A little bit about the Trains and Stations

Gare (Station, Train) de Lyon is one of the largest in Paris. In all, there are 6 GIANT Train Stations (Gares) in Paris and each one is monstrous, amazingly clean and completely fascinating. Mostly because of the Architecture, but also because of the amount of people they move around Paris and France in a day. It is truly astonishing. One can walk into any one of these places and it is, to be corny about it, like a HUGE ant farm. The large ones have in excess of 20 Tracks and that isn't even counting the EuroStar tracks, TGV tracks, the RER tracks and the Metro tracks. Today we took an RER train and it was 3 levels below ground. We eventually came up. But seriously, the number of people moved through here in a day is unfathomable. They are always on time, clean, efficient and relatively inexpensive. We love it. We are becoming quite the train pros and love taking off through the tunnels to parts unknown. Well, really we know where we're going otherwise we would be poor pros. I know why we don't have these in the States, but perhaps we should rethink!?!? Well, this and free bikes everywhere! The French take a lot of grief for being, well, French, but in our experience, they do a lot of things VERY, VERY WELL! If we'd (Us, the good ole USA) stop being so hung up about being "Exceptional" perhaps we could learn a thing or two.