This way to the Mediterranean

The Gare de Lyon in Paris is traditionally the station where Parisians started their journey south on le train bleu (the blue train) to the Côte d'Azur for their summer holidays. For us it's the way home. A few rather weedy looking palm trees still adorn the platforms, I suppose to get people in the mood for their trip south. There's a excellent restaurant in the station whose name, Le Train Bleu, commemorates this tradition. We ate there once a few years ago - it's a bit of a treat because it's much more expensive than the usual station café and we had a very special meal in the ornately painted, fin-de-siècle dining room. Not our usual style, but a memorable experience.

Today we had a good lunch in the café on the platform - I had rabbit with mustard sauce and purée of potatoes with courgette and the kind of drinkable but not at all special red wine you get in cafés in Paris. And nowadays le train bleu has been replaced by the wonderful, comfortable TGV which carries us 800 kilometres from Paris to Béziers in about 4 hours.

It was lovely to arrive and find kind friends waiting to give us a lift home and a warm evening breeze.