Our flight from Zurich to Paris was scheduled to leave at 9:00 AM, giving us 1 hour and 10 minutes to clear immigration and security and change terminals to connect to our flight with Swiss. We arrived in Zurich about 20 minutes early, which gave us a bit more time, so we were able to grab a snack in the Swiss lounge and do some shopping in the airport.
Zurich airport is very efficient, and were were through all the formalities and in the other terminal within about 20 minutes of our Air Canada flight landing.
After breakfast in the lounge, we did some shopping here!
The Swiss flight was comfortable. There were only 3 passengers (including us) in the business class cabin, so it was comfortable and quiet and the service was excellent. We were served our third breakfast of the day (the first being on Air Canada before landing and the second in the Senator lounge), so we arrived in Paris very well fed. European domestic business class is not as spacious as North American business class, but for a short flight of 1 hour and 15 minutes, it was more than adequate.
Arriving in Paris Charles De Gaulle airport brought back memories of the last time we were here. We were in a different terminal this time, but it smelled just as bad as the other terminal! There is simply no comparison to the efficiency and cleanliness of Zurich airport. After claiming our luggage, we took a taxi to our hotel in Paris.
Because the primary purpose of this trip was visiting Nadine’s family, we selected a hotel near to where they were staying. We chose the W Paris – Opéra, which was in a great location about a 15-minute walk from Tsiry and Anita’s hotel, right by a couple of metro stops, surrounded by several nice cafes, and our room had a great view of the Paris opera house. Below is the hotel entrance.
The room was a little small, but that’s to be expected in Paris. It was very clean and modern, with a lot of historic features. Here is the view from our window.
After getting unpacked, we met with Nadine’s family and got caught up over lunch. The last time we had visited was our trip to Madagascar in 2006.
Our first family trip was to the Musée Grévin. Below is Nadine and her two nephews posing with a very life-like wax replica of Bruce Willis.
After spending a day seeing some local sites, an aunt and uncle of Nadine’s who live in Paris joined us all for dinner.
Feeling rather tired from jet lag and a lack of quality sleep from spending the night on an airplane, we headed back to the hotel after dinner around midnight to get some sleep.