Day 72 Paris CDG

We spent the morning in the hotel, packing, updating spreadsheets and the blog, and relaxing. Our taxi arrived within five minutes and we were able to get all our bags into the boot. To spare the rest of us overcrowding, ever the iconoclast, B had volunteered to walk to St Charles station wheeling his bag. In line with J's fear about our previous short-distance taxi trip in Paris, where we were abused for not walking 600m, the driver merely expressed surprise that we were not going to the airport. Fortunately he took us to the station via the direct route, past the Arc de Triomph.

We waited for ages for our train's platform to show on the board, but when it did it was just outside the place where we had refreshed ourselves with sandwiches and beer. Being 1st class passengers, our wagon was at the far end of the platform - a long walk. We had four seats facing each other with a table - very convenient. We were almost alone in the carriage. Along the way we enjoyed the rest of our sandwiches and a nice 1.5L screwcap bottle of rosé that B had managed for find earlier for the princely sum of €2.89. 


All the while we enjoyed the Provence scenery flash by. B and I particularly had very much wanted the TGV experience, our first, and it lived up to expectations. According to the GPS data logger, the highest speed I saw was 307 Km/h, and mostly averaging around 280 to 295 Km/h. Strangely, your vision adapts to this high speed fairly quickly and it is not a blur. That might have been helped by the fact that I had a rearward facing seat.

The scenery after Lyon flattened out, and the cloud cover asserted itself so that it was like being in a different country compared to Provence. We rolled into Paris CDG pretty much on time, fully relaxed. After a short shuttle ride from T2 to T1 and a few escalators and lifts (no steps!!) we were in the check-in queue and after asking for and getting exit row seats, we proceeded to have a drink in the departure lounge.

The Paris airport was a real disappointment - dingy, not particularly clean, very few shops, nowhere decent to eat, poor bookstores, few toilets - the list goes on.