Thread by @scattermoon

Bonne matin from the furthest outskirts of metropolitan Paris. We've just passed Charles de Gaulle Airport and are making good progress through the outermost suburbs. #TEE4

I slept surprisingly well for one of these overnight buses, only really waking up twice since Calais, once at Arras where the driver took a pit stop, and once at the bright lights of a series of toll gates. Would probably still be sleeping if we weren't already at Paris.

The overcast skies and dawn light combine to make Paris' tower blocks feel especially moody as we progress into the city centre, very rapidly compared to how long it took for us to leave London yesterday.

The clock on this coach is hopelessly confused and in a timezone all of its own.

Approaching our destination at Gare Bercy, which I accidentally called Gare Bussy earlier and am still feeling mortified over even though the driver didn't notice.

This is where I started yesterday morning btw.

Underground Flixbus Nest.

We arrived early!

Been in Paris 10 minutes and already been propositioned for sex, it is *far* too early in the day for this.

Bercy beaucoup.

I didn't have time to stick around as I needed to catch my train and didn't want to even chance missing it, which is a shame as I've never visited Paris since my teens.

Ah, France.

Popped into the Metro briefly just to warm up. I've seen four metros already this trip - Glasgow Subway, Tyne & Wear Metro (as we left Newcastle), London Underground, and DLR (as we passed Lewisham). Still think someday I might just, pointlessly, try visiting them all in Europe.

le brutalisme

Paris Gare de Lyon.

Love a station with intentional connections and a big clock.

Managed to just about order breakfast in French - pretzel, chocolate pain, and a very strong coffee. Going to enjoy this as we leave Paris for the other end of France.

It is very funny to me that these pastries we associate so much with France in UK are themselves associated with Vienna, their actual origin, within France. Like if another country figured there was no pastry more English than a danish (though those are also originally Austrian!)

Onto my train to the French Riviera, one of SNCF's 'budget TGVs' branded Ouigo. These are effectively budget airlines on rails - there's only a few services at a few set times (no regular pattern) and they're meant to be as full as possible for the journey, while being very long.

So rather than these trains fitting your schedule, you end up fitting your schedule around these trains. And you better be sure not to miss your connection. I was in my seat almost 20 minutes before the train departed.

Passing an Italian high speed train as we leave. This one goes all the way to Milano Centrale and would be a far more sensible route to get to Turin than the one I am taking, but then that assumes it's not always been my plan to have some fun along the way.

Leaving Paris at high speed into a dawn haze that confuses my phone camera.

The sun soon broke through the mist and we spend through beautiful French countryside as I sipped my coffee. Hard not to feel on top of the world at times like this.

Everything only slightly compromised by past me being a fool and a charlatan who read the seating plan *upside-down* and booked a seat facing backwards on the side that will, eventually, face the land rather than the sea.

Not even an hour out of Gare de Lyon yet and we're already here, you have to love high speed rail.

France continues to be beautiful. It's so very noticeable more rural a country than the UK (or most of its neighbours), so much space. Large rolling fields, forests, hills, and tiny villages with the occasional glimpse of a small town.

Just passed Taizé where I went so many times with my family as a kid. So strange to finally be *in* a TGV hurtling along the railway line in the valley that I used to watch from the top of the hill, seeing the bright flashes of orange speed by down below and past Cluny's abbey.

Still remember the songs, still remember sitting in the garden under the apple tree for hours every afternoon with a boy called Victor I never saw again because I lost his contact details heading home..

..but Taizé is already long past and we're now lining up to go around Lyon.

Lyon Saint Exupéry, technically an airport station but functioning as a hub for the many high speed services that bypass the city of Lyon itself just to our west. There are trains from here to Part-Dieu but most traffic seems for the airport or between different high speed trains

Now passing along the Rhône Valley past Valence into Provence with the edge of the Alps to our east and the Massif-Centrale to our west

Topography!

These two upland areas and the river valley between them mark the edge of the Mediterranean climate and by this point the landscape has definitely shifted to feel more Southern European.

The distinctive shape of Mont Ventoux, the Alp that got lost and sits 40 miles west of its brethren, looms over the Rhône Valley by Avignon.

Across the Rhône itself at Avignon and through Avignon TGV at high speed. Tried getting a photo the famous bridge here but didn't quite get the whole thing across.

It has become distinctively muggy in a warm Mediterranean way.

We entered Marseille, took the tunnel to bypass the main station here and then the train just stopped. In the tunnel, for 20 minutes. We're finally outside the tunnel now but not moving and all the announcements are only in French. Mystery fun times!

On the move again out of the Marseille suburbs where the foothills of the Alps start to meet the Mediterranean coastline

As we finally reach the French Riveria by Toulon, it starts to rain.

French Riviera | Glasgow yesterday

It's all backwards!

I hope you haven't been waiting, Toulon.

Just realised I've not mentioned that face masks are officially mandatory on these trains. I still see the odd person not doing so but pretty much everyone else has one, even if a few have it on their chin. V different to UK where even in Scotland now it's basically all stopped.

Leaving the coast behind for a bit as it wanders further south to the expensive yachts at St Tropez.

Technically, from the UK I've gone long past Turin, which makes this a bit of an odd route, but there was somewhere specific I wanted to visit first, hence why I'm down here.

Just before Cannes, we suddenly run directly along the Mediterranean seafront.

Cannes seafront. Still gorgeous even in this weather!

If Cannes can can can-can, can can-can Cannes can can can Cannes too?

Sorry, I've been on this TGV for 6 hours now

This really is a beautiful stretch of line heading into Nice

69

Seems a Nice place

Place Masséna in the "New Town" of Nice (19th century), feeling like a trippy chessboard. Feel you can tell Nice's close historical ties to Italy with such a piazza.

A literal case of rule by thumb

Very rapidly improving weather as I enter the seafront of Old Nice and every corner feels like a painting

France, but make it hot.

And then suddenly it's a gorgeous day, far too warm for my jacket, and with the Mediterranean shimmering blue across the entire horizon.

The colour of the water and a solitary boat.

The end of the peninsula had what felt like a subtropical gateway to the whole Mediterranean sea...and a hashtag with multiple lines of text. They don't work like that.

Back into the Old Town, where the narrow design of the streets helped keep the midday heat down

I look so very tired by this point, but little did I know things were about to get a lot stranger in the labyrinth formed by the heart of Old Nice.

Trying to try to get to a specific restaurant, I found my way blocked by a French police car and a police officer. I figured some crime had happened to tried the next street, same story except the cop was a armed. Next street was fine but then I hit *another* police road closure.

I eventually figured they were preventing access to the cathedral square for whatever reason. Fine, I wasn't going there, but a nearby small square instead. Except then *that* was blocked?! OK I thought, maybe I've just hit the blockade from the wrong side, let's keep going.

Going down an alley, I finally reached my intended square. Only then to witness, simultaneously: the restaurant I was headed to was closed, the air was full of incense, a man was shouting at two people who had followed me and kept going, and there were suddenly *many* nuns.

Whatever the police's reasons for very carefully blocking off the cathedral, they had also been blocking off the route of this procession, which was what confused me trying to get past the barriers originally, only they'd missed this one alley, and I'd accidentally led 2ppl in it

Anyway I eventually got some traditional Nice food: socca, a chickpea flatbread, and daube, a provençal beef stew with red wine, washed down with white wine.

Wine.

So this makes sense. I guess they needed to be careful instead they had problems with driver incompatibility or needed to change the firmware version number.

The weather changed once again as I headed back to the station and I decided to call off my Monaco plans today for that and other reasons, shortly before I got caught in a heavy, but warm, torrential downpour. Mediterranean climates, huh.

Currently taking nap at my hostel at the edge of Old Nice and the one other girl in my dorm is a German speaker (from 🇨🇭) (this *always* happens to me, no matter where in Europe I go, I get das Deutschsprachigeszimmer). My poor exhausted brain is trying to 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇫🇷🇩🇪 all at same time

I'm so close to Eurovision now this same storm traveled north and rained on the artists at a formal open air welcoming event so it's so nearby they're getting my second hand weather.

Shoutout to the dude rushing into the Carrefour City only to pick up exactly just one long baguette and a bottle of red wine. Perfect evening.

Pick a French crisp flavour.

It's a Nice evening.

What do you mean I already used that joke?

Dorkily happy to be back in a Mediterranean climate.

I love the warmth, the light, it's both invigorating and soothing,

Anyway, I moved to Glasgow... 😅

Old Nice in the evening light.

It's weirdly suddenly full of English people?

This is the Cathedral that earlier I couldn't get anywhere near because of the ordination of the new Bishop. Or, in other words...

⚔️⚔️ FORBIDDEN CATHEDRAL ⚔️⚔️

But this is what everyone comes to see. They comes to sea: riveria sunset. It's warm enough at 8pm to not a jacket (I'm still wearing one because I'm so stylish) and the waves are so gentle it feels you could walk across it.

20 seconds of Mediterranean sunset at Old Nice's seafront.

Thank you for joining me on this trip. Tomorrow evening I arrive in Turin itself, and the evening after is Eurovision Semi-Final One, and I'll be in the audience for it.

But for now a moment of tranquility and reflection. Every journey needs its moments where you let yourself st

op and enjoy some mushroom ravioli garnished with truffles.

Old Town Blues

Nice by Night. Still as warm at 2230 as it would be on a sunny day back home. Am particularly struck by the pizzeria staircase.

Nice has trams, incidentally, and they have the exact same chime as Nottingham's, which somehow throws me every time I hear it.

...what.

And onwards!