Trains, Bread, Wine, Toilets, and Dogs

Trains, Bread, Wine, Toilets, and Dogs,
A Travelogue

We arrived at Charles De Gaule, and proceeded to the Gare Mont Parnasse, where we boarded the "bullet" for Bordeaux.
The TGV is magical--110 mph (record speeds up to 288 km/h), with banked turns, two cars rolling on each set of wheels with no sound and no expansion gaps on the tracks. Streamlined and lightweight, they are, above all, on time. Schedule is king. Trains are comfortable. They are French.
We traveled in style Paris to Bordeaux in about 4 hours on our Eurail pass. You handle all your own baggage, and it works well with the limited stopping times to keep passengers traveling light. We had more than most -- right hand to a suitcase on wheels filled with the fold up bike, a duffel bag on the back, containing camping gear and clothes, and a carry-on in the left hand. For boarding we learned to find the labels on the cars: 2nd Class, the car number, and the seat number. We could move to other seats or cars if there was room, but near big cities the train gets crowded and you must claim on your seat. Get situated, buy a sandwich in the dining car, look out the picture windows at the passing countryside, crops, buildings, and towns, the miles of mostly flat bicycle country that make up southern France. Zip zap you're there. Next day we caught the slower electric from Bordeaux to Bergerac ostensible home of Cyrano and the center of French tobacco farming. We needed to cut a day off of the trip. In the bike guidebook, Pinky noticed "a killer hill" described between Bordeaux and Bergerac, and opted for the train ride. It was Sunday and, on our arrival, we had the train station in Bergerac to ourselves. So we put the bikes together in the waiting room.
We had a cheese sandwich on the train, with fancy soft caloric French cheese. The cheese was fabulous but the fresh baguette and that wonderful crust. There are bakeries everywhere, every few blocks, in the smallest village or the biggest city. Fresh French bread, baguettes by the basket full are available every morning throughout the country. They eat only fresh bread, every single day…hence croutons and French toast to use yesterday’s unconsumed bread. The bread makes even street food gourmet. A foot long hot dog begins as a fresh baguette impaled on a red hot poker. The dog is deposited in the center hole with a squirt of Dijon mustard. They are spectacular. We met a French couple returning from a visit to their son to Germany. They were ecstatic to be returning home…the bread was terrible. They need daily fresh baguettes, they are French.
A civilized lunch hour is a birth right—and two hours in length. There is a national strike from noon to two. Everything stops. The French choose a meal with the care that Americans reserve for choosing a new car or even a house. What a boon to the touring cyclist, are the spectacular meals acceptably are priced in the smallest towns throughout the country. We ate at a truck stop near Carcasonne. I was expecting that truck driving culture would be similar to our own. Twenty eighteen wheelers in the parking lot, a rough looking crowd of rowdy men, condom dispensers in the bathrooms, and the dirty magazines were all there, but the meal was serious business. It was a two hour meal, table cloths, flowers, and ornate chargers that served as platforms for the standard plates for each of the five courses (appetizer, soup, one of the five entrees, cheese, and dessert) plus Vin du Pays (the local house wine of the region). I had the Lapin Moutarde, and the rabbit was pretty nicely attired in a fancy Poupon mustard sauce. We had white cloth napkins. It's no wonder that their medical community is at the forefront in cardiac medicine.
We had an afternoon and night between train trips to explore Bordeaux, the heart of the famous wine country. Our wine discovery was Vin du Pays (van do payee - wine of the region) which was amazingly good. bottled in plastic 5 litre screw cap jugs. It is the daily fare in the countryside. Show up with your four liter plastic jug, and they fill it from large two chambered stainless steel tank, the red hose(red wine) or the green hose(white wine). The price and quality met the same high standard as fresh baguettes. What a startling discovery. Vin du pays is made by every community cooperative; growing succulent grapes on acres of small yellow stones hardly believable as soil were it not for the plants visible in the rocky till. Vin du Pays is sold in the smallest grocery store in the smallest village from a vat larger than a family car. "Garden hose" wine may have been our greatest discovery. Suck eggs, Robert Parker. These wines—they are French.

In this country fixated on food and drink, logic dictates the next concern: toilets. French toiletry is as impressive.. First is the astounding variety. The French never destroy a toilet, and they always adopt new technology. . An early development was two-foot plates straddling a hole, all crafted from porcelain; a strange sight to us sitting ducks. At one of the campgrounds our first pass through the bathhouse produced an argument.
"Is that a shower. Where is the shower head?"
"Don't let anyone see you standing in that with a bar of soap."
I pointed to the foot spaces on each side.
Pinky, realized what it was, and said, "Not for me."
The water closet came across the channel, and moved the action indoors because it had the U shaped pipe in the sewer connection so that water remaining in the U prevented sewer gas from coming into the house. Some of the first water closets constructed remain in use, often for the usual two franc charge.
More recently it seems popular to conceal the flush handle. A chain out of sight overhead, a button on the wall sometimes remote from the bowl, one or the tiles above the bowl may be a button, a small rod sticking up through the top of the tank is a pull handle. They must chuckle at anxious American tourists searching desperately for the flusher. Their penchant to hide this key part, has been further extended and there has been modern fascination with high tech toilets--they now hide the entire toilet. The standard public toilet is a two franc kiosk cylinder with an electronic door that has a star wars sound. Security electric doors that suggest secret service clearance might be required…look at the lens to present your retinal pattern for entrance. Once inside the sink and toilet look freshly sterilized. My first use was with some urgency. Relief was immense. Standing there, a three coil steamer in the stainless steel bowl, I began a search for the flusher. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but even with prior experience, I was unable to find it. I pushed everything in that small building that had any distinguishing feature regardless of its location. No flusher. Clock is ticking; things are desperate now; I can't let anyone else come in here. I need language assistance to solve this problem; I have to open the door and get Pinky to come help. I am able to open the electronic door, but it doesn't like being held open, and a loud buzzer sounds. Pinky sees my desperate face and begins laughing. She is purposely slow to help. There are faces in the now impressively long line that are as desperate as mine. The first man in line understands immediately. He is waving his hand like a windshield wiper and he is urgently telling me: "Automatique, automatique." Relieved to hear that, I step out. The electronic door closes behind me and the whole inside of the building was washed, sterilized, and dried in about 15 seconds. It was ready for the long line.
Our evening meal at a restaurant had another twist on toilet technology. Pinky came back to the table, " Your turn," she said. Then as I got up "Bonne Chance." (good luck). In the restroom, again there were all kinds of electronic noises with mechanical events. I found the flush button, inconspicuously placed as a little plaque on the wall above the toilet. I pushed and instead of a flush, there was another electronic whine as the entire toilet disappeared into the wall. Gone, gone, gone. Thirty seconds later it returned; flushed, cleaned, and under bright blue ultraviolet light. I stood waiting and watching. When the ultraviolet light went off, I softly applauded. When I returned to the table, Pinky was smirking.
I have been trained at home by a beagle, and was well prepared for France where le chien is pretty much in the cat bird seat. The dogs are their constant companions. Dogs are riding around in cars, grocery carts, and purses. They are under tables, at the feet of about a fifth of the patrons in restaurants. They are carried in little wicker baskets; with, maybe even a second head protruding from the basket carrier's purse. They are fed and groomed in every imaginable way. Dog extravagance is closely associated with a French stubbornness. They insist on canine company everywhere. It's the land of the portable pooch. For the places that do not cater to the dogs, it is a most unpleasant job to tell a patron "no dogs allowed", and I never saw it on a sign. There will be "no smoking" in France before there is "no dogs". Dogs go every where. Walking the dog is a major social activity, better than having a baby, if you want to chat. I didn't need much French to make a friend talking about my Beagle (baygla). And if you want help or directions, make friends with the dog, and the master draw you a map. The big problem is the fecal debris especially in Paris. They have dog poop patrols, utilizing various levels of scooper and blower technology, bags and shovels to miniature street sweepers; and somehow the job gets done.
On our Bike Friday fold up bikes we look like performing circus bikes. So, we keep an eye out for other cyclists and what they are riding. There is a particularly large array of bikes in France, in large part because they are maintained and used over long periods, and because everyone wants something different from a bike. Some need a truck, some a racing machine, a show machine, a mountain climber, trick bike for jumping and gymnastic tricks by the rider, a bike especially for bicycle broom ball, a stable three wheeler, a unicycle juggling and showmanship, a bike with motor assist, a bike to pull a trailer, a velocipede as a historical artifact, or a bike that folds for travel. There is a panoply of bikes in France. Old men on old bikes are the most fun. The most memorable was a wizened old fellow in a beret who gave us directions, then followed us at a one block distance to correct our incompetent attempts to follow those instructions. Using facial expressions of painful tolerance and hand signals, he came into view pointing to correct each error he knew that we would make, all the while mounted on his sixty-year old bike, motor assisted. It was tricked out with leather saddle bags and a putt putt motor hinged on the front handlebar so its small drive wheel rested on the front tire to turn it at bike speed of 12 miles per hour. The cars give us wide birth and impeccable courtesy compared to the USA. In a bicycle-car accident, the driver of the car is presumed to be at fault. Now there is a novel attitude. It is French.