In the past few days, I have posted some things that relate, in some way or another, to France. Whether it was the anniversary of major triumphs for L'équipe de France, or whether it was la Fête Nationale du 14 juillet, often known among English-speakers as Bastille Day.
So, I figured that I would add this blog entry, for one more souvenir of a past trip to France. In this case, specifically to Paris.
I recently found these pictures of my old Carte Orange, which gave me access to use the Paris public transportation system to get around, pretty much wherever in the city I wanted to go. Mostly, I used the Paris Metro (the Parisian subway system). This was from my six week trip to France (mostly focused in Paris) back in the summer of 1998.
Back then, I still had some hair. Also, I had what seems like a very angry expression on my face. Someone once said that I looked as serious as a heart attack in this particular picture. Not exactly sure why it came out like this.
In any case, here is a picture of the old Carte Orange from the summer of 1998.
And since we are on the topic of the Paris Metro, it seemed appropriate to include these still fairly recent pictures of the system from when my son and I got to visit Paris last summer. Don't remember which station exactly these were taken at, but they just really felt very typical of how I always remembered the Paris Metro.
Brings back a lot of memories. Getting a new "coupon mensuel" to insert into my Carte Orange shortly before the first of the month used to be part of my routine. I don't know whether you ever experienced transferring from line 12 to line 14 at Madeleine or Saint-Lazare, but the contrast is striking. Maybe things have changed since, but in the early 2000s, the former was very sluggish, and everything about it felt antiquated – there was no way to change cars without first exiting the train and walking on the platform, and the doors didn't open automatically – you had to pull a lever. The latter on the other hand is state of the art. It's comparably fast to the RER, and you have access to the entire train when you enter, because the cars are linked by "interconnecting gangways", which is the correct technical term based on my Google research. Plus in addition to the doors opening automatically, there's no conductor – everything is fully automated, which means you can go all the way up to the front of the train and enjoy the view.
ReplyDeleteI remember line 12 from the 1998 trip. Not so sure about the 14. Don't think so.
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