Got off to a good start with a timely arrival in Dublin Connolly on the train from Dromod. Turned out that choosing to get the train arriving into Rosslare at 4:30 was a good idea: A text just after 11am from Stena let me know the ferry would be leaving early at 7:30pm rather than 9pm (the second Dublin Connolly -> Rosslare train arrives at 7:30pm)
As promoised by Stena, boarding by bicycle meant joining the cars. So no foot passenger bus for me! I was lucky with the weather as there was no rain while I was stood with the bike in a car lane waiting to board. The staff at the hut beside the boarding gate were happy for me to leave the bike for a bit and head into the terminal to use the bathroom and grab coffee from the machines.
Onboard I headed straight to the cabin I booked - I splashed out here and it was well worth it. It’s not a great sleep, there was a good amount of motion from the waves and noise from the ship. But it was good rest - I can’t say whether or not I’d book it again as I don’t think I’m going to do the Rosslare -> Cherbourg route again.
Alas, waking up and looking at my email I saw that Deutsche Bahn had me an email:
Timetable change for your journey to Bruxelles Midi on 09 December 2024: Travel schedule no longer possible
What was due to be my easiest train jounery with the bike (two ICE services with bicycle space booked) was now going to be several changes and using trains where booking a bicycle space wasn’t an option. So that cast something of a cloud
Ferry docked early on Wednesday so I had extra time - cycled up to the train station, had a sandwich and then waited for my train to Paris. Wasn’t up to trying to figure out how to move to an earlier train and bring the bike space with the booking. I crashed one of the automated ticket machines trying to retrieve my booking to see if I could do it!
Once I made it to Paris, I did discover that the nice secure and covered bike parking requires a local travel card - you can’t just rock up and pay for a space. So I took the bike over to the hotel, locked it up nearby and hoped for the best - it was grand. Cycling in Paris is excellent, there’s so many protected cycle lanes now as well as offroad lanes. Motorists seem to be comfortable with it as I didn’t get any aggression and free speeds were generally pretty low.