This past weekend I went to Paris. It was my first trip there and I had a fabulous time, even though I had only 45 or so hours to enjoy the City of Light. I would love to pay a second visit to France in the not too far distant future.
I will write about my visit to Paris in my next blog entry, but I wanted to share with readers my trips from my hotel to the airport, both to London Heathrow and to Paris Charles De Gaulle. I very nearly missed flights at both Heathrow going over and from Charles De Gaulle (nee CDG) coming back. In both situations, trams leaving from hotels to airports split. Going to Heathrow, the Piccadilly line train splits at Acton and either goes to Heathrow or Uxbridge. In the case of CDG, the RER B splits at the stop of Aulnay sous-Bois and either goes to CDG, or goes to the town of Mitry Claye. In both situations, the tram doors shut before the train operator had announced that the tram was headed in the direction which I did not want to go, ergo I had to get off at the next station and head back around.
The situation was freaky in the Heathrow case because the trams were full and I had to pass two trains before I could get on one. Even after I got on a Heathrow bound train, the tram I got on stopped at the Northfields station. It was announced the train was going no further leaving passengers stranded and having to wait for the next tram which arrived about 15 minutes later. While I was waiting for the Air France flight to Paris, I overheard a British man talking to someone about house inspections and he also took 90 minutes to get to Heathrow via the train.
In the case of my CDG adventure, I faced the hair raising scare of not speaking the language. The tram stop I was at had three platforms, leaving me to figure out which platform I had to get back on in order to make it back to the Anlnay sous-Bois station. I managed to get my predicament across to a French woman and did make it in. In both cases, taking the tram took about 1 hour 40 minutes to get to the airport. In the case of London, the distance from Heathrow to Central London is about 15 miles, while for CDG to central Paris is about 17 miles. This meant that rail travel amounts travelling at speeds of about 10 miles per hour.
Sigh. I could have saved myself some time by forking out some more money and catching a bus or van to get me to both places. A taxi service from my hotel in Paris to CDG was only 20 Euros, while taxis from CDG to Paris generally run 35. All I can say is that I have learned my lesson in taking trains to and from airports to city cores. It is cheaper than taking buses or taxis thanks to massive subsidies. If you do, allow yourself at least 2 hours due to potential uncertainties. There is no doubt in my mind that taking a car would have been much faster than taking the train, something I need to keep in mind since it took me 1 hour to go 25 miles from downtown Houston to Bush Intercontental a while back during full bore rush hour traffic.
Enough for now. My next post on Paris will be a happy one!
TMW
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at January 28, 2007 11:57 PM