Moving on ... to more trains, mostly in France,

post #203
       Still on track for trains: I just added a photo to last week's post, another view on the way to London.  Today's  post will be mostly France -- I took the fast TGV from Paris to Rennes, spent three nights there, took a somewhat slower train back to Paris where I spent a night with members of the French family I lived with when I was a junior in high school, and the next day I went fast but not too fast from Paris to Mulhouse, in Alsace, in eastern France, the part of the country that kept changing its nationality, from French to German to French again, etc.  Wars can do that to a place.  In Mulhouse I stayed with the youngest of my French siblings, close to where the family lived during that year of my exchange.  (In the meantime, one of their daughters was living with my family and going to my school for that year.)
    
      My trip between Paris and Mulhouse was comparatively leisurely.  Each of the two stops gave the train an excuse to slow down for a bit.  Here are a series of views from that afternoon:

      

getting closer to Alsace, where many houses look like this one

Issue de Secours just means the window can be pushed out should there be an emergency...       

   I took a few other photos during that time, with my iPhone, when I was trying to be discreet.  It may be possible to notice what each camera brings to the moving train photo experience.  The first photo shows how, since I had a French railpass, I sometimes ended up in the first class car.  Very nice.  

that look of blowing in the wind....

I am standing in the exit section, looking out the door we will eventually be using to get off the train.

     I finally found some passengers who didn't mind having their photo taken.  I had gone to the upper story of the train to see if photos from there would be more interesting.  They were not.  But I did have a nice conversation with the guy who had these cats.

          Someday soon I will share my unpublished manuscript of a picture book for children which features photos from a moving train.  Didn't I already say that I love, love, love riding on a train and looking at the world go by?  I hope these photos from this week and last week have allowed me to share something of that pleasure.