DAY 1, MAY 6, 2022, Friday:

LANDED IN PARIS

Son boarded his AIR FRANCE flight from Houston at 15.45 on May 5th and landed in Paris CDG Terminal 2E at 8.15 on May 6th After passport control, he followed signs for Terminal 3 and took the CDGVAL the free shuttle.

200 m walk to hotel Ibis. They allowed early checkin and he was in the room by 9.30.

GOT A LITTLE LOST AT THE AIRPORT

I boarded my flight at 3.50 am from Delhi and landed at 9.30 am. I had my return ticket, vaccine cert and France travel form ready but the guy at passport control asked for my hotel booking. I tried to fire up my phone, catch the airport wifi. It was taking a while and the guy waved me on. I collected my checked bag and tried to follow signs for CDGVAL.... there was none.

https://www.parisaeroport.fr/en/passengers/access/paris-charles-de-gaulle/public-transport/cdgval

This info on the airport site had made it seem easy. It said the CDGVAL Station was adjacent to the RER Station. So I followed the Trains sign, went down to the RER Station... nope, no go.

I went up again, I followed the sign for airport hotels... that was leading to shuttle bus, not the train.

TALE OF 3 HELPFUL FRENCH GUYS

I went into the Sheraton lobby. On our 2 earlier trips, we had met up there and son had suggested we do it this time also. I had told him Ibis will be easier and he can check in and rest. Now I was kinda regretting my call.

I said Bonjour and asked the Sheraton reception guy how do I get to CDGVAL please.... in French he was telling me to go straight and turn [later turned out he was right]. Another guy said in English to go straiht and down.

I believed the English speaking guy and went to take the lift right ahead to go down...

In the lift a guy in a business suit had pressed the button for his floor. I was looking for CDGVAL Floor.... muttering CDGVAL aloud. The guy in the lift said in French, I need not take the lift for CDGVAL and yes, I could not find CGDVAL listed for any button.

He was talking on , giving me directions.I got out and tried to get what he was saying. When he realized I did not get his directions, he got out of the lift with me, walked me to the turn where there was a sign directing to go down for CDGVAL. Such a sweet guy!

I said, Merci, thank you so much, very kind of you. I was so grateful.

I stepped out of the way to let a guy pass with his bag

The escalator was out of order. I had 2 bags both cabin bag size, soft canvas bags, one of them just quarter full. and both strapped to a strolley. I took the small bag off the strolley, was trying to work out which one to lift and take down 1st. did not want to lift them down both together, when the kind guy who had passed me and gone down asked ' need help?'

I said 'Yes, please if you don't mind.'.

He put his bag at the foot of the escalator, ran up, walked down with the bigger bag. I went down with the smaller bag. Was so thankful for his kindness

waited a couple minutes and got on to CDGVAL... the train comes at 4 min frequency. Also took 4 min to reach Terminal 3.

I got out and braced myself for another search for Ibis. Turned out very easy. I had already seen street view on google map and I could see familiar building adjacent to Ibis. I was just trying to find the entrance to Ibis when son came running smiling and waving!

It was 11.30... a good 2 hours after landing.

Son had slept for an hour or so, then came down and was waiting in the lobby. He knew my flight was on time and had wondered at the delay. We happily went to our room

IBIS CDG AIRPORT

We had some home made tortillas and tomato relish I had brought and finished off with cashew nuts and raisins. The room was spacious, and was equipped with shelves to store multiple items.

An additional bonus was the nice view of seeing flights landing and taking off from the room window. The room window was big and opened up as well. The beds were comfortable, and the bathroom was fine. All in all… excellent and great value for money 85 euros/night.

JETLAG

Usually on all our earlier vacations we'll hit the ground running. We'll make our way to a museum or church or any other attraction and come back to the hotel only when it becomes dark. That's how we have always tackled jetlag... by following a normal routine according to the time zone of our base.

In case of driving holidays like Iceland, our 1^st day will have very short drive. We never used to sleep during the day.

For this vacation we had a 10 day driving trip planned from Barcelona. I made sure the 1st day of that was just 98 km... Barcelona to Tarragona, so that we are not stressed out. In Paris if our base was inside the city we would have gone out to a garden.

But we had an early morning flight at 7.10 am. So we wanted to be rested for the morning . We had a nap with an alarm set to go off at 4 pm. We were still groggy but got up and had some rice and soup.