If I could have my preference I would always choose train travel. I have many pleasant memories of train travel in Europe, and even in the United States.

I was fortunate enough to be able to take Le Train Blue one time from Paris to Nice. It left the Gare de Lyon in the evening, and I had booked a shared cabin in the sleeping car. It may have been First Class. They started serving dinner as the train was leaving Paris, in a traditional dining car with table cloths and little lamps on the tables. You were assigned a seating time so they could accommodate all the passengers.

My cabin mate was a nice elderly lady, and I volunteered to take the top bunk. I passed a pleasant night in the luxury of clean sheets on the top bunk, and awoke to get dressed and have coffee and croissant as the train was proceeding along the Côte d’Azur toward Nice. Le Train Bleu was discontinued in 2003; I am so glad I had a chance to ride on it. It was known, in its day, as the luxury express train from Calais to Nice.

However, my most memorable train ride, anywhere, was on that similar track from Paris to Nice, again, a night train. But this time I wasn’t riding first class. It was one of the many times I’ve ridden second class. On the night trains, for a slight additional fee you can rent a bunk called a couchette. There are three on each side of the compartment, and you are supplied with a clean pillow and a blanket, and expected to sleep in your clothes. Unlike first class, the couchettes are not sex segregated. I don’t remember much about my bunk mates this trip, I think they were workers returning home to the south or Italy. They were kind enough to point me to a bottom bunk.

When the train gets to Marseilles there are many cars exchanged and much bumping and clanging on the tracks. That always wakes up almost everyone.

So, I got up and went to the restroom to wash up. When I came back, like almost everyone else, I stood along the aisle looking out the windows facing south towards the Mediterranean. The sun was rising, the sea was calm, and the air was totally clear. Standing next to me was an elderly man, even shorter than I was, and his French was as uncertain as mine, so I think he was probably Italian. We agreed how “beau” the sunrise was. A while later he reached into the backpack at his feet (we all had backpacks that carried our stuff and that we used for pillows on the couchettes) and pulled out a thermos. He opened it and poured some very thick espresso into a small lid and offered me the coffee. The smell and taste were incredible and matched the view perfectly. I almost cried. I couldn’t imagine a better way to return to the Riviera.

Another food and train story: riding the same route but, I think, from Nice to Paris this time. I sat with three Algerian women, and I was the fourth, the four seats facing each other. They offered me lunch which consisted of Algerian baguettes which are a little bit different than French baguettes: the flour and fermentation may be different. The holes in the bread are much much smaller and smoother. And with the bread they were serving a sort of Algerian fish paste, bright orange, it might’ve been salmon, very salty and delicious. They also had salty olives and various other tidbits. They had enough food for lots more people. And they were very concerned for me: first, that my husband would let me travel alone, and, second, that I didn’t have any children. They were also worried that I was so far from my family in America. It turned out that they were Jewish, and they had a hard time believing that I was Jewish because, they said, I was so blonde. At the time I was working on a piece of needle point as a birth present for the son of a friend. It had his name in Hebrew letters on it, and showing them this work-in-progress totally validated my authenticity.

June 05, 2022