TGV

TGV – Paris to Avignon

TGV means the train goes very fast. In France it is the “Train a Grande Vitesse”. It travels the 600 (as the crow flies) kilometer distance in less than 3 hours. That is an average speed of 200 kilometers per hour. Since it has to travel slower in the city and at some other places, and it makes a stop for a few minutes in the Lyon Station to let passengers on and off, I could be traveling up to 300 Km per hour.

Before saying goodbye to Paris we drove by the famous restaurant where the who’s who of history sat at the tables of the sidewalk cafe. We were too early in the morning for them to be open, so we just continued on to the station so we would not be late for our train.

Although the station was first built for the 1900 World Exposition, it has been updated to accommodate the TGV.

There is the train.

And there it isn’t. The train is powered by electricity and is so quiet, that it left while were standing and talking, and we did not even notice. No sound of big diesel engines revving up.

Our train was the next to leave, and here are a few pictures of what I saw through the window. I had to make a few adjustments to get better pictures.

After two hours we stopped at Lyon for a few minutes, then we were off again. If there was something interesting to take a picture of, there was not enough time to point the camera at it and take a picture. Even when the camera was pointing out the window, by the time the brains thought a picture was there, it was gone by the time the finger had time to push the button.

To get a better sense of the view through the window, watch the video clips at the end.

It was interesting to see the landscape change as we travelled south. At first we spent some time getting settled into the coach and examining our new surroundings. Before we know it we were out of the city and into the flat farmland. There were many fields of bright yellow flowers of the rapeseed plants that are used to produce canola oil.

As we moved farther south, the terrain started to rise and fall more and soon we were seeing the Rhone-Alps mountains south of Lyon.

In some places the high speed rail stations could not be built in the center of the city or town. Avignon is an example of the station being build a safe distance away from the city center. Not unlike airports being built at some distance from the city. However it is not long before businesses build up near the new center to sell their services. This is then followed by homes for the business owner’s family.

– Where do you want to go today? –

 

the short clip;
https://youtu.be/upVHKxUOuTk

A longer clip:
https://youtu.be/j0b54_11vvI

There is no sound at the beginning but it is on for the last few seconds