Discussions started by Exbaleine
5 results on this page.
More options
Many results are in French, the community’s main language. English translations are added over time.
Search results
From France to Bulgaria by Train
September 2017. I’m setting off on a journey from the Atlantic to the Black Sea—entirely by TRAIN—crossing Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, and Bulgaria all the way to Varna. I leave the house, walk briskly for half an hour to the station. Haven’t carried a backpack in years. I arrive at the station drenched in sweat. It’s a scorching late summer. My T-shirt is soaked. First minor challenge, first thought: travel is discomfort. You have to put yourself in a state of discomfort, accept it, and move beyond it. My T-shirt will dry on me—portable, self-contained heating at a steady 37°C.
Departure on the Ouigo from Rennes station, arriving in Massy 1.5 hours later. And then the rush toward the exit. In a frantic rhythm, hundreds of passengers trample in the same direction like a single organism, as if driven by some urgency. The human snake with things to do. Meanwhile, the metal snake that teleported us here continues on its infinite path, perched on its two rails. At the station exit, ticket machines for the RER are under siege, lines stretching outside the building. I watch for a moment, then... veer off toward a café 200 meters away. A guy at the entrance greets me at the top of the stairs with humor. I stir my espresso and think how hot it is to be setting off on a trip—especially since I’m heading toward Southern Europe. Then comes a thought, maybe cliché but fitting: if you wait for ideal conditions to act, to leave, to do, you might wait forever.
PARIS, youth hostel at 8 Jules Ferry Street, 21 € for a bed in a dorm. Unbeatable price for sleeping in the capital. Friendly welcome and a nice neighborhood near République. They don’t ask for a hostel federation card. Paris is as beautiful as ever—and as polluted. My eyes and throat sting a little. I buy a ukulele (the reason for this stop in Paris), using my backpack as a case. First notes strummed in the empty hostel room. We’ll end up being four people sleeping here, mostly in their thirties or older. In the evening, I have a Grimp on the terrace of a nearby café. After a day of carrying my backpack in the heat, the first sips of cold beer are pure bliss. The window stays wide open all night because of the heat, to let in a little air. Feels like sleeping right on the boulevard, with motorcycles and cars passing all night long.
TGV from Paris to Strasbourg. The sound of the train is smooth and soft, almost nonexistent. I think to myself that the TGV is already a thing of the past—a time when we believed abolishing time would mean abolishing finitude, when in reality it only erased life. A time when we believed in the rise of a single, affluent upper-middle class with access to immediacy in a world of efficiency, profit, cleanliness, straight lines, no sweat, no dust. I think speed is part of the past. When you go fast, you rush, you’re never where you are—always just ahead, never here and now. Speed is a rejection of life, a sick movement, an illusion of power and joy. No yawning, no breathing, no dozing, no thinking. Speed abolishes time and space. People get sucked in. Quick, into the vacuum—never inspired, no time. Aspiration versus inspiration. A battle between unreal times (past and future) and the only real time: the present.
Second night. Youth hostel in Lucerne, Switzerland. Tough end to the day—tired, starting to get blisters. Lucerne, with its charms and hordes of tourists, wears me out. With my blisters, I drag myself to the station, buy some Asian takeaway, and wait for the bus to escape to the hostel. There, three massive Russian-speaking guys chat and down beers around a table on the terrace by the entrance. I sit a little apart. The Swiss hostel is twice as expensive as the one in Paris. The common areas are spacious, but the rooms are cramped and lack a sink. The opposite of the Parisian hostel, where the common spaces were minimal but the room was spacious and had a sink. I share the small room with two students from Singapore. Lights go out around 10 PM, but in the hallway, a group of overexcited girls from the next room scream, laugh, slam doors, and keep coming and going for over an hour. The next day, I’d find the girls’ bathroom floor covered in chips.
Day three. Departure from Lucerne station in the morning, change in Zurich, heading to Villach in Austria near the Slovenian border. The train is slow, skirting a large lake with mountains where rocks jut out by the water. The view through the window is soothing. The sounds of the train are pleasant. In front of me, two women speak softly while eating Swiss crackers. Then the train speeds up as we leave the lakeside. I decide to get off at Wörgl, a small station surrounded by mountains, instead of continuing to Salzburg. The train I take in Wörgl looks like our TER. Not many people, just three small carriages, well-balanced air conditioning. Good call: this little train winds through the Austrian mountains. It stops often, but the scenery is beautiful, and I’m in no hurry. Typical little villages, chalets on the mountainside, coniferous forests. To be honest, after a while, I get a bit tired of these endless valleys. Lack of perspective and distant views.
Villach. A pleasant town with a well-maintained old pedestrian center and its old bridge spanning the Drava. I arrive in the early evening. After a good walk, I pass through a mixed zone (industrial and sports) and find the youth hostel 2–3 km from the station. 25 € a night, but the hostel is "full," and of course, I haven’t booked. I never book in advance or use a phone to navigate. I prefer to improvise and ask for directions. I head back to the city center and find a room for 76 € in a three-star hotel. The guy at reception, very kind, looks like he stepped out of a comic book—a short, chubby guy with a serene face and voice. He’s not rushed at all, takes his time, which is really nice. The room isn’t great in terms of essentials, but a lot of effort (finishes, furniture) has gone into matching the hotel’s standards. No free space, window overlooking a narrow courtyard (smell of cooking in the morning), and a small, not-very-firm bed. Bathroom’s fine, and there’s a big screen (one channel in French). In the morning, a free breakfast with an incredibly varied spread—salty and sweet, meats, cooked dishes, pastries, dried fruits, cereals... Sitting with me in the room are mostly couples in their sixties.
Departure from Villach station. Train at 12:53 PM to Ljubljana. 17 €. Quite an old train, compartments with six seats, some patched up. I share a compartment with a very nice Croatian woman around 35. We start chatting, and I explain the nature of my trip. I also tell her about my first big train trip in Asia, which piques her interest, and she asks me quite a few questions. She’s seen documentaries about trains in Russia or India, and I give her a firsthand account from "reality." Her English is a bit better than mine, but we’re more or less on the same level, which I think helps the conversation flow and last. You could almost say we meet while traveling not because of shared interests but because our language levels match!
Ljubljana. No idea what this city looks like. I quickly checked a few forums and was expecting a somewhat dreary big city, pollution... Not at all. After a few minutes’ walk from the station, I enter a pedestrian and tourist area with beautiful, well-maintained, colorful buildings. The city seems immediately very pleasant, everything within reach. At the tourist office, I grab a map and see there’s no shortage of hostels. I find one in the city center in a large old building, with big rooms that haven’t been renovated in decades. 15 € a night. Ljubljana is actually a charming little city, touristy, with a completely pedestrianized center. Prices are already a bit lower than in big French cities. Example prices: 6 € for a large, very filling plate of excellent falafel, hummus, fries, and raw veggies; 2.5 € for a half-pint on a terrace in the city center; 1.50 € for a lungo coffee; 60 cents for a kind of jam-filled bread. In the narrow streets, you come across lots of bikes that seem to rule here. Pedestrians have to move aside. I reach a pedestrian crossing—maybe the only street in the city center open to cars. I’m about to cross (against the light for pedestrians), but a young Slovenian woman warns me in English; she says I could get fined for that.
The next day, it’s raining. During a break in the clouds, I manage to have breakfast on a terrace. I find a slightly more expensive hostel (21 €) but with nice common areas. A smaller room but better designed, with a locker for securing your bag. It’s going to rain all morning. I head up to the castle—a walk that, besides getting the legs moving, offers a great view of Ljubljana rather than the castle itself. Midday. It’s raining, so I eat a plate of fish with potatoes cooked by a street vendor at a market, sheltered by a flimsy umbrella. Not many people at the market brave the rain. But I’m loving it. The vendor, very Slavic-looking, corrects my attempt to say "thank you" in Slovenian ("hvala"). A few minutes’ walk away, I reach Ljubljana’s big park. You quickly arrive after a small climb into wild forest—seemingly not maintained at all. And we’re only 1 or 2 km from the tourist office! My feet are soaked—damn shoes that were supposed to be waterproof!
More travels and train sounds on my site crilef.free.fr and also crilef.fr
Departure on the Ouigo from Rennes station, arriving in Massy 1.5 hours later. And then the rush toward the exit. In a frantic rhythm, hundreds of passengers trample in the same direction like a single organism, as if driven by some urgency. The human snake with things to do. Meanwhile, the metal snake that teleported us here continues on its infinite path, perched on its two rails. At the station exit, ticket machines for the RER are under siege, lines stretching outside the building. I watch for a moment, then... veer off toward a café 200 meters away. A guy at the entrance greets me at the top of the stairs with humor. I stir my espresso and think how hot it is to be setting off on a trip—especially since I’m heading toward Southern Europe. Then comes a thought, maybe cliché but fitting: if you wait for ideal conditions to act, to leave, to do, you might wait forever.
PARIS, youth hostel at 8 Jules Ferry Street, 21 € for a bed in a dorm. Unbeatable price for sleeping in the capital. Friendly welcome and a nice neighborhood near République. They don’t ask for a hostel federation card. Paris is as beautiful as ever—and as polluted. My eyes and throat sting a little. I buy a ukulele (the reason for this stop in Paris), using my backpack as a case. First notes strummed in the empty hostel room. We’ll end up being four people sleeping here, mostly in their thirties or older. In the evening, I have a Grimp on the terrace of a nearby café. After a day of carrying my backpack in the heat, the first sips of cold beer are pure bliss. The window stays wide open all night because of the heat, to let in a little air. Feels like sleeping right on the boulevard, with motorcycles and cars passing all night long.
TGV from Paris to Strasbourg. The sound of the train is smooth and soft, almost nonexistent. I think to myself that the TGV is already a thing of the past—a time when we believed abolishing time would mean abolishing finitude, when in reality it only erased life. A time when we believed in the rise of a single, affluent upper-middle class with access to immediacy in a world of efficiency, profit, cleanliness, straight lines, no sweat, no dust. I think speed is part of the past. When you go fast, you rush, you’re never where you are—always just ahead, never here and now. Speed is a rejection of life, a sick movement, an illusion of power and joy. No yawning, no breathing, no dozing, no thinking. Speed abolishes time and space. People get sucked in. Quick, into the vacuum—never inspired, no time. Aspiration versus inspiration. A battle between unreal times (past and future) and the only real time: the present.
Second night. Youth hostel in Lucerne, Switzerland. Tough end to the day—tired, starting to get blisters. Lucerne, with its charms and hordes of tourists, wears me out. With my blisters, I drag myself to the station, buy some Asian takeaway, and wait for the bus to escape to the hostel. There, three massive Russian-speaking guys chat and down beers around a table on the terrace by the entrance. I sit a little apart. The Swiss hostel is twice as expensive as the one in Paris. The common areas are spacious, but the rooms are cramped and lack a sink. The opposite of the Parisian hostel, where the common spaces were minimal but the room was spacious and had a sink. I share the small room with two students from Singapore. Lights go out around 10 PM, but in the hallway, a group of overexcited girls from the next room scream, laugh, slam doors, and keep coming and going for over an hour. The next day, I’d find the girls’ bathroom floor covered in chips.
Day three. Departure from Lucerne station in the morning, change in Zurich, heading to Villach in Austria near the Slovenian border. The train is slow, skirting a large lake with mountains where rocks jut out by the water. The view through the window is soothing. The sounds of the train are pleasant. In front of me, two women speak softly while eating Swiss crackers. Then the train speeds up as we leave the lakeside. I decide to get off at Wörgl, a small station surrounded by mountains, instead of continuing to Salzburg. The train I take in Wörgl looks like our TER. Not many people, just three small carriages, well-balanced air conditioning. Good call: this little train winds through the Austrian mountains. It stops often, but the scenery is beautiful, and I’m in no hurry. Typical little villages, chalets on the mountainside, coniferous forests. To be honest, after a while, I get a bit tired of these endless valleys. Lack of perspective and distant views.Villach. A pleasant town with a well-maintained old pedestrian center and its old bridge spanning the Drava. I arrive in the early evening. After a good walk, I pass through a mixed zone (industrial and sports) and find the youth hostel 2–3 km from the station. 25 € a night, but the hostel is "full," and of course, I haven’t booked. I never book in advance or use a phone to navigate. I prefer to improvise and ask for directions. I head back to the city center and find a room for 76 € in a three-star hotel. The guy at reception, very kind, looks like he stepped out of a comic book—a short, chubby guy with a serene face and voice. He’s not rushed at all, takes his time, which is really nice. The room isn’t great in terms of essentials, but a lot of effort (finishes, furniture) has gone into matching the hotel’s standards. No free space, window overlooking a narrow courtyard (smell of cooking in the morning), and a small, not-very-firm bed. Bathroom’s fine, and there’s a big screen (one channel in French). In the morning, a free breakfast with an incredibly varied spread—salty and sweet, meats, cooked dishes, pastries, dried fruits, cereals... Sitting with me in the room are mostly couples in their sixties.
Departure from Villach station. Train at 12:53 PM to Ljubljana. 17 €. Quite an old train, compartments with six seats, some patched up. I share a compartment with a very nice Croatian woman around 35. We start chatting, and I explain the nature of my trip. I also tell her about my first big train trip in Asia, which piques her interest, and she asks me quite a few questions. She’s seen documentaries about trains in Russia or India, and I give her a firsthand account from "reality." Her English is a bit better than mine, but we’re more or less on the same level, which I think helps the conversation flow and last. You could almost say we meet while traveling not because of shared interests but because our language levels match!
Ljubljana. No idea what this city looks like. I quickly checked a few forums and was expecting a somewhat dreary big city, pollution... Not at all. After a few minutes’ walk from the station, I enter a pedestrian and tourist area with beautiful, well-maintained, colorful buildings. The city seems immediately very pleasant, everything within reach. At the tourist office, I grab a map and see there’s no shortage of hostels. I find one in the city center in a large old building, with big rooms that haven’t been renovated in decades. 15 € a night. Ljubljana is actually a charming little city, touristy, with a completely pedestrianized center. Prices are already a bit lower than in big French cities. Example prices: 6 € for a large, very filling plate of excellent falafel, hummus, fries, and raw veggies; 2.5 € for a half-pint on a terrace in the city center; 1.50 € for a lungo coffee; 60 cents for a kind of jam-filled bread. In the narrow streets, you come across lots of bikes that seem to rule here. Pedestrians have to move aside. I reach a pedestrian crossing—maybe the only street in the city center open to cars. I’m about to cross (against the light for pedestrians), but a young Slovenian woman warns me in English; she says I could get fined for that.
The next day, it’s raining. During a break in the clouds, I manage to have breakfast on a terrace. I find a slightly more expensive hostel (21 €) but with nice common areas. A smaller room but better designed, with a locker for securing your bag. It’s going to rain all morning. I head up to the castle—a walk that, besides getting the legs moving, offers a great view of Ljubljana rather than the castle itself. Midday. It’s raining, so I eat a plate of fish with potatoes cooked by a street vendor at a market, sheltered by a flimsy umbrella. Not many people at the market brave the rain. But I’m loving it. The vendor, very Slavic-looking, corrects my attempt to say "thank you" in Slovenian ("hvala"). A few minutes’ walk away, I reach Ljubljana’s big park. You quickly arrive after a small climb into wild forest—seemingly not maintained at all. And we’re only 1 or 2 km from the tourist office! My feet are soaked—damn shoes that were supposed to be waterproof!
More travels and train sounds on my site crilef.free.fr and also crilef.fr
Obtention des visas
Bonjour, je suis grand débutant dans le métier de voyageur et je vais faire un périple en train vers l'Inde, en passant par l'Europe, Russie, Kazakstan, Ouzbekistan...
Il va donc me falloir autant de visas de transit, QUESTION : faut-il absolument aller à Paris pour les obtenir, ou bien y'a t-il des consulats à Lyon (où j'habite) ? Sinon, est-il possible d'envoyer le passeport aux consulats ou ambassades à Paris mais combien de temps cela prend-il et combien ça coûte ?
Exb
Avion pour New Delhi à partir de Mongolie
Bonjour les voyageurs !
J'aurais besoin d'un conseil concernant le voyage Oulaan baatar (Mongolie) - New Delhi en avion. Je vais me rendre à Oulaan Baatar en train (transsibérien et transmongolien) puis prendre l'avion pour New Delhi. Est-ce qu'il vaut mieux acheter le billet d'avion en France et comment ? Ou bien ce sera possible de l'acheter au dernier moment sur place facilement, sachant que je compte rester quelques jours en Mongolie.
Au passage, je veux bien avoir des tuyaux concernant les visas, sachant que je vais transiter sur toute l'Europe et la Russie, rester quelques jours en Mongolie et sans doute un mois minimum en Inde.
Précision, je part fin avril, début mai 2008, de Lyon ou Paris (si quelqu'un est intéressé pour faire un bout du voyage avec moi, JH 37 ans, solitaire...)
J'aurais besoin d'un conseil concernant le voyage Oulaan baatar (Mongolie) - New Delhi en avion. Je vais me rendre à Oulaan Baatar en train (transsibérien et transmongolien) puis prendre l'avion pour New Delhi. Est-ce qu'il vaut mieux acheter le billet d'avion en France et comment ? Ou bien ce sera possible de l'acheter au dernier moment sur place facilement, sachant que je compte rester quelques jours en Mongolie.
Au passage, je veux bien avoir des tuyaux concernant les visas, sachant que je vais transiter sur toute l'Europe et la Russie, rester quelques jours en Mongolie et sans doute un mois minimum en Inde.
Précision, je part fin avril, début mai 2008, de Lyon ou Paris (si quelqu'un est intéressé pour faire un bout du voyage avec moi, JH 37 ans, solitaire...)
France - Inde en train?
Bonjour les voyageurs
Je cherche à aller en Inde par le train (avec éventuellement un petit bout en bus ou même en avion si y'a pas le choix). Je sais qu'on peut passer par le nord (russie, puis Chine... super long) ou le Sud (mais le Pakistan est incertain...). Si quelqu'un a des renseignements précis, ou une expérience à raconter, je suis vivement preneur.
L'idée c'est de trouver le chemin le plus court, mais en évitant les pays dangereux ; je pense partir fin avril de cette année, destination le Nord de l'Inde pour commencer...
France - Népal en train
Salut
Est-ce que quelqu'un aurait déjà fait le trajet France - Katmandou en train, j'imagine en passant par Moscou + transsibérien + Mogolie ...
Donnez moi tous les détails : temps de trajet, coût, itinéraires exactes, tuyaux divers...
Merci d'avance
