Massimo's photoblog

Savoie, France (Sept 23, 2008)

At the end of September I had a conference in Italy followed by a meeting in Paris two weeks later. Given the cost of transatlantic flights, I combined the two trips spending the week in-between with my family in Italy. I landed in Paris, then took the fast TGV train to Torino, spent my time in Italy and then got the train back to Paris for my final meeting, before flying back to Boston.

I like train trips. When I was a first year University student I was living in Pisa. I would often visit my parents in the weekend, with a 4 hours train ride along the italian riviera and across the southern leg of the Alps. I loved that trip. I would just sit there reading a borrowed copy of “The Lords of the Rings” (that’s the time I discovered the book) or watching the world pass-by outside the large window. There is something hypnotic in that... like watching TV, but without audio (and a better programming). I especially liked the riviera part, when the train in-between tunnels reveals a glimpse of the sea. Grey and desolate in winter, blue and full of life in summer.

The trip from Paris to Torino takes about 6 hours (when everything goes ok, which is rare). Once the never-ending suburbs of Paris are cleared it is all farmland in the central part of France, and then the mountains of Savoy. The crossing of the Alps is made in a tunnel. In principle it is quite un-eventful as there is no border within countries in the European Union, with no immigration or custom check. In practice however our train stopped in Modane (they said because it broke, but that was probably not true as I later found out that this “incident” happens every day in the same place). Modane is the last stop in France before the crossing, and we were told to wait for a new train coming from Italy to pick us up. So we had to wait a couple of hours under the rain, on the frigid platform of the Modane train station (it is cold at the end of September in the Alps) for a new train to pick us up. We waited at least a couple of hours and the next train coming from Paris almost overtook us. This is the irony: the TGV is supposed to be a high-speed train and is fast indeed between Paris and Modane. However, as it frequently stops with apparently no reason, all the gain of speed is lost as the passengers wait under the rain. A more ecologically-friendly “slow” train would probably make is in the same time, and one would arrive dry at destination.

I took this photo when (I believe) the train was coasting the Lac d’Annecy Lac du Bourget in Savoy. That was just before I started a long conversation with another passenger on the train. An African from Benin, touring Europe to buy used car to import them in his country. We had an interesting conversation about how politics in central Africa is seen mainly as a mean to get rich, in a place where the only way to escape poverty is to find a government job (that only people with good “connections” can secure). He was very interested in the US elections (he held the pessimistic view that Obama didn’t have a chance to get elected, which I am happy to say history proved him wrong), and bothered by the fact that every time he presented himself as a businessman, people would think he was a 419 scammer from Nigeria.

We waited together on the platform of Modane, together with a cute and clueless newlywed couple from China, while the sun was setting and the new train was nowhere in sight.