On the Inconvenience of Bastille Day

So, not only do the French speak what can only be descibed as an entirely different language (who knew?), but they have also inconsiderately parked one of their national holidays (and long holiday weekends) smack dab in the middle of our trip.

Having been without internet access for a few days, we were unable to plan any farther ahead than, well, this morning (that’s Wednesday when this was written, but not posted). We were having a great time in Bourg d’Oisan, and were considering an extension of one day, to get more cycling in. However, yesterday our gracious hostess at Hotel Milan (unsure of the relation to Milano, Italy) made the mistake of describing the weather forecast for today as “a nightmare” and we reconsidered. With no hotel and no transportation arranged, we decided to take the first bus back to Grenoble (5am wakeup) and take our chances that we could catch the 9:05 train to Turin, Italy.

Little did we realize that we happened to leave our schedule “flexible” on quite a special day – the day before Bastille Day, for which the closest American equivalent is July 4. What we had hoped would be an easy two-leg journey on a Wednesday turned into the equivalent of booking a Hawaiian vacation on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with Chicago buried under a foot of snow. Ok, not quite that bad but the initial response to my inquiry (en francais!) was one of disbelief followed by concern. “Ce n’est pas possible.” My only saving grace was that Liz was completely oblivious and unconcerned, standing right next to me. Or so I thought. Turns out she has picked up a bit of the lingua franca and understood snippets like “…and you will arrive late tomorrow night…” which I would have expected to send Liz into a bit of a downward spiral at 8am before we even had had our espressos.  Big props to Liz for keeping it together during this.

Thankfully, with expectations set so low by early attempts at negotiations, when we finally settled on an arrival tonight at 9pm we were a bit relieved. Sure, it involved a bus, a train, and eight bonus hours in Grenoble in “nightmare” weather – all to travel the 91 miles between the two cities but that’s the price we pay for staying flexible. Side note:  I did find it interesting that the French rail agent suggested many of our problems were because “everything is complicated with Italy.” Good to know.

Anyways, there are no wasted days on this vacation so we visited a very modern and broad-spectrum art museum (something to be said for that after the Louvre) and spent some a last bit of relaxed quality time at a cafe drinking 1€ espresso and 4€ Orangina.

Travel to Turin/Torino was without issue.

(first pic, rain in Grenoble)
(second pic, bus ride to Bourg d’Oisan)