After spending an hour on the train from Paris, I arrived in Marnay-sur-Seine on Monday afternoon. The little village has a population of approximately 200 residents, but even then a lot of city people only use the town as a holiday home 'hub' and live there on weekends.
Marnay is situated in the Champagne-Ardenne region in the north-east of France, which is famous around the world for producing the deeelightful drink champagne!
The train journey was quick, however my experience at the station beforehand was not so easy. I arrived in plenty of time and the only thing left to do was collect my pre-purchased ticket at one of the machines. Unfortunately the machines were not so kind and after an hour of toing and froing between them, the ticket counter and information desk (an exercise not very pleasant with 20kg strapped to your back and another 10kg+ of hand luggage!) it was becoming more apparent that I might just miss the train.
... Finally, there was some joy and with a few minutes to spare I threw my luggage on the train and sat down. But after a while it dawned on me that I might just be sitting in first class - it did, after all, look like a particularly nice carriage with only a few travellers! As relieved as I was to have unloaded my backpack, the thought of dragging it to second class was certainly not appealing, so I stayed put... until the ticket inspector arrived halfway through the journey. But thankfully he was a very amiable, elderly gent and kindly let me keep my seat, while laughing it off with a chuckle. Phew! (Sometimes playing the 'dumb tourist' card is a necessity.)
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