Saturday, February 8 and Sunday, February 9 – transit from Paris to Madison

I’m writing this at 2:40am on Monday in Madison, so, sadly, I have not avoided jet lag on the return trip!

The journey from my Paris hotel to the airport was just as I like it – taxi avoidance! I had a 5 minute walk to the Metro station, followed by a short ride to Gare du Nord, where I picked up the express train to Charles de Gaulle. Total time: 1 hour. Total cost: €10.

And as we entered the airport, with the train running above ground and parallel to the auto lanes, I noticed a massive traffic jam. So, Travel Tip: take the train to Charles de Gaulle!

Unfortunately, my return wasn’t glitch-free. I was scheduled to arrive in Chicago around 4pm, and I was to follow that with a bus ride to Madison, arriving around 8pm on Saturday. Well, my departure from Paris was delayed just enough to result in me missing the Chicago connection in Toronto (and I mean just – probably by 10 minutes!). I was able to get a later flight, but that got me to O’Hare around 10pm, so I just got a hotel at the airport for the night. Oh well. I took the bus the following morning, with an arrival in Madison around noon.

Odds and Ends…

Budget: Even with the extra night in Chicago, I ended up coming in well under my default budget of $200/day. Of course, using miles for the flights didn’t hurt!

Steps: Paris is a great walking city, but it is rather spread out. Here are my daily step counts while there:

• Monday: 22k
• Tuesday: 23k
• Wednesday: 27k
• Thursday: 30k
• Friday: 26k

I was ready for that relaxing business class experience!

(I only used the Metro three times during my stay: from the train to the hotel on arrival; to the flea market on Monday; and from the hotel to the airport train on departure)

I finished the trip with 546k steps, averaging 16k per day.

Final Thoughts: I had a wonderful time!. And I like Kari’s suggestion of calling the whole trip my 60th birthday celebration! (rather than focusing on the actual birthday, which was, shall we say, less than extraordinary!)

Thanks to everyone for following along! And for all of your comments too; I enjoy hearing from you while I’m on the road. I’ll be back in a couple weeks as I make a return visit to South America! But until then, I’m off to New York City for Ali & Matt’s wedding!!