After the excitement of the museum wore off, exhaustion quickly set in. We ended up awake for nearly all of a 30 hour or so span. After taking a train and then making a connection to another train, we ended up in at a train station in the village of Bar-sur-Aube around 7 pm (or 1 pm body clock time). A few other people got off, but quickly disappeared, and we were left alone.
Town was desolate in the evening light. Every building in sight was quiet. The station building was closed, and unstaffed. And despite Joseph's reassurances to me, there were no taxis around. There was merely a sign with a list of taxi company phone numbers listed on it. I thought, this is just what I feared: we're stuck at some podunk rail station with no way to get to our hotel and neither of us speaks French. Joseph studied some in high school, but remembers almost none of it. The only real advantage he has over me in this is that he at least knows how to pronounce French words such as place names, whereas I can't even do that well enough to be comprehensible to locals. Fortunately, unlike Joseph, I had bothered to get an international calling and data plan set up on my phone before we went. I made Joseph telephone for a taxi and then sat there listening to him trying to communicate to someone what we wanted. This went so slowly I began to think things were just going to fall apart, but eventually he got off and told me they said it would be twenty minutes. Apparently they were using Google to communicate with him.
We then sat there for what felt like an excruciatingly long time, but a taxi did come. We both went to get into the back but the driver said something in French. Joseph told me he thought she was offering for one of us to sit up front, so I did. It may be that she thought I'd like to take in the view, and it was indeed rather lovely, all golden evening light across sweeping countryside and grape arbors.
When we arrived – around ten minutes' drive – she pulled out the credit card terminal and read me a price I found highly unlikely to be legitimate. I did not watch the meter, as I was so tired and discombobulated, so I don't know what she got up to, but the amount she charged me was much higher than one would expect and I pretty well knew I'd been taken. It's not the first time something like that has happened to me and I did the same as I did last time: I said "OK" and paid up and felt like I was content to pay whatever just to have it over with. She politely got our bags out and showed us where reception was for our hotel, and there we were.
I had booked us two nights at the hotel Le Moulin du Landion. The Moulin of the name is not the windmill you might be expecting, but a water-mill on the Landion creek. The historic mill and various other buildings on the rambling estate have been converted into a boutique hotel with a restaurant and spa. It's located in a village called Dolancourt, even smaller than Bar-sur-Aube, the town with the train station. In fact, as far as Google could tell me, Dolancourt only has two places to eat: Le Moulin, and the restaurants located inside Nigloland amusement park. It has no groceries or convenience stores; the closest of these are located in Bar-sur-Aube. As far as I can tell, the only two reasons to go to Dolancourt are to stay or eat at le Moulin, or to go to Nigloland.
When I had booked the trip, I wanted to stay at Nigloland's own hotel for convenience, but found that it did not seem to have a stay available for both of our intended nights, so I chose le Moulin for the fact that it seemed to be in walking distance. I was surprised by the rates there. It did not seem as expensive as I would have expected for a boutique hotel.
We checked in at the hotel's desk, which is also inside the restaurant. The clerk, who spoke some English but with a bit of hesitance, asked us if we would want breakfast or a table for dinner. I said yes to breakfast but no to dinner. We had eaten a bit at the train station, but mostly we just wanted to collapse. He gave us a key card labeled CHAMBRE 1. It turned out we were in the first of the rooms in a modern wing that had been inelegantly built out from the historic mill. I believe there are also rooms in some of the other buildings on the estate, including one that perhaps was the original home of the miller, but I assume those are the pricey rooms. Our room had a little balcony looking out onto the grounds.
At some point we had realized we did not know the password for the wifi, so we went back to the front desk and asked the person who had checked us in, "Can we please have the wifi password?" He gave the strangest answer. I am almost certain he said "No. Not in the restaurant." Joseph looked confused and didn't catch that, so he asked me what was going on. I said, "He said it isn't possible." We both made confused expressions and wandered off.
I hadn't yet taken my walk for the day (a ritual I have not missed since sometime in 2020), Joseph suggested we practice walking to the amusement park to see if it would be walkable. I had worried the roads on Google maps looked like they might not be pedestrian friendly. We began walking toward the park and noticed a rough dirt road cutting through a farm field that seemed to head toward the rides we could see in the distance, so we tried that route, though I was concerned we might actually be trespassing in a private lane. Eventually we saw a tiny little unassuming sign with an arrow pointing toward Nigloland, so it must be a possible route. That said, we later determined that taking the main paved road is more direct.
Eventually we found what we thought was likely the main entrance of Nigloland, which was a big, barred, iron gate closed over the road. From there we could not see much, just an entrance walk and some shrubs as well as a few grazing sheep. Joseph suggested I should pose for a photo in front of the gate. He said, "Do your Wally World pose." You know... referencing the end of National Lampoon's Vacation in which they arrive to find the amusement park closed. So I stood there for a photo, making an "Oh no!" gesture and a sad face. We then walked back to the hotel.
At the hotel I made a hotspot on my phone with some of my precious international data so we could use our laptops. The main thing I wanted to find out was what time Nigloland opened, so we could decide what time to set the alarm.
I was shocked by what Google told me, and I hoped it was wrong. I went to the park's Web site and checked their calendar, and had it confirmed. I sat there for a short time, afraid to speak. Then I said, "Joseph, I've made a terrible, terrible mistake..." "What?"
"Nigloland is closed tomorrow."
"Tomorrow" was a Monday. Nigloland, in early June, is only open weekends, though it would be open the following Monday for Pentecost, which might be what I had gotten confused about. I don't know. There is really no excuse for a mistake this big. I am used to American amusement parks, which by June are usually open every day, but I still should know better. First, I had hastily rearranged our first big coaster trip in 2013 the night before we left because I discovered I had planned for us to be at Waldameer on a Monday and they were closed Mondays. Second, based on our past European coaster trips, we know that they treat June as off-peak season, and tend to keep limited hours even in peak season. I should have known.
We were devastated. Nigloland was the park we most looked forward to on this trip. We had walked to the gate, and would likely never see inside it. It had been a considerable, now wasted, expense just to make our way to le Grand Est and stay two days. I proceeded to verbally beat myself up for probably an hour and a half before Joseph told me I should go to bed. I said I wouldn't be able to sleep and he said I would probably be surprised.
I did sleep rather quickly.
I'll end part 3 there and resume with our full day in Dolancourt in the next installment.
The back road to Nigloland.
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elynne
