Tag Archives: Paris

Day 2 – Arrival in Paris

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Day 24 – Long Flight Home

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With the 8-hour time difference between Antananarivo and Toronto, January 8 would turn out to be a 32-hour day.  Our total travel time would total about 30 hours!

On board the Air Madagascar flight from Tana to Paris, they fed us a nice meal, I took a couple of sleeping pills, and tried to get as much sleep as I could.  I think I may have slept for a couple of hours, but I don’t think I slept very soundly.  Next time, I going to have to fly first class, or ask the doctor for a really strong prescription sleep aid.  I just can’t get any sleep on these sardine cans airplanes.  In total, the flight from Tana to Paris was about 12 hours in the air–far too long to sit in one cramped place.  However, as air travel goes, I found Air Madagascar to be a very nice airline, and I would definitely fly with them again.

At long last, we arrived back in Paris at Charles de Gaulle dump toilet airport.  At this point, we were almost half-way through our long travel day.  We got off the plane, and walked along a series of hallways for what seemed forever.  As it turns out, I’m not the only one who thinks this airport resembles a toilet.  One of the other passengers walking along these long hallways, actually went over to the railing and used the airport for one!  I’m so glad the airport lived up to the nickname I gave it when we passed through here a month earlier.

For our next trip back to Madagascar, I’m going to try hard to find a routing that doesn’t take me through this cesspool of an airport.  I’ve seen all I want to see of Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris and France.

After a long walk through the airport hallways, we arrived at immigration.  Since we were meeting a connecting flight to Canada, it would have seemed much simpler if we could have been routed through some sort of International Transit process to bypass this mess, but that’s not how they do things here.  We had to line up to clear French immigration for our 3-hour stay here, claim our baggage, leave the secured area to find the Air Canada check-in desk, and go through the whole airport check-in process again.  French efficiency at it’s best!  I think I may have referred to that in an earlier blog entry when we passed through this crap hole last month?

Anyway, we made it through the check-in process, our flight was slightly delayed, and we still had an hour or two to kill while we waited for our flight to Toronto.  We found a washroom to freshen up in a bit, and then sat down to have a drink and a pastry.  We managed to find a small box of Tropicana orange juice, about 500 mL I think, for the low price of about 7 Euros!

Once on the Air Canada plane to Toronto, I almost felt home again (even though we hadn’t left Paris yet).  We didn’t have the same new plane that took us from Toronto, but it was still a Boeing 767, but this one seemed to be about my age.  But true to the Air Canada I’ve come to know and love, the plane was full of ugly flight attendants with bad attitudes.  At least they fed us OK meals throughout the flight.  I really didn’t sleep at all on this flight; not even for a minute.  My seat bottom actually seemed to be inclined forward, and it was a challenge to sit comfortably.  I made due sitting on a pillow, since we couldn’t move seats as this flight was also completely full.

Once back in Toronto, we arrived to find huge customs lines.  There must have been 20 to 25 lines, each with about 100 people in it.  It was a slow process, but I suppose that’s to be expected when you arrive home just after the Christmas season when everyone has been taking vacations to warmer destinations.

We finally made it through customs and immigration, and made our way to the baggage claim area.  We were also delayed here when the baggage carousel jammed and it took them about 30 minutes to get it going again.  Eventually, we picked up our bags, claimed my model ship from the fragile baggage claim, and found my father waiting for us.

After arriving home, we dropped our bags, had a nice shower, and relaxed for the rest of the evening, as tomorrow we both had to go to work!

Next time, I think I’ll book an extra stopover in the middle of such a long flight (like we did on the outbound flight), and perhaps an extra day to adjust at home before returning to work (if vacation time allows).

Day 3 – Leaving Paris

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We had plans to wake up early and take another self-guided walking tour, but with our extreme fatigue, we slept until about 11 AM, which gave us enough time to get organized, check out of the hotel, and find some breakfast before catching our ride back to CDG airport.

It turns out that it’s very difficult in Paris to find some place willing to serve breakfast past 11 AM.  We did manage to find a restaurant willing to sell us some pastries and coffee, but they were reluctant to let us eat it there.  Apparently they were concerned about their lunch crowd seeing someone actually eating breakfast at this late hour!  Those rumours about the French being a little strange?  Well, they’re all true!

We headed out to Charles de Gaulle garbage dump airport to catch our Air Madagascar flight.

We arrived to find long lines everywhere, except for one section of about 8 check-in booths, all fully staffed without any line-ups, dedicated specifically to Air Madagascar.  I’m still unclear why so many agents are dedicated to this airline, which runs only 5 flights per week out of this airport, and all to the same destination.  I’m not complaining, but it just doesn’t seem like a model of efficiency to have so many idle agents in one place and massive lines elsewhere, but then, that fits in perfectly with the whole theme of CDG garbage dump airport.

We were forced to check more baggage than we would have liked, as the rules in Europe do not allow as much carry on luggage as in North America, but went along with it and hoped everything would be waiting for us when we arrived in Madagascar.

Arriving at the gate area, we were pleased to see the Air Mad 767 parked at the jet bridge.  They only own the one, so if it was in for repairs, I’m not sure how we would have got to Madagascar.

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On the plane, we were pleased to find we were assigned two seats (a window and aisle) in an exit row, with tons of leg room.  The unfortunate part is that the seats didn’t recline because it was an exit row, but I didn’t quite follow that logic.  As is typical, the row in front of us didn’t recline so it wouldn’t block our exit in the event of an emergency, but there was no exit behind us, so what exactly are they worried about blocking?  Anyway, the plane was not full, so we sat there for a few hours enjoying the leg room, and before it was time to try to catch some sleep, we moved to some other seats that did recline to allow for better sleep.

Below is a shot of the interior of the aircraft.  Note the overhead CRTs… how quaint!

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The plane was a little old and could use an interior facelift.  I’d read that they’d purchased their 767 used from Air Canada, but they were supposed to have ordered a brand new one from Boeing a year or so ago.  Perhaps it’s still on order?  The Malagasy cabin crew were extremely friendly and professional.