As I have already mentioned I was in two minds as to whether to stick to my original plans and come back a fortnight ago or whether to rebook my rail journeys - all five of them. Because the public were so worried about the publicity surrounding people who had been to Italy, it felt the responsible thing to do would be to isolate myself and rebook my journeys. What I didn't take into account was that there would be a domino stack of countries closing their borders and pretty much all their facilities and services. I guess it is not just the Brexit effect that can do that then!
Having escaped Venice a week before the Italian borders were closed and everyone told to stay indoors I barely made it out of France before the same thing was due to happen. Schools in France had already been closed and P's brother sent us a warning text message on Monday afternoon that the notice had been issued. France was due to close at mid-day yesterday (Tuesday) and my train from Geneva to Paris was due to leave at 12.29 - half an hour after shutdown. I expected getting over the border into Switzerland to be easy enough if I left in plenty of time, but I had no certainty about what might happen next. I didn't know if I would be stopped from crossing back again on the Geneva to Paris train or whether any of my trains would be cancelled at the last minute.
The new Léman Express train into Switzerland operates about six trains an hour. I arrived at our local French station to be met by the usual posse of helpful functionaries asking what I was hoping to do. The booking desk was closed and shuttered and all the self-service ticket machines had been switched off. I explained I was trying to get to Genève and one uniformed SNCF employee told me, "depêchez-vous à voie F, monsieur". I dépêched for all I was worth, down the steps to the linking tunnel between the platforms lugging my heavy suitcase. As I was to find out at many points throughout the day, very few of the escalators or lifts were working and who wanted to be trapped in a lift with other people exhaling who-knows-what contagions anyway? Still less did I fancy poking at the buttons that had been pressed by who-knows-whom. Despite the rush I was beginning to form in my head more worries about travelling without a ticket. Fines for travelling without a valid ticket can be huge and I've seen people caught out. As I ran I was trying to work out how to say in French that I couldn't buy a ticket before the journey and was told to hurry to catch this train. I managed to board the train, albeit glowing hot and out of breath - really not a good look. Fellow travellers were obviously on the lookout for passengers displaying the symptoms of covid-19. I collapsed in a seat and not for the first time tried to work out if the plan was for this train to head across the border to Geneva. This wonderful new regional rail service has monitors viewable from almost every angle, which, of course, display destinations and the intermediate stops - just not all of them. The suspension points indicating that the story of the impending journey was not being told in full missed out "Genève". The audible announcement only listed the first couple of stops and the final destination which, although normal for this part of the world is always slightly alarming for the traveller more used to the rather more affirming British system of listing every single stop, the number of carriages and where to sit for when the train is divided as it inevitably is at Cambridge. The hurry had been a little pointless too. We missed three timetabled deadlines before the train actually left the station for Switzerland. This turned out to be a feature of the day as I was to see more cancelled train journeys than timetable slots being honoured. Also groundless was my anxiety about travelling sans billet on this occasion. There were no inspectors on this train and there are no automatic barriers in Geneva on the buses or the trains, but the fines are huge.
Arriving in Switzerland at Gare Cornavin, the main station in Geneva, I had to transfer from platform 1 to platform 8, from where the majority of the long-haul trains through France leave. Before being allowed on to platform 8 one has to pass through a border control station complete with Swiss and French customs points . A few months ago somebody had the bright idea that passengers were no longer to be allowed through border security and customs more than thirty minutes before their train is due to leave. The holding area now is a single bench seat in a small and stuffy area separated from the main station shopping precinct by the inevitable sliding doors. Beyond border control there is a much larger seating space with public toilets. Swiss pragmatism? French bureaucracy? Who knows? The only people who care are the passengers who stand outside by the shops because there is no seating for them in the waiting zone. I don't care much for this arrangement at the best of times so yesterday, I sat outdoors on my suitcase on a paved area outside a café among the smokers and the beggars. It was a nice day and the air tasted much fresher - no hint of virus ... well not much, anyway part from a few people wearing an interesting variety of protective masks and a few others with scarves wrapped around their faces.
From here I had a view of the departure board for Voie 8. Of the five trains listed over the course of the following hour, four carried the dreaded "supprimé" label. Just one train was running, a TER service to Bellegarde. Mine wasn't yet listed; more anxiety.
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| Everything is listed in the main three languages in Switzerland. The railway's Italian abbreviation summed the mood perfectly. |
Eventually I went up on to the platform and didn't have to wait long for the train to pull in. I had a seat booked on the lower deck in carriage 16 of this double-decker train. I've learned my lesson about nausea-inducing travelling on the upper deck. As it happened, there weren't many passengers at all, so the next three and a half hours looked to be bearable after all. That was a nice dream until we arrived at the first of two scheduled intermediate stops. At Bellegarde my compartment of about fifty seats filled. There was not enough seating for the luggage being carried. It spilled into the aisle and some people were forced to carry suitcases, but mostly rucksacks, right through the carriage. Before we pulled out of the station a woman started berating another passenger at a volume somewhere north of the threshold of pain. This went on for several minutes, with no apparent pause for an intake of breath despite the wonderfully polite older woman who nobly stood up and implored, "S'il vous plaît, madame, calmez vous." The anger was turned on her with a withering ferocity. A few anonymous jeers were offered by other (mostly male, all seated) voices, but the harangue continued until the agitante was all screamed out. Apart from that the journey was event free until, about an hour later the woman who had implored for quiet began to cough. The young man of student age sitting across the table from her looked all around him in, firstly concern, then helplessness, then mild terror. He wrapped his scarf around his face ... twice.
At the Gare de Lyon I found a different way of getting off the platform. A new gate had been opened to the subterranean Hall 3. Why hadn't I noticed this before considering all the times I have used this station? It saved a lot of walking. I recognised where I was and it was a very short walk from the RER platform for the connecting train to Paris Nord. I shall certainly look out for that next time, whenever that turns out to be. The RER was pulling in as I descended the steps to the platform and I didn't have to wait at all.
At the Gare du Nord I had to lug my suitcase up long flights of steps, since no escalators or lifts were operating, to a concourse that would eventually lead to the mainline station (les Grandes Lignes). As usual I stood to get my bearings. I have made so many wrong turns ascending from the Métro or RER at Paris Nord that I no longer know which is the right direction for the familiarity associated with all the wrong directions I have taken. I guess I looked like a newbie because I was approached by a man who wanted to offer help or so he said. He spoke a little English because, I gathered, he had a wife ... there may have been a connection. He showed me where to go and I was in very unfamiliar territory by the time he led me to some more ticket machines and told me I had to buy another ticket to be able get out into the mainline station. This journey had cost me enough extra money already and I was certainly not intending to buy unnecessary tickets. I've never had to buy them before. I am currently still slightly haunted by the fading memory of the hurt look on his face as I thanked him, but took no heed of his advice, rather walking away and trusting my past experience of getting to the upper levels of the main station. I managed that perfectly with no extra payment required although I did have to lug my suitcase up yet more stairs, a lot of stairs. The exit gates to the Métro had all been left open at Paris Nord. Weird, but not the first weird thing I'd experienced during the day.
At least the escalator up to the Eurostar check-in was operating, unlike the biometric gates for French Border Control. My passport is one containing the appropriate data and usually works. Yesterday it didn't. It is claustrophobic enough being hemmed in by closed gates ahead and behind, without waiting for what seems like forever for the gates in front to slide apart after the scanning process has finished, without said gates remaining firmly fermée and the written instruction to "report to the border police" being displayed. Rubber hoses? Latex gloves? Sometimes it is hard to remember that travelling by air is far, far worse and much more dehumanising. The lone border policeman scrutinised my features very slowly and for a very long time. I suppose he is trained to recognise faces that are hidden by bohemian beards that have sprouted since a passport photograph was taken. He seemed quite undecided about me, but eventually let me through. In contrast the UK border control machine round the corner had no difficulty recognising my features as belonging to a long lost son of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The gates slid open to let me through with only the most cursory examination of my irises. After that it was the metal-detecting archways, scanners and x-ray machines. I pride myself on getting through these without having to spread-eagle for an officer to pat me up and down and I managed that bit. There was, though, a holdup in the queue to retrieve our belongings beyond the magic archway. I was dreading having to open my suitcase and start taking things out. I had packed it very carefully. It was very heavy, very full, though there were hardly any clothes. I'm sure they see a lot stranger items than a computer and a lot of artisanal vegan chocolate. I keep a full wardrobe of clothes at P's apartment although strictly speaking that should be several wardrobes and, apart from the shirts on hangers on a coat stand and a dress rail, my clothes are actually in cardboard boxes. I was relieved that I was not, this time, the cause of the delay. It was a man in front of me whose suitcase needed to be examined in closer detail. I wonder what he was carrying ...
The Eurostar departures lounge was almost deserted. There was one very unkempt man slumped over on a bench looking as though he had been there since the opening of the Channel Tunnel, but very few others. I have never seen this space with so few people in it. Owing to the virus situation none of the food outlets were open either, so I am glad I had salvaged some "breadlets" from P's freezer that morning. There wasn't long to wait until we were called to board the train for Sanponcra Antaernational and it was true, there was hardly anyone else in carriage number twelve. Naturally there was someone sitting in the aisle seat next to my allotted window seat - unbelieveable, or it would have been had this been anyone else's life story. There were plenty of other seats so I told the man there was no need to move. I would find somewhere else to sit. I am so pleased I did. Some time into the journey he began cough constantly and when I looked round he was wearing a surgical mask and looking distinctly sweaty. That was an uncharacteristically lucky escape. Under normal circumstances I would have been trapped up against the window with him in the adjoining seat sharing his germs with extreme generosity.
The train left Paris and arrived in London to time. The evidence of the nearly empty train spread out before me as I strolled along the platform normally tightly packed with passengers jostling to get past security before being allowed out into the Muggle-world of the St Pancras shopping mall. Somewhere close by a man was singing loudly to the accompaniment of one of the free pianos and all the shops, including the food outlets, were open. What a contrast with France. The same was true when I crossed the road to King's Cross for my final train home. The day had one more concern saved up for me. My one-month return rail ticket had expired the day before, so I had to buy another one.
I bought a box of Brazilian black beans and rice from Leon and sat at one of the outside tables to eat it (using the bamboo cutlery I carry with me everywhere) before heading to Platform 0 for the last train of the day home. Is there another railway station anywhere in the world that has a Platform Zero and a Platform Nine-and-three-quarters? There's something about the promises evoked at King's Cross I have liked since I was a child. If anything, it is even better these days.
So today, one day later, I am sitting outside in my outdoor shelter from the rain, next to the boat, typing up this account of my experiences yesterday watching the occasional passing swan, moorhen or kingfisher. I think it's time to go and light the fire.
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| St Pancras International at 6.30pm on the day France closed down. |
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