A late train, good connections and a rental car (27 September 2024)

 

Gare St Louis - we are in France

It was time to move again.  Our next destination was Belfort in France.  I had booked tickets to Mulhouse where I thought we would be picking up our car but when I booked the car,  it was to be picked up at the Europort in Basel.  The airport services Basel, Mulhouse and Frieberg. 

Having been there before I knew that there was a train station that serviced the airport so it meant getting off the train in Basel, catching the local TER and then getting off at St Louis. 

Our train from Zürich left forty minutes late but we weren’t complaining as it was very comfortable.  We even had a place to put our luggage.  On arrival at Basel we discovered that the train we wanted to take to St Louis was a few minutes late so we quickly found our way to the correct platform. Fortunately, the train was still there. A minute later it pulled out (with us on board).  We didn’t have time to get a ticket, but I was ready to pay the guard when he or she appeared.   However, we arrived at St Louis before I got the chance.  Our next stroke of luck was that there was a regular bus service to the airport which arrived at the pickup place just as we walked out of the train station. 

I had hoped for a Lync car (a plug-in hybrid which I thought I had booked) but we ended up with a Nissan Qashqai.  I remonstrated with the rental car people but they said they didn’t have one and the one they did have had a flat tyre and something else wrong.  However, when we picked up our car there was one next door to the Qashqai and it looked fine except it clearly needed a clean.  Unfortunately it is going to cost us a bit more in fuel.

It began raining as we headed toward Belfort and, remarkably, I was able to navigate to Belfort without going on one of the tolled autoroutes.  The spray and misty rain made it a bit of a challenge driving especially on unfamiliar roads, in an unfamiliar car on the “wrong” side of the road. 

Our final challenge was to find the hotel.  We went past it two times before we found it.  Then we had to park for a few minutes to go and check-in.  Fortunately, there was parking nearby on the street, so we were able make our way to our room with our bags before organising the hotel parking.  It was an old place that had been extensively modernised inside while the front looked like it did a hundred or so years ago. 

It was a bit damp to do any exploring so we found a nice place to sit in the hotel and had a glass of bubbles to celebrate our arrival in France.  

 

I liked the art deco Gare de Belfort


 

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