French Countryside, July 31st

31st July, 0003hrs Saturday. Train – Rome to Nice. Rome.

It’s gone dark. Sorry.

1055hrs Nice-Ville station

Europe’s a small continent. Gemma and I have just bumped into Nicky and Brian from the ferry from Brindisi to Corfu. Bizarre. They’re bound for Barcelona having come from Cinqueterra.

Last night’s train was not my favourite one so far. We got a reasonable compartment with only four other people, but at certain stops we exchanged one short person for two incredibly tall ones. Great. I slept fitfully – when the train was moving ( a seemingly rare occurrence) it was very fast and consequentially very noisy.

We arrive in Paris at about 7am tomorrow morning. It’ll be Sunday, so we’ll ring Olivier and see if we can dump our bags/crash tomorrow night/have Herve’s flat for the night...I hope so! Tonight will be our last European train ride, and marks the end of my totting up the cost of getting home on my Barclaycard. Is it more than the cost of the Interrail ticket? Let’s see...

Italy first time: Florence-Naples £20, Naples-Brindisi £20

Greece: Patras-Olympia £1.80 (oooooh), Olympia-Patras £1.80, Patras-Athens £2.80, Athens-Patras £2.80, Patras-Brindisi £16, Brindisi-Rome £16.50, Rome-Nice £25.10, Nice-Paris £48.20 (ouch!).

Grand total - £154.80

Cost of Interrail in Spain - £167!

Hmm, that’s close, and on the good side.

1300hrs, A park in Nice

I am, without the faintest shadow of a doubt, exhausted. We’re stopped here for lunch (a more traditionally ‘us’ baguette with cheese (EDAM-type stuff from Rome)) and now we’re going to the beach so that I can crash, Gemma can veg, and we can both try to regain some semblance of normal lack of fatigue. It has been many miles and a few too many night trains and boats since Crete. It hasn’t been especially gruelling – we’ve had particularly unstressful days (apart from in Rome) – but it has meant we’ve had very little sleep. I know that if I sleep a lot today, my rhythms will be finally shot to pieces, I won’t sleep tonight and Paris will be less colourful as a result. Heigh ho.

Nice seems a really, um, pretty town. Just right for relaxing in. Aaaaaah.

1845, Back in Nice-Ville station

We’ve had a doze on the beach (a bit stony, but our roll-mats came to the rescue), I’ve done a little shopping, buying CDs of songs we learned in the mountains, and now Gem’s nipped off for some food for our journey. I only started collecting country/flag patches for my backpack in Greece, but thanks to a shop with other country’s patches, I’m only missing one for Morocco, and I think maybe ‘Au Vieux Campeur’ in Paris might have one. Cool.