Pickpockets cause French train trials and tribulations
A piece of advice. Avoid keeping anything valuable in your pockets on the Paris metro and the RER.
I had my pocket picked for the first time in my life at Châtelet-Les Halles, the horrendous interchange station that is the hub of the whole Parisian transport system. It was a clever operation with several accomplices making it difficult to get on the double decker train (when there was plenty of room inside), ensuring they pressed against me. And hey presto. The RER double deckers actually are a demonstration of why, with their small and limited number of doors, the concept does not really work on a busy suburban service.
It was annoying losing my wallet with its £100 and various cards, but the loss of our tickets (me and five members of my family) for the onward journey to Chambery and our return all the way to London was something of a disaster.
We had 20 minutes to get on the train at Gare de Lyon, and I could not find the relevant email on my phone. Fortunately, even though they were not e-tickets, the inspector let us on to the train, but warned that we would have to get replacements for the return journey in a week’s time.
That proved impossible, precisely because they were not e-tickets. I would have had to buy new tickets and then try to blag getting the money back, or risk getting on the Chambery service with no tickets, hoping for the goodwill of the guard.
But then the fates - or rather the unions - intervened and both return legs of our journey were cancelled due to the strikes. After numerous phone calls, I was able to get us on the direct Eurostar from the Alps all the way to St Pancras, for which I was very grateful.
It is overnight and you do not get much sleep, but it is still a great way to travel as you save a hotel bill and get home on Sunday morning for a day’s rest. These trains fill up very quickly and really Eurostar should run more, but at the moment they cannot be operated by their new Siemens stock due to technical difficulties.