Day 24 Northwards

Up early as quietly as possible to not wake my dorm companions and I'm checked out the hostel and off on my next stage, the dark of the early morning lifts into a milky haze and the metro and then the Renfe internacional train takes me through underground and mountain tunnels and over the border into France, it'll be many weeks before I speak my few words of Spanish again.... Perhaps I'll learn some in the mean time!

The snow capped Pyrenees receded into the distance and flat plains become the normal with salt marshes to the east bordering the Etang de Leucate a salinated lake only barely separated from the Mediterranean by the thinnest strip of land, the track soon runs along this strip giving the impression of the train floating!through the coastal towns of Perpignan and Montpellier with myself and my fellow travellers fending off boredom with work on laptops, reading, surfing the usual rubbish on social media and in my case creating my own social media rubbish! Tho to me an essential record of my passage through countries cultures and eventually I'm sure catastrophies! 

I've been thinking of a sub blog to create within these pages that I won't publish until I finish this journey wherever it ends if it even does end! It's called 'Introspection' a journey through the mental changes you go through on this sort of journey and probable physical changes..... As I write this I realise that this is train introspection! ..... Too much free time! Lol.

As the journey goes north the visible changes of architecture shift almost imperceptibly from Spanish to french, with the lush green of Spanish winter receding and more familiar to an Englishman barren southern french winter, I'll miss the oranges!.

 I'll soon be changing back into my winter wear.

Before the route south again which eventually loops north as far as I go .... My body will be confused by this constant shift no doubt! Perhaps another paragraph for 'Introspection'!

Off the train at Valance and the cold hits after walking around in a tshirt for the last week or so! Layers go on quickly! I'll soon be wearing everything I can! 😉.

Onto the regional train and I'm heading for Grenoble soon seeing the south western arms of the Alps, finally I see them from ground level and these are just the foothills.

The railway heads north then South easterly in valley between to me impressive mountains.... The locals look anything but impressed! The joys of travel, you see with young eyes!

Into Gare Grenoble and it's only a short walk to the hostel, dumping my kit in the dorm and I'm off into town wandering around in my usual way and getting lost.... My sense of direction fails me here! Thank god for Google!!

Back at the hostel with another Carefour meal keeping the cost down. 

I'm tucked in and sleeping quickly