Day25 busy going nowhere!

Inevitably I've got a cold, I've been stuck on trains with people coughing and sneezing for weeks now..... I've fended them off well! 

Coughing and sneezing a bit I opt for a lay in! Why not! 

I don't get moving much before 11am, but I'm not planning to do much today as today had originally been intended for travelling to the next stop, lack of availability of hostel rooms facilitated this lay in....  Quite a bonus in the end! 

Grabbing some food on the go I head to bubbles as they're called locally! 

yep I've a cable car too play with! And at only 9 euros return its not too be ignored!

It takes me up to the old Fort de la Bastille a tourist trap but a good one! 

i could and did sit and just stare imagine what's ahead! 

For now I had my first latte machiato! And why not

as I said this is tourist trap so a little art display was on in the fort I didn't take any snaps as it was mostly in the dark with plastic clams fluttering their shells ..... Weird, dangling rocks on strings to give the impression of water and erosion...... You can get why I didn't snap any pics.....a couple of snapped strings might have been interpreted as artistic? 

Well there anyway!

Back into a bubble and on my way down towards the city

great value little trip costing less than the coffee! 

Into the town for nibbles and a moist around it's a little like stepping back into a British town from the 90's with Body shop, C&A, and even Burtons here!!! 

As with other places they have a curious understanding of English!

pulled me fast good...... Ahem!! 

Back over the river Isere to the Musee archeologique Saint-Laurent a free museum with audio guide set in and under the old church

i must say I'm impressed! This was really good and free! Wandering around on metal platforms looking into the excavations going back to Roman times through the medieval and Merovingian period and to recent times, with a funky Irish vocal audio guide! 

showing burials, catacombs and a rather impressive chamber

that has world heritage status! 

Not bad for free!!

Back out and city wandering I again get lost ...... This doesn't happen.... I'm great at directions this place turns me around tho! 

Back to the hostel and blog catch up time! Before I tuck into my supermarket scoff! 

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