Greeted By A Map In Bordeaux
Virtually without exception at any London station, you get greeted by a map on a lith.
Greeted By A Map In Bordeaux
It was a surprise to be greeted in the same manner as I exited Bordeaux station.
Unfortunately, the detail was a bit fine and I couldn’t find the road, where my hotel was located.
But I was put right by the girls in the Tourist Office nearby and quickly bought a ticket for the trams and was on one to Quinconces near to the hotel.
Through The Fog To Bordeaux
The train was a TGV Atlantique, which had started at Hendaye and after Bordeaux, it would be on its way to Paris. The visibility wasn’t good.
Through The Fog To Bordeaux
We also arrived in Bordeaux a few minutes late. But the train wasn’t at anyway near the speed it would attain on the high speed line; LGV Atlantique to Paris.
It was a typical boring and professional train ride, that is becoming common all over Europe.
An Early Start From Biarritz
I had intended to leave Biarritz at about mid-morning to travel to Bordeaux, but then I hadn’t planned for the French rail unions, who decided the twelfth would be a good day for a strike.
I found out in the afternoon, when I went to the SNCF Boutique in the centre of Biarritz to get a ticket. There were just two trains on the Thursday; one at seven in the morning and one at six in the evening. Much, as I had enjoyed Biarritz, I wanted to get to Bordeaux at a sensible time.
So it had to be the 07:13 train. But this meant that I had to leave the hotel at six without any breakfast.
I would have to have my sumptuous meal later!
The station was surprisingly warm at about fourteen degrees.
But I certainly didn’t have a warm feeling towards the French rail unions. I had planned to buy myself a sumptuous supper last night to mark six years since the death of my wife, C. But instead, I just had a reasonable steak in the hotel.
So my plans had been totally ruined.
Biarritz’s Free Shuttle
Biarritz has a free shuttle bus, that operates around the town.
Biarritz’s Free Shuttle
This was the stop outside the hotel.
Welcome To France
The French train from Hendaye may not have been one of their most modern, but everybody was pleasant and the train trundled along the coast to Biarritz, which was my final destination.
There wasn’t any good map at Biarritz station and as it was now dark, I felt I had better take a taxi.
The driver though, wasn’t the surly individual beloved of British comedians, when talking about France for years, but a clean cut individual, who spoke perfect English and charged me what it said on the meter.
So painlessly, I’d arrived at the Radisson Blu hotel.
From Irun To Hendaya
The girls should obviously be put in charge of tourism in Irun, as their instructions were spot on and I found Irun Colon station from where I was able to get a train for Hendaye.
The only member of staff I met was from a completely different mould to his countryman at Irun station, and he sold me a ticket in a pleasant and professional manner.
After a trip of a few minutes I was in France.
A Warm Welcome In Irun
Michael Portillo’s documentary on travelling by train from Bordeaux to Bilbao gave me the impression that finding your way from the French to Spanish railways systems is easy.
So I went into the station at Irun and asked if I could buy a ticket to France. I didn’t get an answer from the guy in the ticket office, but I heard him swear under his breath. Railwaymen the world over tend to be cherry souls, who are usually willing to help, but this oaf was by a long way the worst I had met. He made the staff at Osnabruck, when I was abandoned by Deutsche Bahn, seem to be some of the best customer service people, I’d ever encountered.
I then looked around for a helpful notice, that might say you took a taxi to the nearest French station and it would cost you so many euros. But there was nothing!
I had noticed taxis outside, but was reluctant to take one, as they would probably charge a British tourist a hundred euros to go a couple of kilometres.
In the end, I walked into the town and asaked a couple of teenage girls, if they could help a lost traveller. After all, I did hope that they had learned some English.
They had and told me to walk to the Metro station with the blue sign, from where I could get a train to Hendaya. I knew that I could get a train from Hendaye, as the French call it, to Biarritz.
Leaving On A Coach For Irun
The only way to get sensibly towards France, was to take a coach to Irun. But even the coaches were rather infrequent, with about one every two or three hours or so.
So it was just after two that I caught one from the logically-named Termibus.
It wasn’t a bad journey and by luck I had chosen one of the better seats. But it would have been so much better on a train.
A Trap For The Unwary
Several times in Bilbao, I saw steps that were not easy to spot.
A Trap For The Unwary
In fact, I was first alerted to the problem, when a sensibly-shod middle-aged lady fell sat the bus station.
Many semed to have been designed the way I saw them.
A Virtually Deserted Station
Abando station in Bilbao is the main station fromn where the citry connects to the rest of Spain.
A Virtually Deserted Station
But it seems not very often and as my next destination was Hendaya, it wasn’t any use. So I would have to take a coach to Irun. But the coach would take under two hours, as opposed to an early morning roundabout route by train that would take over six.
It would appear that most of the trains, metros and trams are owned and controlled by the Basque regional government and it looks to me as an outside observer, that they don’t believe in connecting their part of Spain to the rest of the country or for that matter, France. It does seem though, that the whole area could benefit from better train links.
The Anonymous Widower 