We arrived on time at Charles de Gaulle airport after a smooth flight, during which I got 6 hours sleep and finished reading a novel on my iPad entitled "The Skippers Child”. One thing I noticed at the airport, and later at various train stations, was the increased presence of armed military patrols; clearly the Charlie Hebdo incident earlier in the year has left a raised level of awareness in the French psyche. I decided against taking any photos of the patrols.

After collecting my baggage, I followed some signs to find the TGV train station within the airport. We arrived at Terminal 1, so I had to take the shuttle train to Terminal 2 and then follow the signs to the SNCF Gare. When I got there, I read the large Departures board to find the train to Bordeaux. I looked and looked but couldn’t find anything scheduled for the rest of the day. A millisecond before panic started to set in, I realise I was looking at the flight Departures board (for people arriving by train) rather than the train Departures board (for people arriving by plane)!  A little more walking found me in the centre of the train station, where I took the opportunity to recharge my iPad that I had been using extensively during the flight. The recharge station was “pedal-powered”, so it charged the iPad and gave me some much-needed exercise. After waiting until 15 minutes before departure time to find out what platform the TGV was leaving from, I then went down to platform 4 and boarded the TGV to Bordeaux.

Having not done this trip before, I was surprised how flat the landscape was between Paris and Bordeaux. Reminded me of outback New South Wales, but this area was much greener, with every spare inch planted to crops or trees.

On looking up when I alighted from the train in Bordeaux, I initially thought that the station had been renovated in a highly modernistic  style, with a very geodesic structural ceiling.

However, later as I moved down the platform to catch another TGV to Agen, I realised that the “ceiling” was really just a scaffolding framework within the much larger and grander original roofline. The beauty of the old Gare made my affection for Bordeaux even stronger.

The TGV trip to Agen was much more scenic, passing as it does along the banks of the Garonne River, with many grand views over the river and valley. It brought back memories of many of the towns we have barged though, and which we will visit again later this year. Around 1800hr, I arrived in Moissac to be greeted at the station by Miyu, Nico and Massa. We then walked back to the house, did a quick inspection and then had a very relaxed dinner, before I headed to the barge to get a good night’s sleep.