitz and I’ll drive through the night and meet you in Bordeaux tomorrow morning.”
“That sounds more like plan Z than plan B to me Daddy.” J retorted.
I agreed with my eldest. The whole reason why we had opted for this expensive solution was so that G. wouldn’t have to drive through the night. Having come home at 1 a.m. G. was hardly fit for a long haul drive along the motorway in the wee hours of the morning.
“I’ll ring Becky.” I said “She can go on-line and guide us through Paris toward the Gare de Bercy.”
“Not to worry K. Just tell me where you are exactly?” Becky sounded very calm and reassuring but the signs were flying past us as this stage and changing every minute, so that I wasn’t exactly sure where the hell we were on that hell-hole of the Paris ring-road.
“Look. Just get off the ring-road and head onto the Periferique. If you see the sign Port d’Orleans get off there because you’ll be heading in the right direction.”
“Port d’Orleans. Oh yes, there it is. There it is G. Quick we need to get off here.”
G. swerved off the ring-road and we came onto the peripherique - and a stand-still.
“Keep going until you see a sign saying Porte d’Italie – the next one is the Porte de Bercy – the station must be close to the Porte. Its really not far, it’s more or less the next one.” Becky told me. Only problem was that we weren’t “going” anywhere. We were crawling somewhere but whether it was even in the right direction we had no idea. Becky kept telling me “You should see a sign post to … and then follow direction ….” But we could find nothing and it was now twenty past seven.
Since we were stuck in traffic anyway and whizzing nowhere I rolled the windows down and tried to call out to the guy in the car next to us – but he just looked embarrassed and giggled to his fellow passenger.
“Oh for heavens sake.” I thought I’m not flirting with you. So, I kept waving my hands but he just kept giggling. We inched forward and I tried with the next driver.
“Excusez-moi, mais savez vous ou est le Gare de Bercy? GARE DE BERCY? Quelle direction?”
He looked at me, paused, thought, gave a fantastic, fatalistic, not what I wanted, Gallic shrug but managed“C’est pas ici. If faut retourner. L’autre direction” before he drove on.
“Turn around. Turn around” I instructed and G. got into the right lane to turn around. Then the traffic lights turned red. Finally, however, we saw signs to the “Port de Bercy”, Phew. It must be close, it must be close. So close but still we crawled and crawled and crawled from one traffic light to the next.
We really needed to catch that train. Not only would we be wasting close to EUR 600 if we missed it I would also have to manage four children on my own in some dodgy Paris station at night and worrying all the time about G. driving, alone, along the motorway. Missing the car train had just never occurred to me and made it all the more galling that we were heading for plan Z.
I rang Becky back. “Did you manage to get hold of the Gare de Bercy?” I asked.
“No – no one’s picking up.”
I had the same problem.
“Well we’ve passed the Port d’Italie” I said.
“Oh good. The next one is Port de Bercy. You have to go over a bridge and then you’ll see the Port de Bercy. Get off there.”
It was true. Beyond the bridge I saw signs to the Port de Bercy but we were driving so slowly and it was already twenty to eight. We would never make it on time. My heart was sinking. Only twenty minutes and we still had no idea where the station was. Eventually we got off at the Port de Bercy and were led onto a busy dual-carriage way where the police were managing the heavy traffic. No one we asked had a clue where the Gare de Bercy was. They kept thinking we meant the Gare de Lyons. We even asked the gendarmes where the Gare de Bercy was but all we got in response was a rather snappy “Circule! Circule!” and a hand waving round and round.
Suddenly, just out of view from the gendarme, I spotted a large station to our left – in the other direction to where we were heading.
“G! G! I think its there. I can see a big train station. We have to turn around.”
Rather than waiting until we hit the next set of traffic lights G. decided to do a massive big U-turn in the middle of the dual carriage way, and squeeze the car through a gap in the barrier on the other side– a gap which should not really have been there. Happily for the C8 and us there was no on-coming traffic. They were still stuck behind the traffic lights just ahead. Luckily for G. we were also just out of view of the gendarme. Had he seen G.’s driving I suspect he may have spent the night in a cell with the local down and outs, rather than a SNCF couchette (were we to even make it).
We ended up along some narrower side-streets and away from the main roads but traffic was still crawling and there were still too many traffic lights. To the left an enormous railway station lay sprawled out – but where was the entrance? Any one we asked had never heard of the Gare de Bercy. The massive station to our left was the Gare de Lyon. Finally we found someone who knew where the station was. Four more traffic lights to go and the traffic and turn left …. the traffic was still crawling.
I gave up hope of ever making it. It was now 19. 54. Six minutes before the car train pulled out of the station and still all those traffic lights. We did make it to the fourth set of lights and turned left as instructed but still we found no signs indicating that this was the wretched Gare de Bercy. So, G. turned around and drove all the way back from where we had come. Back to the dual carriage way. There we discovered a forlorn entrance to somewhere heading towards the Gare de Lyons. Outside sat a solitary security guard.
“Gare de Bercy? Gare de Bercy?” we practically screamed at the poor guy.
“Oh no not here. You have to turn around. On the fourth set of traffic lights turn left and then left again.”
I rang Becky. “Look I think we’ll miss the train.” I said we are so close but we can’t find the bloody Gare.
“It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings” she assured me. “Keep trying and you’ll make it. I’m sure.”
I was trying to feel more confident but we had only four minutes to go through four sets of traffic lights let alone find where the elusive entrance to off-load cars at the Gare de Bercy was.
For some reason we kept driving and somehow at 19.58 we saw one single, paltry, pathetic little sign post practically opposite the damn thing saying “Gare de Bercy”.
Stuck behind yet another traffic light it was decided that I would jump out of the car and run inside to ask where we had to be. The station itself was disappointingly unimposing. Not in the least what we had expected when we had set off so hopefully earlier that afternoon. I barged my way to the front of the queue demanding “Car terminal. Where do the car trains leave from?” The guy just looked at me and gave me yet another Gallic shrug. Arggghhhh…. I ran to some nearby doors to try and see if I could find it and halt the train from leaving - when I saw a most beautiful sight.
G. coming out of the car with the children saying:
“Its alright. We’ve made it. They’ve agreed to drive the car on for us.”
J. looked at me and said
“Mummy. Now I know that God exists. I prayed so hard that we would make it and we did.”
I was literally trembling still not quite believing that we had made the train. The time: 19:58.
The fact that we had to board the car at the Gare de Bercy and then make our way to the Gare d’Austerlitz to take the a second train at midnight hardly mattered. The SNCF website was pretty lousy and we were unable to fathom how to book on-line. Instead we left it up to a travel agency to organise.
The info package that arrived with the tickets indicated that we had all day to leave the car at the Gare de Bercy – between 9 and 19:30. Plenty of time really. But, on the morning of our departure G. still had to go to some fancy graduation ceremony and later I still had to do some last minute shopping and what with getting everything sorted out and packed and locked up it was three o’clock before we hit the road. Not to worry its only three hours to Paris and the Gare de Bercy – that’s close to the Stade de France. Isn’t it? We pass that all the time when we drive to Bordeaux. Don’t we? Must be a big station being so close to the Stade de France. Impossible to miss. Signposted right up to the entrance. Right?
We arrived at the outskirts of Paris at a quarter to six on a nice sunny Saturday evening. Stack load of time to get the car onto the train. The kids were all in high-spirits clutching their over-night bags and chattering in the back. In front of me I had the route planner that G. printed out before we left. I have failed to persuade him to buy one of these sat-nav things. (“Biggest reason for cars being broken into” he always asserts) and so we rely on AA print-outs, only this time for some reason it was a Michelin print-out. Having remembered to pack just about everything else in the house for some reason we didn't pack a map of Paris. Things were going really well. We passed the first sign as indicated, the second and the third. Next one should be the Porte de Bercy. Our exit – but we found no signs for the Porte de Bercy and so we drove on along the ring-road around Paris…and on…and on….and on…and
“Shouldn’t we have passed the Stade de France and signs to Bercy by now G? I think we’ve driven too far?”
“No. It’ll come. Be patient. We always pass it and we haven’t seen any signs for Bercy yet. Don’t worry.”
“O.K”
In the meantime J. had taken up some game with R involving arm wrenching and lots of screeching and giggling.
“Can you stop that please. Daddy is trying to concentrate. We are in the middle of Paris you know and traffic is heavy.”
J and R ignored us and went on making the most annoying, distracting sounds. It was true the traffic was beginning to build up heavily and G. had to concentrate hard. We drove on…and on… and on. The time by now was edging towards a quarter to seven.
“G. are you sure we shouldn’t have passed Bercy by now? The town looks as though its thinning out a bit.”
In fact by now the only signs, well more or less, were those directing us to the A10 and Bordeaux. I had this distinctly uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that soon we would be hitting the toll station leading us onto the motor-way direction south-west. G. finally admitted that it looked as though we had indeed passed Bercy and we would have to turn back. He got off the ring road. Somewhere. I forget where exactly. By now it was five minutes past seven and we had just 25 minutes to make it to the Gare de Bercy through the late evening Paris traffic. I looked at our tickets again.
It said: the car train for Bordeaux leaves at eight o’clock. The deadline for passengers to leave their car is seven-thirty.
I rang the station up.
“Errr – I think we may be just a bit later than seven thirty. Does it matter?”
“Well, where are you? You must hurry the train can not wait.”
“I know. We are doing our best we are in …” I gave him the name of the suburb we had just left.
“But that’s miles away from Bercy. You’ll just have to hurry and be here for 7.30.”
“We’re doing out best but if you could just old on a few more minutes….” But he had already put the phone down.
By now the children were beginning to pick up that something was wrong and even J. decided to quit playing with R.
“Are we going to miss the train?” J. asked quietly “because I really want to catch it and get to Oma and Grandpa tomorrow.”
“Look don’t worry J.” G. said trying to sound reassuring. “I have a plan B. If we miss the train you can still catch the midnight train from Austerlitz and I’ll drive through the night and meet you in Bordeaux tomorrow morning.”
“That sounds more like plan Z than plan B to me Daddy.” J retorted.
I agreed with my eldest. The whole reason why we had opted for this expensive solution was so that G. wouldn’t have to drive through the night. Having come home at 1 a.m. G. was hardly fit for a long haul drive along the motorway in the wee hours of the morning.
“I’ll ring Becky.” I said “She can go on-line and guide us through Paris toward the Gare de Bercy.”
“Not to worry K. Just tell me where you are exactly?” Becky sounded very calm and reassuring but the signs were flying past us as this stage and changing every minute, so that I wasn’t exactly sure where the hell we were on that hell-hole of the Paris ring-road.
“Look. Just get off the ring-road and head onto the Periferique. If you see the sign Port d’Orleans get off there because you’ll be heading in the right direction.”
“Port d’Orleans. Oh yes, there it is. There it is G. Quick we need to get off here.”
G. swerved off the ring-road and we came onto the peripherique - and a stand-still.
“Keep going until you see a sign saying Porte d’Italie – the next one is the Porte de Bercy – the station must be close to the Porte. Its really not far, it’s more or less the next one.” Becky told me. Only problem was that we weren’t “going” anywhere. We were crawling somewhere but whether it was even in the right direction we had no idea. Becky kept telling me “You should see a sign post to … and then follow direction ….” But we could find nothing and it was now twenty past seven.
Since we were stuck in traffic anyway and whizzing nowhere I rolled the windows down and tried to call out to the guy in the car next to us – but he just looked embarrassed and giggled to his fellow passenger.
“Oh for heavens sake.” I thought I’m not flirting with you. So, I kept waving my hands but he just kept giggling. We inched forward and I tried with the next driver.
“Excusez-moi, mais savez vous ou est le Gare de Bercy? GARE DE BERCY? Quelle direction?”
He looked at me, paused, thought, gave a fantastic, fatalistic, not what I wanted, Gallic shrug but managed“C’est pas ici. If faut retourner. L’autre direction” before he drove on.
“Turn around. Turn around” I instructed and G. got into the right lane to turn around. Then the traffic lights turned red. Finally, however, we saw signs to the “Port de Bercy”, Phew. It must be close, it must be close. So close but still we crawled and crawled and crawled from one traffic light to the next.
We really needed to catch that train. Not only would we be wasting close to EUR 600 if we missed it I would also have to manage four children on my own in some dodgy Paris station at night and worrying all the time about G. driving, alone, along the motorway. Missing the car train had just never occurred to me and made it all the more galling that we were heading for plan Z.
I rang Becky back. “Did you manage to get hold of the Gare de Bercy?” I asked.
“No – no one’s picking up.”
I had the same problem.
“Well we’ve passed the Port d’Italie” I said.
“Oh good. The next one is Port de Bercy. You have to go over a bridge and then you’ll see the Port de Bercy. Get off there.”
It was true. Beyond the bridge I saw signs to the Port de Bercy but we were driving so slowly and it was already twenty to eight. We would never make it on time. My heart was sinking. Only twenty minutes and we still had no idea where the station was. Eventually we got off at the Port de Bercy and were led onto a busy dual-carriage way where the police were managing the heavy traffic. No one we asked had a clue where the Gare de Bercy was. They kept thinking we meant the Gare de Lyons. We even asked the gendarmes where the Gare de Bercy was but all we got in response was a rather snappy “Circule! Circule!” and a hand waving round and round.
Suddenly, just out of view from the gendarme, I spotted a large station to our left – in the other direction to where we were heading.
“G! G! I think its there. I can see a big train station. We have to turn around.”
Rather than waiting until we hit the next set of traffic lights G. decided to do a massive big U-turn in the middle of the dual carriage way, and squeeze the car through a gap in the barrier on the other side– a gap which should not really have been there. Happily for the C8 and us there was no on-coming traffic. They were still stuck behind the traffic lights just ahead. Luckily for G. we were also just out of view of the gendarme. Had he seen G.’s driving I suspect he may have spent the night in a cell with the local down and outs, rather than a SNCF couchette (were we to even make it).
We ended up along some narrower side-streets and away from the main roads but traffic was still crawling and there were still too many traffic lights. To the left an enormous railway station lay sprawled out – but where was the entrance? Any one we asked had never heard of the Gare de Bercy. The massive station to our left was the Gare de Lyon. Finally we found someone who knew where the station was. Four more traffic lights to go and the traffic and turn left …. the traffic was still crawling.
I gave up hope of ever making it. It was now 19. 54. Six minutes before the car train pulled out of the station and still all those traffic lights. We did make it to the fourth set of lights and turned left as instructed but still we found no signs indicating that this was the wretched Gare de Bercy. So, G. turned around and drove all the way back from where we had come. Back to the dual carriage way. There we discovered a forlorn entrance to somewhere heading towards the Gare de Lyons. Outside sat a solitary security guard.
“Gare de Bercy? Gare de Bercy?” we practically screamed at the poor guy.
“Oh no not here. You have to turn around. On the fourth set of traffic lights turn left and then left again.”
I rang Becky. “Look I think we’ll miss the train.” I said we are so close but we can’t find the bloody Gare.
“It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings” she assured me. “Keep trying and you’ll make it. I’m sure.”
I was trying to feel more confident but we had only four minutes to go through four sets of traffic lights let alone find where the elusive entrance to off-load cars at the Gare de Bercy was.
For some reason we kept driving and somehow at 19.58 we saw one single, paltry, pathetic little sign post practically opposite the damn thing saying “Gare de Bercy”.
Stuck behind yet another traffic light it was decided that I would jump out of the car and run inside to ask where we had to be. The station itself was disappointingly unimposing. Not in the least what we had expected when we had set off so hopefully earlier that afternoon. I barged my way to the front of the queue demanding “Car terminal. Where do the car trains leave from?” The guy just looked at me and gave me yet another Gallic shrug. Arggghhhh…. I ran to some nearby doors to try and see if I could find it and halt the train from leaving - when I saw a most beautiful sight.
G. coming out of the car with the children saying:
“Its alright. We’ve made it. They’ve agreed to drive the car on for us.”
J. looked at me and said
“Mummy. Now I know that God exists. I prayed so hard that we would make it and we did.”
I was literally trembling still not quite believing that we had made the train. The time: 19:58.
posted by Kathleen at 4:59 AM
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