Halfway down the Danube

Air France Yes; Charles de Gaulle No

So we're back.

We flew Air France, and they were pretty good. Their baggage people tore a wheel off of our stroller, and we had to buy a new one, and then the new stroller got lost on the way back, but that's pretty much normal. The flight attendants were friendly and helpful, and that's what really counts. When you travel with a toddler and a baby, you need all the help you can get, and even little things like a smile can make you feel a lot better. We would fly Air France again...

...except, if we do that, we may end up in Charles De Gaulle airport again. And that would be bad. CDG is probably the nastiest large airport I've ever visited, and that is saying something.

It's incredibly user-hostile. To start with, there are five or six separate terminals, and going from one to another involves a long bus ride -- twenty minutes to half an hour in a bus, with luggage, baby and toddler.

Then when you get off the bus, you have to go up an escalator. But you can't use one of the baggage carts, because the escalator has been carefully designed to be half an inch narrower than the baggage cart. You can't take the elevator, because there isn't one. So you load luggage, baby and toddler onto the very narrow escalator...

...and the toddler needs a diaper change, badly. Very badly. Like, overflowing badly.

So you go to the ladies' room. Unfortunately, it has no facilities for changing diapers. (Note that this is not extremely advanced technology. We're talking about a flat surface, waist high; a trash can nearby is nice but optional.) There is literally no place in this airport, not one place, to change a diaper. (Presumably the architects were monks.) So the toddler goes flat on his back on the floor by the escalator.

Well, maybe things are better at the gate? No, they're not. You have to go through security to reach the gate area, and once you're there, you find... the gate, and some couches to sit on. There is no toilet at the gate -- if you need

to go, you must go back out through security -- nor any shops or news agents or, well, anything.

If you go back into the terminal, there are a lot of stores selling very expensive watches and perfume; but if you're hungry, or thirsty, or need coffee or a toilet or something to read, you're in for some difficulty. There's noplace to eat or drink in this large terminal except for one crowded coffee stand selling $5 coffees. There's noplace to buy snacks or a book or a magazine; you can get a $300 bottle of perfume, but not chewing gum or a copy of the Economist. And there's one toilet serving twenty gates, and it's not clean. At all.

Not really a nice place to spend three hours, from six to nine in the morning, between flights.

(Oh, and when your plane finally loads, there's another bus ride, from gate to plane. Nothing like another load-and-unload cycle to make you feel welcome.)

What makes this particularly annoying is that De Gaulle is an airport of flamboyant and intrusive architecture. Everything is either concrete or glass or metal, and there are lots of great swooping curves of the sort that architects in the '60s and '70s thought were soooo cool.

Just for fun, I googled a little to find out whether we were alone in our opinion of this horrible airport. See for yourself.

But anyhow, we're back. And happy to be here.

Posted by douglas at November 10, 2003 06:19 PM