Day8Time to go below and see if it’s worth paying for breakfast. Another shower first, in the splendid bathroom. Give the riding gear a blow over with the hair dryer [such luxury] before I pack it away, as its train day today. I love trains. Breakfast looks great. I’m in! It’s a large, but pleasant Madam in charge and I’m invited to help myself. She obviously doesn’t know I’m a starved cyclist who could bankrupt you. I find a table where madam can’t watch me, as I also need to steal enough for lunch. My table is soon groaning with all sorts of delicious items. Did I mention I eat anything? No? Oh well. The room starts to fill up with guests. A very smart typical, French looking, mature but very sophisticated and lovely, businesswoman type sits at the table opposite me. Heck! Now I’m too embarrassed to push too much food in my pockets. Bugger! The annoying thing is she has plenty of coffee but nibbles away at one croissant. What’s that all about? Six Euros for breakfast and they only take one tiny croissant. Good job I’m here to make up for these silly people.
The train does not leave for a while so I wander into town. It’s another beautiful day and I want to check out the shopping centre where I am told there is a big sports shop and maybe the opportunity to buy a tent. I follow the C&A sign. C&A?
Thought they closed down years ago. Obviously not in France. Look at this square. Fountains and things. Lovely. Why, oh why, can we not do this sort of thing in England?
Find the store and also a cheap tent, but it’s heavy and I will have to strap it to the top of my bag. I can’t make a decision and decide to chance doing without it.
Off to the station then.
I’m early but that’s fine and I’m into people watching. Closer to the time I hump my bike over to the platform, after of course I’ve translated everything from the, French only display. There’s a young guy with a large backpack, on a bench, that speaks a bit of English and I check with him that it’s the right platform and he say’s yes, he’s waiting for the same train and returns to playing/checking/texting, on his ever present phone.
No train yet, though a large intercontinental one arrives at the next platform. This is a six-hour journey I’m booked on and I’m expecting something the same for the long ride south. A small one carriage, shiny thing arrives on our platform with no signs on it and it parks on the end of the platform. I assume it’s a local service as people drift up to it from time to time. My young phone obsessed friend takes no notice so I think.”Ok”. Times moving on though and there is five minutes to departure time and no sign of my train. I ask phoney “That petite one is not the Beziers train is it?” “Yes” he answers and stands up to walk towards it. “Shiiittt!” The idiot never said anything to me. I run, grab the bike and leg it to the train. It’s now packed. Standing room only at this end. I have no time to look elsewhere and push the bike in amongst the crush. 6 hours stood up balancing a bike. Arghhhh!. A tap on my sweating shoulder. I turn around. It’s my young I Phone friend. He says come with me. Grabs my bike and heads back down the platform. I race after him. “What the H…”. It’s ok. He’s found a space for the bike and me further down the train. I can lean the bike against the toilet wall and there is a nearby seat. There’s me cursing the guy and he turns up trumps. You just never know.
I thank him profusely and he shrugs with a “Vous êtes les bienvenus, pas de problème” and disappears down the other end of the carriage. I never see him again. I’m on an aisle seat opposite an elderly, very smart lady but I can still see my bike leant up against the toilet wall. I can’t hang it, as the seats under the bike hangers are full.
I was under the impression that this train was non-stop, I was told it was a very slow train. I thought they meant slow moving but no it meant there were a lot of stops. And so it transpired. As we travelled, and stopped, the train was starting to empty, but it was getting up a fair old speed between stations. So fast and swaying around bends, that eventually due to a nice long curve the bike went crashing across the floor. Almost crushing my bananas, I’ll have you know.
No good. I had to go and ask a guy occupying the bicycle seats to move so I could hang the bike up. He just shuffled up a bit and thereafter for the rest of his journey he seemed quite happy leaning his shoulder up against my dirty front wheel. Even though there were now a few empty seats. Weird. Although in his defence he was sat opposite a young beauty. Fair enough, but there again she was deeply in love with her phone for the whole journey. But whatever. His shoulder helped keep my bike stable. Thanks mate.
The lady opposite me stood up and tried to move her bag out of the passageway and lift it onto the overhead locker. Gentleman as I am. I took it off her and lifted it up. She thanked me in French and I replied "Il n'y a pas de quoi". Maybe I said “For you my sweetheart” but who knows? Certainly not me. Well that was it. I was now presented with a torrent of French and had to own up to being an ignorant foreigner. She switched to English, apologising for thinking I was French. How can anybody think somebody with a face like a rock and 6’2” is French? It does’nt work does it? The French are all petite and finely featured.
However she was nice and we had a good old chat in broken English till her stop came. She also got the chap sitting next to her involved and after she had departed he carried on the conversation. For three hours! A really nice guy with not so good English. Three hours! A long time. He told me some stuff and I don’t know if it’s true even now. He has homes all over the world. Likes building houses, retired in his 30s. He was going to visit his parents who live in a dilapidated castle, has a Japanese wife who runs a gallery for Sony in Tokyo and his eldest son wrote Justin Timberlake’s hit record. That’s just the first hour, there was more. Much more! I don’t know. Don’t you just love travel? Still he was insistent to swap e-mail addresses before he got off, so I still don’t know.
We were about 40mins short of Beziers when the conductor came round, counted heads and told us, in French only of course, that we would have to leave the train and continue by bus. He assured me the Velo would be fine and he would be taking the bus as well. Evidently it is not worth taking the train all the way if there were only a few passengers left. Time was getting on and I did not want to be late into Beziers, as I needed to find a place to sleep.
The bus driver insisted on taking the bike off me and loading it himself in an empty luggage compartment. Off we go. Well the bus wended its way from village to village often on small lumpy side roads, lurching round bends etc. Up and down steep hills. We stopped and dropped the odd passenger. It was getting on for 8.45 when we arrived at Beziers station. It was dark and starting to rain. Sounds familiar? Thoughts of my first night in Fontainebleau.
The bus driver handed my bike to me and disappeared. I headed off keeping an eye open for a hotel sign. Nothing! I turned off uphill toward what I thought might be civilisation and my right hand pedal fell off! Nooo! A little kid came running up to me with the pedal. I thanked him and he tootled off with his mum.
I screwed it back in but it was wobbling. So I headed downhill and tried the road out of town. No sign of life. I spotted a canal and headed for that thinking I might find a place to sleep rough. No space, too many houses. My pedal fell off. I screwed it back and tried not to put any pressure on it. Rode away down a country road. Too busy and can’t see much. Go back. Find a back lane. Total darkness now apart from my feeble front light. I see some nice flat grass and a hedge. This looks ok. I can sleep here. I’ve some plastic bags to put over me and the rain is now only spotting. I lay things out. I’m just about to snuggle in, suddenly I’m lit up by car headlights and then more. What!!! A building nearby that I thought was all closed up suddenly lights up. It’s a flippin disco and the staff are turning up. What the… Pack up, ride off and my pedal falls off! I’ve now realised. The bike was lay on it’s side on the floor of the bus balancing on the pedal and sliding up and down the floor as the bus braked and turned. All the weight on the pedal. Cheers SNCF. Waste of time cursing now.
I stuff the pedal in my pocket. Try unsuccessfully to ride with one foot and looking like a drunken tourist on a stolen bike head back to the station. I’m hoping to find a discreet spot and bed down there until the morning. If I didn’t have the bike, maybe an all night disco could have been an option as long as I don’t have to dance.
As I hit the station I see a sign for a Hotel right opposite. I didn’t spot it before because of the Bus being in the way. Doohhh. I’m now reduced to pushing the bloody bike. The hotel is open and I ask [or did I beg?] for a Chambre. The madam made a pretence of checking a register, tells me they only have one room left and it is sixty-two Euros. Yea right. The sign outside says from thirty euros. The place is obviously at least half empty, so I decline and move further up the street. The area seems to be full of Asian cafes and takeaways, Lots of young guys sat around outside smoking, also a few places with Hookahs bubbling away. I get a few odd looks and comments in a language that is not French [they could me muttering “These crazy Engleesh, funny handlebars and one pedal only. Huh.”] but I couldn’t care less. I just want a room. This must be the dodgy end of Beziers.
I turn back and spot another sign. This says from thirty-five Euros. Worth a try and indeed the overweight guy [who exudes an air of ‘eau de sweat, been a week, time to wash my shirt’] on the desk shows me a menu of rooms, indeed one at thirty five Euros and upwards. Now I’m tired, wet, frustrated with the pedal thing and it’s past 10pm in a rough area of Beziers. There is a double with en-suite at Fifty Euro [thought Beziers was supposed to be very expensive?] so I plump for the luxury. I’m past caring; it’s been a long day. Velo? Garage for the Velo? He says. “We keep in bar” Takes the bike from me, wheels it into bar area and puts it against the wall and pushes the tables around it. Secure enough for me. I’m given the key to my room.
The room is great! Very French/Moroccan. Little dining table and chairs. It’s huge, with a balcony over the busy street and a nice modern bathroom.
It’s a cup of tea, apples and bananas for supper and off to sleep in a huge, comfy, warm, dry double bed. ZZZzzzzzzz.