Last of Roadtrip: Gite Nature to Caen (May 30, 2023)

Last Leg of Roadtrip

Our last day of driving was yesterday (May 30th). We left our lovely stone cottage at Le Cellier at 10AM, and after one stop to stretch, arrived in Caen at 1:45PM. We turned in our Europcar Fiat across from the train station and walked across the street and purchased tickets to Paris for Wednesday, May 31st. Europcar called a taxi for us afterward, because the walk to ibis Styles Caen Centre Paul Doumer was too far to walk. 

And that's when we had a new kind of adventure. Everything was fine until we got to our hotel room and I discovered my phone wasn't in my pocket. I didn't put it in my zippered pocket and knew it slipped out in the taxi. The guy working the ibis reception desk called the taxi company and assured us it would be returned. But by 10PM it hadn't been. 

Of course, I only needed a phone for GPS on our roadtrip part of this journey, so getting it returned didn't really matter. But it's the principle of the thing. This morning I took my laptop downstairs and, prepared with Google Translate, I was going to figure out what happened to the phone and why it hadn't been returned as promised. 

Cathy was working the reception desk and her English was fantastic and immediately understood my problem. She got on the phone and talked to someone at the taxi company. A little more insistently, she also wanted to know why my phone hadn't been returned as promised. I may not have French but I certainly understand tone of voice. The dispatcher called the taxi driver at home while Cathy waited on hold. 

Within minutes Cathy had the problem solved: someone would return our phone before 11AM and then a taxi would pick us up and take us to the train station. Voila! 

Lesson learned? Use the zippered pocket and don't mess with Cathy!

Check out the baguette vending machine.

We had this and cheese for our lunch
at our rest stop, of course.

The almond croissant was amazing!

This morning these roofers across the lane from
our room were hard at work.

They turned and smiled when they saw me taking
their picture. The kid sitting down gave me the peace
sign and the guy pitching him roof tiles gave me the
thumbs up sign in answer to mine.

Train from Caen to St. Lazare Station
in Paris was really nice. Free wifi too.

Parmesan tuna pate lunch, a contribution
Gabriel made for our "picnic" the other
night at Gite Nature. Didn't get eaten then
and sure came in handy today.

Local train (RER) to Asnières-sur-Seine,
our home for the next four days. We know
this neighborhood well. Feels good to be
back in familiar surrounds.