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We were up and out of our hotel in Avignon very early, lugging our luggage the couple of blocks to the shuttle stop. It’s a quick ride from there to the Avignon TGV station for our trip back north to Paris. We had another dreamy smooth ride, at 200 mph, and this time in daylight except for some early morning fog. As always, the French countryside is so picturesque it almost looks staged. The white cows are very clean and white and seem evenly spaced out in the field and on the hillside, the farmhouses always look freshly painted…..no trash or broken down shacks, no glaringly colored billboards to interfere with the view…..very idyllic scenery. It reminded me again how much I wish we had such transportation options in the US, and how much I hate tacky billboards!
We arrived at the Gare de Lyon in Paris and after studying the map of the metro system, with Stephen as master navigator, we began the BIG LUG to the hotel. Stephen and Meghan have this travel system down to a science, and even though I always swear that “next time I’ll travel lighter”, Susan and I both had luggage-lugging issues. Navigating the metro-maze, hauling the luggage onto and off of the subway before the doors close, and up and down stairs really did convince me that traveling light is the way to go! Plus, the idea of pulling suitcases along behind you may be great as long as you are on smooth, even flooring or pavement, but once the load tips or shifts, or catches a wheel somewhere it shouldn’t, the whole philosophy goes down the drain. The last leg of lugging luggage was from the metro exit to our hotel, which wasn’t terribly far, but we were now luggage-lugging down sidewalks and across city streets.
And what a wonderful surprise when we got to the hotel! Naomi and Paul were there to greet us! We had just one more major lug…getting all our bags up to Naomi and Paul’s room on the 5th floor until our rooms were ready. The elevator was the size of a telephone booth, so each of us had to squeeze in, one at a time with our luggage for a final lug……whew! Then we were off to find something to eat…..lugging luggage works up an appetite!