Part One - getting there.

The saga of our annual trek along the GR65 - the Grande Randonnee across 

France from Geneva to the Spanish border near Biarritz. The section this 

year would take us from the Isere to the Auvergne, over 200 kilometers.

We needed to get back to the last point we reached on our GR65 trek the 

previous year, which was in a rather uninteresting village called Le 

Grand-Lemps.  The only distinguishing features, apart from being on the 

route, are that there is a railway station, and an extremely good gite 

just outside.

We flew into Lyon St. Exupery airport. The only trains that run at the 

airport are TGVs, so we took the tram (Rhone Express) into Lyon. At the 

Lyon - Part Dieu station we had an unsuccessful struggle with the ticket 

dispensers for train tickets - we got as far each time as payment, but 

regardless which credit card we put in, the machine either rejected them 

or asked for PINs for cards which did not have PINs. After wasting 

around 15 minutes trying to buy tickets, we decided to just get on the 

train and pay the conductor - which works, it just costs more.

  The train was 10 minutes late, which caused a problem  - we needed to 

change at Voiron, just before Grenoble, and we just missed the 

connection by seconds.  After checking the timetables we found the next 

train would be over two hours later, so we asked the station master if 

there was a bus. He said to wait a moment while he made some phone 

calls. He came back and told us to get on the next train, get out at 

Rives and a taxi would be waiting for us. By this time we had been 

joined by another passenger in the same plight, and sure enough, the 

station master in Rives approached us and directed us towards a taxi 

driver standing there with a big grin.

  We all piled into his Renault Espace and shot off at high speed down 

the narrow winding lanes of rural France, passing every truck and 

tractor on the way. After dropping off the other passenger, we arrived 

at Grand Lemps and were told that the ride would cost - nothing. All 

part of the service of SNCF and TER.