How to get out of France

It was Christmas Day, 25.12 and we were leaving Paris. Honestly, we had had enough of France, but were still going via Lyon for one night. Our plan was to escape to Valencia, to +18 degrees and cheap hostels. We couldn't simply afford to stay in France, a train seat reservation costs 18€ and the hostels at least 20€ Per night... 

We had had enough of Paris too so we spent our last hours on Paris Gare de Lyon. You know, we didn't feel like walking around with our backpacks or to pay at least 10€ for keeping them in some lockers.

Paris was a pretty cold but beautiful and an expensive experience. It had been raining almost all the time, most of the places were closed due to holidays, there were tourists and pick pockets everywhere, it was difficult to find a calm authentical place and the people went cold when they realized that we actually don't speak French. But we saw beautiful places and met really nice people. It was time to go to South.

Gare de Lyon was a cold place, it's partly outdoors. When I waited for my coffee at Starbucks a shady man came to me and said something in French, and the worker who was making my coffee shouted to him (I only understood the word "respect") and then the shady man went away. Thank you. 

(And they spelled my name right on my cup)

To spend some time I went to reserve seats for the train from Lyon to Valencia. There were 26 persons before me in the queue and 4 desks open. After an hour it was finally my turn.

At this point I want to remind you that there are only 12 seats for passengers with Interrail/Eurail passes per French highspeed train, one reservation costs 18€ and it's obligatory. But what about the regional trains, which do not require reservation? Haha, we had forgotten them.

-Hi, I'd like to reserve two seats from Lyon to Valencia for tomorrow please

Full 

- To Barcelona?

Full

- From Toulouse to Barcelona?

Full

- To anywhere in Spain from southern France?

Full

Challenge accepted.

I reserved seats for the train Lyon -> Toulouse. First I got tickets from Paris Gare de Lyon to Toulouse because of a misunderstanding, but thanks to my habit to double check, I fixed the problem and got the right tickets.

Still having more than an hour left we had time to look for an alternative way to get to Spain. With a restricted amount of internet we booked bus tickets. First the booking site had a million errors but then we tried the mobile version and it worked. The mobile version excisted only in French, because the bud depatured from France. Sigh. But we succeded. 

The bus Toulouse - Barcelona would leave at 16:30 and arrive 23. We wouldn't have made it to Toulouse in time by using regional trains. Bu the time we had booked a hostel in Barcelona too we were pretty frustrated. 

Kids, book your French high speed train like a week in advance or just simply use the regional trains.

Lyon was really nice, we arrived pretty late but had time to walk around. The center of the city reminded me of both Turku and Saint Petersburg. 

Our hotel was interesting. Hotel Iris. Perfectly in the heart of the city. We were the last guests to arrive and we saw no one else (but we did hear them sometimes). The rooms were behind another front door than the reception and couldn't be locked. Then you walked up some stairs in the backyard, opened another door that couldn't be locked and entered the corridoor with the rooms. The door of the room could be locked. I'm so happy we only stayed there for one night, it was pretty scary. There was nothing really that could have been done about it and we were to tired to start looking for another hotel/hostel, that would not have been a lot more expensive (we payed 35€ for this night, each).

We were supposed to have five hours to spend in Toulouse. Hahahah.

After falafel (the waiter didn't know wether to call me madame or monseur and I never gave him any answer) and some happy walking around in the sun we went to a bar to have a coffee (almost every place was either closed or expensive). Here the magical internet told me to book tickets for Spanish trains two weeks in advance if travelling during Christmas. And we had been thinking of continuing to Sevilla the following day. Haha. 

So I called Renfe and guess what, there were no seats left. And I should have had to booked 24h in advance, not 23h as I was doing at the moment. Well excuse me. And when I half an hour later tried to call again concerning the tickets of the rest of the trip I didn't even get through. 

At this point we had a situation of having all the hostels booked for the rest of the trip all over in Spain (except Sevilla) but no tickets and they really seamed to be sold out. What had I been thinking? That no one would travel around Christmas and New Year? We would be stuck in Barcelona. It wouldn't have been a problem if my freind's plane wouldn't have left from Madrid 30.12 and my other friend's plane wouldn't arrive to Madrid 29.12. But as we couldn't reach Renfe by phone and you can't reserve tickets via internet, our only option was to believe in Mañana.

Did I say that the bus to Barcelona should have left at 16:30. Haha. Forget it, we're talking about Southern Europe. The bus came 17:30 and we left at 18. It was difficult for the inner Finnish me to accept this. 

I don't like the fact that you have to reserve everything in such advance and then everything is always late (our every single train and bus in France has been late). What if you might miss your connecting train, that you booked a month in advance, and then you're stuck because all the seats in the later trains are sold out? Ok interrailers might be the only ones facing this problem because of The 12 Seats. I at least don't want to pay 35-60€ for a normal ticket if SNCF fails and not me. No tight connections and run at the station is the answer I guess.

Anyways, we arrived only half an hour later than estimated to Barcelona. I don't know how but I apreciated it. 

Finally in Spain.