The day finally arrives! We arrive in France at the port of LeHavre. Since I had started this entire vacation by wanting to spend my birthday in Paris, we decided to disembark here and head to Paris for 3 more nights. What a great decision!
We left the ship around 8:00am. Princess had taken care of everything with customs. All we had to do was pick up our passport in the morning and wave goodbye. We got a cab (with the help of a local) and made our way to the train station.
France is not like America in that they don't try to make everyone happy. Street signs are in French. Period. Announcements on trains, buses are in French. They make no excuses and make no apologies. What we found though were wonderful people who are very proud to be French and will welcome you into their country. We hear all the time how unfriendly French people are and how they don't like Americans. Our experience was the total opposite.
While waiting for the train we met up with a couple from Canada. An adventuresome twosome who made the two hour trip very entertaining. Right off the bat, we didn't know that as you boarded the train you had to scan your tickets through this machine off the tracks. We were following our French speaking Canadians who had a different type of ticket (found that out later on the train) so we just boarded the train with them. As announcements proceeded and the couple translated, we had the "uh oh" moment. The gentleman took Alan and our tickets to find a conductor, explain what happen and get everything squared away.
The French countryside that we went through on our way to Paris was beautiful. Wonderful farms, houses and views. You do move at a rapid pace so no pictures came out. We had a few stops along the way, but we safely arrived at the train station in Paris. It was so exciting! Again, thanks to our friends on the train, they led us out of the train station into a beautiful sunny Parisian day. There was stood with all our luggage thinking "Oh my goodness! How will we ever get around!"
Let me say that in our travels (New York, Chicago, Rome) we've never come across such an easy (and clean) subway system. Again, before the trip I had read Rick Steves Paris 2010 book and understood the symbols on the signs so we found the subway station and found our train to our hotel. After the initial subway ride, we were golden.
