Vacation Memories : Finding a Bus Stopped in France Can Be Costly

A great uncle of mine once worked and wassailed in Boston and lived in Portland, Me., commuting weekly by steamship.

One Saturday afternoon he tarried for one more beer in the tavern on the steamship pier. Hearing the whistle and seeing the hawsers being cast off the bollards, he made a wild dash and a prodigious leap across the chasm, rapidly separating him from the steamer.

His awesome effort succeeded only in landing him feet first in Boston Harbor, whence he was soon gaff-hooked out and into the tavern to dry off and have another beer.

That was the Saturday night that the Pride of Portland was hit by a savage North Atlantic williwaw and sank quickly, with no survivors. Except my great uncle.

My own experience with missing the boat, so to speak, had a less fortunate outcome, although some common features.

Visiting Old Friends

In the summer of 1987, I was on a tour of my own improvisation in Europe, using scheduled inter-city buses and visiting old friends.

These buses, although finely equipped and luxuriously comfortable, do not usually carry toilets, so they stop every few hours for the convenience and comfort of the passengers.

On these stops the driver--often there are two--typically announces the time of departure and, before taking off, walks through the bus counting heads to make sure there are no lost or missing sheep.

On the leg from Nice to Geneva I rode a French bus with a French pilot. At the first one or two stops I kept very close to the bus, distrusting my high school French of 60 years earlier and my elegant but selectively unreliable hearing aid.

I felt some unease because the driver was not making head counts. Then at Sisteron, where we stopped for lunch, we were leaving through the town’s narrow streets when a young woman on the sidewalk ran out and banged her fists on the bus’s flank. The driver stopped and one of our passengers embarked--a near-miss.

Grenoble Announcement

At Grenoble, as the driver announced on the audio system, “ Depart a trois heures cinq ,” I determined to confirm the time one-on-one.

After the other passengers had left, the driver clearly, or so I thought, repeated to me “ trois heures cinq ,” and so, feeling confident, I went into the station and had a snack with a beer.

At trois heures I returned and found no white bus. Had my watch stopped? No. Had the driver gone off to get gas?

A bit aghast, I ran back to the bus office in the station with my predicament, only to be informed by a very nice young woman that the departure time was “ trois heures MOINS cinq (less five).”

Meanwhile, she was fingering her digital phone and telling me I could stay overnight in Grenoble and go out on the same bus the next day, or she could hold the bus at the next stop, about 12 miles, so I could catch it by taxi.

With no time to process the alternatives, I briefly considered my luggage aboard the fleeing bus, hotel expenses, taxi, etc.

A Furious Debate

I decided on the taxi; how nice of the bus company to go to all this trouble for me . . . and pay for it.

And so she ran me, high heels and all, to the taxi stand half a block away. Having found a vacant cab, my shepherdess, in the true French spirit, began a lengthy and furious debate over my plight and what the driver might do about it.

Explications, details pertinent and extraneous, splitting of philosophical hairs, vociferous, endless repetition of the arguments.

There I was, sweating in the back seat of the taxi, wondering whether we would even go.

Finally, as suddenly as it had begun, the debate was over. The driver slipped behind the wheel of the ’81 Chevy and off we sped through the streets of Grenoble and out onto the northbound throughway, with speeds often exceeding 60 m.p.h.

Furthermore, at every toll booth stop, another lengthy, repetitious Gallic discourse. Have you seen a bus? A white bus? Going in this direction?

Village of Voiron

Soon we exited the throughway, careening down a narrow country lane to the village of Voiron. A corpulent, mustachioed man rushed into the street, waving the taxi to a stop.

“The bus, she just this minute left.”

After 17 repetitions and the usual debate, we took off again in hot pursuit of the elusive bus. On to Chambery--”We’ll find it there.”

At Chambery the same old story--”Left just a minute ago.” Back to the throughway, which the driver entered in the wrong direction and had to make a long, looping detour to get back on the right track.

Finally we arrived at Aix-les-Bains. The driver had no idea where the bus station was, so we cruised the crowded streets asking random pedestrians and jaywalkers for directions.

They were either totally ambiguous--a shrug of the shoulders, a flutter of hands--or contradictory. French is reputed to be the language of philosophical precision, but not on the sidewalks of Aix-les-Bains.

Sensing Defeat

By then we were halfway to Geneva . . . lost and with no bus in sight. Sensing defeat, I told the driver to let me off at the railway station, which we had just passed. Enough was enough.

Then came the crunch: The taxi meter was down low in front where I couldn’t see it, so when the driver showed it to me it was a shock to read: 778 francs, roughly $200 U.S.

I normally do not carry that much cash, but as I was to travel on a Sunday I had cashed some traveler’s checks in Nice and thus was able, just barely, to pay the damages plus a very small pourboire (tip).

In the Aix-les-Bains station, I found that the next train to Geneva was an express due in 15 minutes. I did not have the requisite 55 francs for a ticket, but the French railways accept credit cards.

The speedy express train arrived at Geneva within five minutes of the scheduled arrival of the bus. Knowing Geneva well from many visits, I made my way headlong through the Sunday evening crowds of window shoppers, down Rue Mont Blanc to the Gare Routiere behind the English church.

There the very efficient young woman bus agent already knew about me and my luggage, and quickly ran me out to the parking lot and to the white bus, where the driver was just locking up and about to go to his hotel for the night. He reopened the bus and I got my luggage and thanked him.

But he just stood there with his hand expectantly outstretched. Could I stiff him? After all, the fault was at least partly mine.

I reached in and gave him the very last of my money--a 5-franc coin--and bade him good night.