Planes, Trains and Automobiles - from Paris to Utrecht
19.04.09 Filed in: Travel
I really prefer traveling by train to taking a car everywhere. Most of Europe is so heavily congested on the roads, that you spend a lot of your time in traffic jams. On a train, you can work, read, relax... or can you?
It all started with a slight error in using the German Rail website to get connection information from Massy in the south of Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport. Type in "Charles de Gaulle" and the system assumes you mean "Place Charles de Gaulle Etoile" for some reason. I hadn't made sure it had registered the airport but merely printed out the three connections that would get me in between 3PM and 3:30PM to make my 4:50PM flight.
It *could* have registered that the trip to Charles de Gaulle took only marginally longer than the trip from Gare del Norte to Massy and would require one change of train even though the RER B line goes straight from Massy to CDG (that, my friends, is the Charles de Gaulle airport abbreviation). But it didn't register.
When I started putting one and one together while in the 40th minute of riding the 15-odd stops of the RER-B northward, I realized it would be a really close call. Luckily, the last 5 stops before getting to Terminal 1 of CDG were skipped altogether, a sort of "airport express" function. It didn't help.
By the time I finally arrived at Terminal 2 and started running, it was 4:15PM. No problem, I thought - wheezing my way up the escalator's left side - but it was. The distance from the train terminal to Terminal 2 position C37 is about the length of four football fields. At least it seems that way.
I was drenched and completely out of breath when I got to the check-in counter, only to be told that the flight had been closed. At a normal airport, I would have understood. Check in takes a couple of minutes, getting to the security line another couple, going through security can take its time and then the final leg to the gate - well, at an airport like Frankfurt, that can take care of your 3-mile run for that day. Here, however, the security line was 5 people deep and right behind checkin - the gate was right behind security. What the *&%!?
So I went across the way to the ticket sales office (ever wonder why they position them handy like that?) to see what my options were. After waiting a good 15 minutes while the girl behind the desk typed a novel or two into the terminal, trying to change a group of four's tickets, I was assisted by a gentleman that had apparently decided the line of 4 people waiting for service would warrant him to come off break.
This was the British Airways ticket sales agent booth - keep that in mind for what is about to transpire. After typing a short story on his terminal keyboard, he informed me that the only option I had was to purchase a business class upgrade, at a cost of more than €600. Just a few seconds later, he tried to sell me on a KLM ticket, which at 540€ came in cheaper than the BA upgrade, and would be a direct flight (not via London, as my BA ticket). Strange - the official BA ticket sales office trying to sell me on a KLM ticket? Ah, yes - there would be a 30€ service charge, of course.
I told the guy I'd think about it and headed back a couple of football fields to where I had entered the terminal, and where the TGV train station was located. Some searching by the ticket agent showed that I would at least be able to get to Rotterdam that evening. Oddly enough, I was able to get a complete connection listed on Deutsche Bahn, showing a connection from Rotterdam to Utrecht as well. As the agent told me: that's Europe, not even able to get a complete through connection to show when trying to take a train from a major french train station.
I bought the ticket (€140 for a first-class trip) and headed down to the TGV platform. Now, the French demonstrate a strange combination of trying to be high-tech with a touch of class. Take current Renault models, for example (my wife has had two Renault cars in the last 5 years, a Megane CC cabriolet and a Scenic XXL. If you ask me, too much focus on design and not enough on getting it right. If you've taken a TGV anywhere, chances are good you know what I mean.
Can you believe being on one of the fastest trains in the world (going in excess of 300km/h) and stopping in the middle of nowhere between Strasbourg and Paris. Would you believe a deja-vu experience of the most important hand signal in the (Windows) world, the ol' Control-Alt-Delete? Yep: this train stopping in the middle of nowhere and having to be rebooted!
Well, something nearly as freaky happened on the way from CDG to Rotterdam, just across the border into the Netherlands. After the TGV was late getting into Brussels due to some issue with the train, the Dutch train from Brussels to Rotterdam broke down due to engine failure. Luckily, there was another train waiting across the platform that - according to the conductor - would leave earlier than the original one.
So everyone sprinted across the platform and headed to Rotterdam, where I had but three minutes to change from Platform 3 to Platform 8 to catch my final connection into Utrecht.
It all started with a slight error in using the German Rail website to get connection information from Massy in the south of Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport. Type in "Charles de Gaulle" and the system assumes you mean "Place Charles de Gaulle Etoile" for some reason. I hadn't made sure it had registered the airport but merely printed out the three connections that would get me in between 3PM and 3:30PM to make my 4:50PM flight.
It *could* have registered that the trip to Charles de Gaulle took only marginally longer than the trip from Gare del Norte to Massy and would require one change of train even though the RER B line goes straight from Massy to CDG (that, my friends, is the Charles de Gaulle airport abbreviation). But it didn't register.
When I started putting one and one together while in the 40th minute of riding the 15-odd stops of the RER-B northward, I realized it would be a really close call. Luckily, the last 5 stops before getting to Terminal 1 of CDG were skipped altogether, a sort of "airport express" function. It didn't help.
By the time I finally arrived at Terminal 2 and started running, it was 4:15PM. No problem, I thought - wheezing my way up the escalator's left side - but it was. The distance from the train terminal to Terminal 2 position C37 is about the length of four football fields. At least it seems that way.
I was drenched and completely out of breath when I got to the check-in counter, only to be told that the flight had been closed. At a normal airport, I would have understood. Check in takes a couple of minutes, getting to the security line another couple, going through security can take its time and then the final leg to the gate - well, at an airport like Frankfurt, that can take care of your 3-mile run for that day. Here, however, the security line was 5 people deep and right behind checkin - the gate was right behind security. What the *&%!?
So I went across the way to the ticket sales office (ever wonder why they position them handy like that?) to see what my options were. After waiting a good 15 minutes while the girl behind the desk typed a novel or two into the terminal, trying to change a group of four's tickets, I was assisted by a gentleman that had apparently decided the line of 4 people waiting for service would warrant him to come off break.
This was the British Airways ticket sales agent booth - keep that in mind for what is about to transpire. After typing a short story on his terminal keyboard, he informed me that the only option I had was to purchase a business class upgrade, at a cost of more than €600. Just a few seconds later, he tried to sell me on a KLM ticket, which at 540€ came in cheaper than the BA upgrade, and would be a direct flight (not via London, as my BA ticket). Strange - the official BA ticket sales office trying to sell me on a KLM ticket? Ah, yes - there would be a 30€ service charge, of course.
I told the guy I'd think about it and headed back a couple of football fields to where I had entered the terminal, and where the TGV train station was located. Some searching by the ticket agent showed that I would at least be able to get to Rotterdam that evening. Oddly enough, I was able to get a complete connection listed on Deutsche Bahn, showing a connection from Rotterdam to Utrecht as well. As the agent told me: that's Europe, not even able to get a complete through connection to show when trying to take a train from a major french train station.
I bought the ticket (€140 for a first-class trip) and headed down to the TGV platform. Now, the French demonstrate a strange combination of trying to be high-tech with a touch of class. Take current Renault models, for example (my wife has had two Renault cars in the last 5 years, a Megane CC cabriolet and a Scenic XXL. If you ask me, too much focus on design and not enough on getting it right. If you've taken a TGV anywhere, chances are good you know what I mean.
Can you believe being on one of the fastest trains in the world (going in excess of 300km/h) and stopping in the middle of nowhere between Strasbourg and Paris. Would you believe a deja-vu experience of the most important hand signal in the (Windows) world, the ol' Control-Alt-Delete? Yep: this train stopping in the middle of nowhere and having to be rebooted!
Well, something nearly as freaky happened on the way from CDG to Rotterdam, just across the border into the Netherlands. After the TGV was late getting into Brussels due to some issue with the train, the Dutch train from Brussels to Rotterdam broke down due to engine failure. Luckily, there was another train waiting across the platform that - according to the conductor - would leave earlier than the original one.
So everyone sprinted across the platform and headed to Rotterdam, where I had but three minutes to change from Platform 3 to Platform 8 to catch my final connection into Utrecht.
blog comments powered by Disqus