Drove through from Orleans (sad to leave there!) this morning having set the GPS for rue de Rome, Paris being the address of the hotel at CDG airport.
We have all had that feeling that things don't seem to be right and we got that around 15 minutes from when we were due to arrive at the hotel as we were driving through high rise suburbs and it seemed highly unlikely that there would be any airport in the vicinity.
Sure enough there wasn't but we can now confirm that there are two rue de Rome in Paris. Having found somewhere to pull over we then played around with the GPS and set it for CDG airport and after it had recalculated we found we were 27 kms away from where we had hoped to be.
After another half hour or so we arrived at the airport and then had to find the way to the hotel which we could clearly see but this airport isn't Auckland with one road in and one hotel on site, this is some monster with three terminals and cloverleaf roads etc. so again we had to pull over and search through the GPS points of interest and found an entry for Hilton Hotel CDG Airport so set it for that and after some more driving around, in circles I think, we pulled into the hotel.
Book in is scheduled from 2 pm and we had arrived at 12.30 but given the size and quality of the hotel thought it would not be an issue to book in early - "Monsieur book in is at 2 pm, your room will be available at 2 pm but you can book in early for €50!". No f...ing thanks! If the room is available for a cost then it sure as hell is available right now, I would have thought.
We sat in the hotel cafe and ordered a panini for lunch, the waitress set the table & brought over some water. The next contact was with some gentlemen waiter advising there was a problem - they had no paninis even though that was a menu item....starting to get very unimpressed!
We left without eating and delivered the car to the Eurolease return depot reasonably close by. A very smooth handover and they didn't comment on the small blemish on the left front bumper which I had noticed when we were parked at Clermont-Ferrand!
We walked back to the hotel via Terminal 3 where we stopped for lunch and completed our book in as by now it was 2.10pm. When I asked re the WIFI code she advised me that it was €25 for 24 hours, however I had some pleasure in showing her our booking confirmation that showed that WIFI was included in the room cost.
Our room as booked has a view out over Terminal One and the runways (not sure how many there are but definitely at least 3)
A pity that the windows on the hotel haven't been cleaned on the outside for some time!
Spent the afternoon rearranging & repacking suitcases and weighing them to make sure we weren't in for any surprises when we book in tomorrow morning!
May need to go to one of the terminals to find a reasonably priced meal tonight as I suspect the hotel knows how to gouge!
Some facts re the use of the vehicle:
- We drove for 6204 kms - our planning before we left home had us travelling 6118 kms 👏👏
- We purchased 262 litres of diesel at an average cost of €1.13/litre in Europe and a further 88 litres in the U.K. at an average cost of £1.17/litre
- When we dropped off the vehicle there was approx 15 litres left in the tank
- The vehicle averaged 5.4l/100kms
- We drove for between 100 - 110 hours in total
Given we will be in the air we will be offline until Tuesday afternoon Singapore time which is evening Tuesday NZT as Singapore is 4 hours behind NZ
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