By Train to the Med

 Everybody's doing it so why not me? Train travel is so much more light-footed so given the choice, the time and a cost-effective solution it seemed sensible to try out a trip around France.

Walmer to St Pancras then back down the same line by Eurostar to Paris. Not an efficient start but not dissimilar to flying. Across Paris was simple, and with a few minutes to spare at Gare de Lyon where the booked seat awaited, on the top deck.

A gentle relaxed non-stop whizz down to the Med followed, through plenty of admitted-dull countryside improved by pleasant hills around Tournus and finally some garrigue south of Lyon, after which the extensive étangs from the Camargue filled the horizon. With flamingos.

And so the train pulled into Sète, the first stay, on time and just - um - 10 hours after setting off from Walmer.

Sète is a nice place, all canals and cafés and lots of boats. Not a rich place like the Riviera but down-to-earth and unassuming. Out of the town there are long beaches and behind these are the étangs. All very interesting and the swifts, swallows and martins reminded me that I had jumped a few weeks of spring.

Time was taken scuffling around the car parks and waste ground, of course, looking for the plants that thrive in such places. The favourite was a small park just the other side of the tracks, opposite La Pointe Courte (famous for a film of the same name) which had good flora including White Henbane and Italian Catchfly, as well as a singing Nightingale, Chiffchaff and a wheatear. And black redstarts were frequent on the buildings.

<To be continued>