Admittedly we did have to spend two hours in Gare de Lyon, so we were getting cold by the time train 6585 was announced… but, oh my! it was certainly worth the wait! Our small group of three had a table for four in the quiet zone of the first class section, right at the back of the lower part of a carriage, partitioned off from the rest of the first class area with tinted glass. Leg room, backside room, reclining chairs, and a very quiet, comfortable ride.
Our journey to Paris was as uneventful as expected: check-in went smoothly, the service ran perfectly on time, and I arrived a little more confident in public transport than when I had set off. Gare du Nord was busy, and ticket desks were few (our arrival being shortly after lunchtime), so we proceeded by taxi to Gare de Lyon. What we hadn’t counted on, and nor had the driver, was a demonstration taking place between the stations.
Despite our best efforts running along station platforms and dashing for taxis, we have arrived too late to board our 10:23 Eurostar to Paris. We’ve already checked the Internet during our journey so far and determined that this will force us to miss all our onward connections.
Marek wishes that VF’s engineers didn’t reboot things at 20:00 Friday; and that VF’s kit didn’t randomly forget stuff when rebooted.
It’s happened before, and it seems to have happened again; only this time it’s when I wanted to get some sleep (for a change). Seems like there is a bit of kit lurking in the Vodafone network which forgets a bit of configuration every now and then. Seven hours later, still no sign of a fix…
