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| A few days in Paris after business trip to London & Amsterdam. |
I’m just back from three weeks in Europe. I spent 10 days in
London. Since my work is centered there, and I
have a great circle of friends there, London has become a second home. I’m
always excited to go there but the when I’d leave wishing I could stay have
passed. I also went to Amsterdam for the first time. After my business trip
there was finished I went to Paris for a few days before returning to Canada.
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| Watch for my Thalys review |
I’ve got a couple of travel tips to share with you. The high
speed train from Amsterdam to Paris was an excellent idea. I was really pleased
with the hotels I stayed in so I’ll tell you about those too. Three European
cities in three weeks – it was quite a trip and I have lots of stories and tips
so share with you so watch for several “Europe: Summer 2013” blog entries.
I’ll start with my experience with Air Transat this time. If
you’ve read my travel blog you know I have a love hate thing for Transat. They’re
cheap but… well, let’s just say the way they handled passengers was much better
than usual this time.
I want to thank Transat for relentlessly advertising their
other European destinations. I didn’t really realize they flew anywhere in
Europe but London. It was when I got a
message pointing out that I could fly to one city and return from another that
I decided to add a personal visit to Paris onto a business trip to London. So merci beaucoup for that Transat!
The flight back was particularly good because I had a whole
row to myself. I guess I’m not the only one that didn’t know you could fly
Transat home from Paris! I stretched out and slept for an hour and a half between
movies. Nice! The flight over didn’t have video on demand. They did it the old
fashioned way – one screen, one move, one start time. The new plane coming back
from Paris had pretty good VOD. I saw Silver Linings Play Book, Quartet and a
couple of episodes of Modern Family.
I always fly directly back from London, so the stopover in Calgary
made the flight from Paris seem much longer. A small price to pay, though, for
the chance to go to Paris!
I returned from Charles deGaulle airport. Every other time I’ve
been to Paris I’ve taken the overnight bus back to Victoria Station in London
and returned from Gatwick or Heathrwo. This was my first experience with a
Paris airport.
It didn’t take much Googling to find out that the best way
to CDG is the Roissy Bus. It leaves from the Opera and stops at all eight
terminals. Here’s a travel tip for you:
don’t worry about buying your Roissy Bus ticket in advance. There’s an
automated ticket machine at the bus stop. The website that I checked made it
seem like my only options were to go to the Tourism France office or have my
ticket sent by courier (for some reason for that option they required 3 – 5 business days so obviously wasn’t
an option at all!). I could have saved myself the trip to the tourism office if
they’d mentioned the ticket machine. But then, I wouldn’t have taken the Metro
to Pyramides and wandered around a lovely urban neighbourhood near the Tourism office that
Sunday morning.
I also wouldn’t have watched a plain clothed Paris gendarme
take down a bag-snatcher! It was 10 am, the street was moderately busy with
tourists and locals having breakfasts at sunny sidewalk cafes. When two men
rushed past me and ran into the busy traffic on Rue de l’Opera, I was too
stunned to have the sense to get out my camera and snap a pic of the drama that
unfolded in front of me! The police officer had no trouble getting the thief
pinned to the pavement and in handcuffs before his back-up team rushed in to
complete the operation.
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| Parc Luxembourg is a great for people-watching |
I walked from l’Opera, past the Louvre and Notre Dame,
across to the Left Bank and then up to Parc Luxembourg that afternoon. I don’t
walk around with many valuables on me, but I was certainly watching my knapsack
that day!
Back to the Roissy Bus trip to CDG…
Here’s another travel tip for you: Whatever you do, don’t
head out to Charles DeGaulle without knowing your terminal number! Any time I’ve ever tried to check in online
the night before a Transat flight, the website informs me that online check in
is not available for my flight. So I didn’t bother trying this time. Didn’t even
occur to me. Thing is, I think that’s when I might have seen my terminal
number. It wasn’t on my e-ticket.
When I got on the bus, and learned that there are EIGHT
terminals at Charles DeGaulle, I panicked a bit. If it wasn’t for the older
couple I met waiting at the Opera bus stop, who just happened to be travelling
to Calgary on the same flight as me, I would have been stuck. Fortunately, they
knew we needed Terminal 3. Disaster averted.
I think I was expecting one big terminal with lots of
electronic signage directing me to my check-in area. Although every station announcement is given
in French, English, Italian and Japanese, a young eastern European couple
sitting a few rows behind me missed the announcement saying that for Terminal 2G
passengers must change to another shuttle bus at Terminal 2E. They only realized their travel nightmare
when the bus stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere – which turned out to
be the pedestrian entrance to the tunnel leading to Terminal 3. My friends from the Opera bus stop shouted to the driver to confirm this was
Terminal 3 to which he grunted some response and we all hauled our luggage out
onto the blazing hot sidewalk and then into the long tunnel to our final
destination.
I told the older French
woman, as we queued at the luggage drop off, that she’d saved my day, she’d been
my travel angel. She and her husband
(who relied on her instant translations of our conversations, rather than
attempt to converse in English – or understand my broken French!) are doing a
guided coach tour from Calgary to Vancouver. I hope they have a great travel
adventure and that, if they ever need one, there’s a travel angel there for
them. Karma.
Next time I'll review the hotels I stayed at in Amsterdam and Paris. They were both under 100 euros a night and both very comfortable, clean, hospitable, centrally located places to stay that I'm very happy to recommend to you!
The Travelin' Man
