Today is Saturday, March 30. We left Baltimore last Tuesday en route to Lyon, France. We drove to Ruth and Hugh's house to leave our car and be picked up by a van for the trip to Dulles. Joining us on the van was another couple who was picked later. We got to talking and became instant friends. They were both Harley's age and would be on the same plane to Paris as we. They were continuing to Italy for a birding tour. Their names are Herb And Rene Jasper. We hope to be in touch again.
The flight to Paris was long and largely sleepless. We flew Air France and were disappointed by the food which used to be quite good. I guess it it now a profit center and unless you order a paid for meal don't expect much. But we got to Paris in good shape and our luggage was waiting for us.
CDGis such a huge airport that we felt like we were walking for miles to get to baggage claim and ths signage was very poor so we ended up in the wrong baggage area necessitating another long trek. By this time we were hungry and had a light lunch at a better-than-average fast food spot. We also learned that a small coffee in France means an expresso, not a small container of coffee a la McDonalds.
We found the CDG train station and figured out the access to tracks so we successfully boarded our train to Lyon in the correct car, climbing to the upper level where our reserved seats were located. The trains here are excellent with comfortable seats. They have modern trackage and make good speed so we were in Lyon in just two hours. We weren't sure how to get to our hotel so we went to th information booth. It turned out that there was a train from our arrival station at Parc Dieu to another station, Perrache, which by sheer dumb luck was directly across from our hotel. So far so good.
We got to the Hotel Normandie which is a small 2 star hotel that I reserved sight-unseen on Priceline. At first I was concerned about my choice because it is a rather shabby neighborhood and th hotel looked small and old. But it turns out to be clean and comfortable with very pleasant and helpful desk people. They can't have been nicer and have given us much good advice with great patience.
So much for our arrival. I will post this and continue the story of our travels later.
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