Day 37 – Carnage

Early start on a cold clear morning as we load up the bus with all our gear, including our colossal ski bag now (couriered in advance to Cortina – thanks to Con), and head down the valley to Marco Polo Air Port, Venice. There’s a heavy frost on the shaded grass and roof tops and steam and wood smoke issues from the village shops, homes and chalets, catching the sun’s rays as we wend our way down. We catch our final glimpses of the Dolomites impressive cliffs, leaning back, all the time in the world, to enjoy the sun.

Marco Polo is the interchange of peoples going to and from Venice and Cortina and so necessarily a show case of the rich and famous. Whilst no screaming fans came racing to our coffee table for autographs, right next to us, there was more fur and Vuitton luggage per square meter than anyplace we’d seen – it was going off.

Di notes that in Paris young men and women often dress beautifully but, apart from the fact that they look great, you wouldn’t know what they’re wearing. In Italy, at least in places like Cortina, it seems important to demonstrate ones affiliation to famous fashion labels. Sadly, bonds & levi don’t cut it.

The flight is short and clear as we soar over the Alps their white jaggered contours extending to the horizon, then drop down into Charles de Gaulle. We leave the Collosus at a the airport lockers to avoid further unwanted arm lengthening, and jump on the Metro.

The Metro leg to Chatelet (just beyond Gare d’Nor) starts comfortably, building, as we arrive at Chatelet, to what we think (in our ignorance), is very full. Then we step into the seething mass at Chatelet.

There’s two automatic train lines in the Metro, ‘one’ and ‘fourteen’. These trains have no drivers and are unaffected by the strikes. Both of these lines pass through Chatelet and therefore, so does every Parisian trying to find a away home.

We learn this only as we approach the football match sized crowd pincering into a single escalator, surging forward as each new train disgorges and consumes the now well tenderised commuters. ‘If we head up here, there’s no going back’, says Di. The narrow (stalled) escalator is packing two to three abreast but we’re lugging mega-wheelies and carry-ons and create two tourist shaped blockages in the flow. A bloke tries to squeeze past on my right but he’s bludgeoned out of the way by my 20kg roller-truck bag, and falls back into the crowd.

The scene at the top of the escalator is like in the movie “Soylent Green” (you know, where they scoop up people from the packed street crowds with tractors to dump then into machines and turn them into food), as the human stew spewing off trains meets the desperate mass barging in. It’s complete carnage. Once on the platform, it takes us three assaults to get to the automatic gates and when the train arrives (one every couple of minutes), though we’re initially one-behind-the-other, by the time we get to the train door there’s six people wedged between me and Di. I’m properly locked-in and turn to see Di still on the platform, no chance of getting on. Bugger. ‘Love you honey – good luck!’

At Hotel De Ville I can’t get off, the bags, like anchors, locking me into the crowd. I have to grit my teeth and drag hard, people grimacing and grunting as I drag the heavy square block through the gap-less crowd.

Back at Chatellete, the train Di has to get on is so crowded, though first on, someone has to pry the auto-door back open so her handbag is released, once she’s on-board. When Di gets to Hotel Deville, I’m ready and waiting to grab her and wrench her from the crowd, but a big bunch spew out, carrying Di in their wake, so it’s all OK.

One wonders whether the unions comprehend the significance of the only operating trains being the driverless ones?

We then follow ‘Sortie’ signs till we find ourselves in an underground department store and spend fifteen minutes in haberdashery and hardware before surfacing in Le Marais.

Jean-Michelle is awesome and we settle into our postage stamp sized Paris apartment in no time and head out for a feed. The unit is right near a market square and a cafe we used to breakfast at with the boys. We find ‘Little Cafe’ on the corner of the square and enjoy warmed whole Camembert with honey, prusciutto and sauteed potatoes…and a couple of glasses of wine. A brief chat with Sebastian, who’s enjoying a quiet red while the subterranean chaos subsides, and we head home for bed. Nice to be back in Paris.