Day 25-27 Leaving Belgium for France

Our last day with Anne and family was very special. We toured Brussels in the morning, gathered our TGV tickets for Nantes and had a delicious supper spiced with splendid conversation.
Some pictures of the beautiful city of Brussels.

 

There are just a few spectacular differences travelling on European trains compared to VIA rail in Canada. They leave on time, arrive on time and don’t wait for freight trains. However they do not have lovely bunk beds, dining cars with linen table clothes, silver service and delicious meals and hours and hours of sitting at a crossing with nothing to do but chat with other travelers or read a book.

The TGV at a slightly faster speed than VIA rail.

 

Our train arrived in Nantes (Western France) without incident and poured us onto the platform. Armed with explicit instructions from our apartment rental host we made our way to 19 Rue des Carmes, about 1.5 km away. We arrived with instructions to use an access code to enter the building.  Much to our wondering eyes should appear but a properly marked door with no keypad to let us in.

You try entering 74852A on this keypad.

Somewhat confounded we sought help by calling a phone number given to us in case of emergency.  The rapid fire French language spewing out of the IPhone speaker was not one bit helpful.  We resorted to plan B and accosted a women coming out of the building from the very door we were supposed to enter.  After numerous attempts to charade our way to an understanding she called Lucy, her English speaking daughter, to come from the apartment above and help us.  Lucy was born under the star labeled “Angel of Helpfulness” and she proceeded to extricate us from our dilemma.  We found an apartment and entered using the key code given to us via email.  Immediately it became obvious that this domicile was intended for another couple as a welcome message was on the board for them, a bottle of wine was waiting and it did not look at all like the pictures of the place we had rented.

Lucy, once again came to our rescue and was able to telephone Patricia, the property manger, who soon was groveling for forgiveness with apology after apology for mixing up the address.  It turns out we were supposed to be given the address 9 rue de l'hôtel de ville with the identical access codes.  Pondering upon this series of events later we were grateful that none of this occurred at 10:00 in the evening.

Today was a bit rainy so we donned out rain gear and headed out for bike rental, exploration and food provisioning.  We found a superb market with all the goods one could desire and loaded up with food for the next few days.