The Good, the Bad and the Not So Pretty, Pt. 2

Things did not pick up too well when I finally arrived in France. With no information having been dissmenated prior to the trip regarding possible ways to get from Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris to Clermont-Ferrand. I know a several people opted to fly into Paris instead of directly to Clermont Ferrand in order to save from $700 to $1000 on plane tickets.

However, my frustration was fueled by the fact that I had actually asked administrators prior to my departure about possible ways to get from Paris to Clermont Ferrand and was informed that trains were available directly form the airport that runs to Clermont Ferrand.

After lugging baggages to the all the way across the airport, I was soon to find out that this was not so, that in fact I would have to take at least two trains, the first to the middle of Paris placing me in the middle of nowhere, and the second to my destination. With my limited grasp of the French language, being foreign to a country, this was clearly not an option to be stuck somewhere with the possibility no one would understand where I wanted to get to or how to get there.

So after giving up that effort, the next option would be renting a car and trying to interpret a map to get to my location. However, after about an half an hour at the rental desk, I exasperatingly agreed to fence over $275 Euros for the car. The best was yet to come when after lugging all suitcases into the car, I exhaustingly sat in the driver's seat, only to find that I was behind the wheel of a manual transmission car. This was after telling the desk person maybe 10 times that I can only drive an automatic. So here I was again having been at the airport for close to three hours at this point.

My next and final option was to embark on getting a plane ticket from Paris to Clermont, putting me back in the same scenario that I was initially trying to avoid by buying a cheaper ticket to Paris. So there I was, the lead actor in the comedy of errors but finally on my way to Clermont-Ferrand.

This experience may have been filed under the not so pretty part of the experience, but was escalated to bad, even really bad, when a week later after deciding to go explore Paris.

I found that if proper instructions were given by administrations I could have taken the B train from the airport to Chatelet des Halles, walk across the platform and take the A train to Gare Lyon in Paris. Finally a train from there to Clermont Ferrand costing me a grand total of approximately 40 Euros, and 4 hours.