Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 1

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the first day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

I left Antwerp early in the morning on a Thalys high speed service to Paris North Station.  I was feeling very welcome upon entering the train and immediately was offered a welcome drink and a chocolate bar.  I choose a Coke Light as well as a Mars Delight.  The train manager had a list of reservations and used it to check the tickets of the passengers who boarded in Antwerp, as this train was already coming from Amsterdam.  As I was traveling in first class, I had wifi-access included in my ticket.  The password I needed, was conveniently stamped on my ticket.

Upon arrival in Paris, I immediately went to Gare de Bercy to leave my luggage behind as my train in the evening would depart from there.  When I got to Bercy station, there were apparently no lockers.  A member of staff advised me to go to the nearby Gare de Lyon, where lockers were available.  I crossed the street to Gare de Lyon, just to find out that the staff at the lockers was on strike.  So I headed back to Gare du Nord and left my luggage there.  Luckily staff at Gare du Nord was not on strike.

Leaving my 10kg of luggage behind, I moved on to the Louvre.  I looked at some of the main sights, such as the Venus of Milo and the extraordinary Egyptian collection.  The French can be very proud of their beautiful and huge collection at the Louvre, just a pity that much of it is "stolen", as there was almost no French art, but a lot of stuff came from other regions in the world.  I passed at some Iranian artefacts, followed by French paintings and ending at the Flemish art, where I saw some very beautiful paintings by Rubens.  After seeing all that, I didn't want to miss out the main sight, which is the Mona Lisa, or rather, the tourists around the Mona Lisa.  The painting itself is just small and doesn't really appeal to me.

I left the Louvre and passed the Musée d'Orsay, though it was very difficult resisting my will to go inside.  I strolled through the small alleys at the Saint Germain des Prés quarter and after walking there for about one and a half hour, it got time to go back to the Gare du Nord to pick up my luggage and head back to Gare de Bercy to travel onwards to Venice on the EuroNight Artésia Stendhal.  This train was consisted of old renovated Italian sleeper coaches and marked the start of my journey on the original route of the Venice-Simplon Oriënt Express.