September, 7 2018, Arrive in Baron

Yesterday Agnes and I drove out to Vancouver so that we could get on an AirTransat direct flight to Paris.  Taking a direct flight makes so much sense to us. Much less chance of bags getting lost, much shorter flight and best of all no layovers.  So instead of a layover we stayed in an absolutely gorgeous B&B, although they prefer to call themselves a boutique hotel.  The room was a totally stunning suite with every amenity known to hotel rooms. The breakfast was a gourmet’s delight.  There was an egg sausage and omelet with sun dried tomatoes. 

In the morning we were off to the Vancouver airport and though security without a hitch.  The Airtransat plane was a brand new Airbus 330.   Before we knew it we were in decending into Charles De Gaulle airport. 

Charles De Gaulle was another story.  It is a huge older airport.  We were in an hour long cue to clear immigrations, and I don’t even think that the immigration officer even looked at the picture in the passport.  From there it was a long walk to find the train which took us to Terminal 1 where the car rental agencies were.   Good thing I had looked it up on line as there wasn’t a sign anywhere.  Once inside Terminal 1 finding the car rental booth was not easy either.  However once directions were found and we got to the rental booth Ken and Sally were waiting for us.  Our rental van was waiting for us and it is a very nice Mercedes with an automatic transmission.  It is a much larger van than we had in England or New Zealand. 

On the road we made a stop at the mall were we got some breakfast supplies and found a phone store. 

It was only a 30 minute drive out Baron but we managed to turn it in to a 45 minute by taking some wrong turns and wound up back at the airport. 

In Baron we saw our first of the “War Memorials”  The village cannot be more than a couple hundred people but the monument must have had 30 names. The monument commemorated the battle of Baron.  The Airbnb is a beautiful house in a the quaintest of little French villages.   Lots of room to spread out and assemble bikes and get out organized.  We could not of found a better place to start the tour.

Terry