June 14, 2023
Homeward Bound
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
One of the things I love about retirement is not having to bounce out of bed each morning and join the streams of commuters heading to work. In fact, I love it so much, David was having his doubts I would be able to drag myself out of bed in time for breakfast during this tour. The thing is, I have no problem getting up when there’s a good reason like exploring new places on my Friday or catching a flight to Paris at 6:10am. Today, that meant getting up at 3am to begin the journey home.
Travelling in a Post-Covid World
All of our previous travels to and from Europe have gone smoothly. We have flown in and out of London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam and not once in three decades have we missed a connection or arrived without our luggage. Yes, our bikes have been damaged (once when they were bagged and once when they were packed in a Samsonite suitcase) but they have at least arrived at the same time as us. Some of that is due to careful planning and some is just good fortune. Now that we are in a post-covid world, air travel is a-changing so I thought it would be useful to write about our experience as an example of inter-continental travel in 2023.
Part 1: Naples Airport Ho!
Our taxi driver arrived at the B&B about 30 minutes before the scheduled time and began texting us at 3:15am. Alright, already — hold your horses, fella! We had packed everything and laid out our travel duds before we went to bed, so it was a speedy start and we were streetside by 3:35.
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When I checked the map of Naples before hitting the sack, it looked like it would be a straightforward drive, about 15-minutes, to the airport. Seeing Naples devoid of its streams of humanity was rather cool, but for some reason it was anything but a straight shot to the airport. Not that we were concerned as we had agreed on the rate and had built in plenty of time to get to the Naples Airport which lies within the city itself.
But, I did have some niggles of doubt when, after following a very circuitous route, our driver took a turn up a small road that clearly looked to be a dead-end. “Is this how it will all end?” I thought. At the end of the road, the driver made a sharp left hairpin turn and I exhaled. Was I really worried? No, absolutely not. We had a professional driver and nothing whatsoever would support that line of thinking. It was more a point of amusement that I could even think that way and at the same time, acknowledge that not so long ago, Naples was not on the radar for mainstream tourists for very good reason. It was a not a safe city. Oh, how times have changed. For the record, David had the same thoughts as the taxi drove up that ‘dead-end’ lane.
We were surprised to see how many people were already in line at the airport when we arrived. Apparently, travellers really do take the advice to be at the airport 3hrs in advance of their departure time. We handed over the bikes and then joined the crowd waiting to embark. We departed Naples about 20 minutes late, just as the sun was rising.
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Part 2: It’s CDG — Did you bring your nitro pills?
We had what I thought was a decent length of time to make it to the departure gate, about 1 3/4 hours after our arrival. Unfortunately, the first flight chewed up some of that time and we were left with just over an hour. What transpired was not the routine brisk but complicated walk from Terminal 2E-Hall L to Terminal 2F that I had hoped for.
When we arrived at Passport Control, ‘we’ being a whole plane full of passengers, did not anticipate there would be one agent checking passports. Nor did we expect the sole agent to be working at a snail’s pace, flipping slowly back and forth through passports and grilling people ad nauseum, oblivious of the 120 people in line. It didn’t help that the electronic sign indicated it was a 10 minute wait to get through Passport Control. We and our fellow travellers watched this display of ineptness as the boarding times came and went for our connecting flights. The customer service woman at the head of the line merely shrugged when we indicated we needed to be boarding. Meanwhile, the wait time clock begrudgingly ticked up to 15 minutes. We had to stop looking at it.
Making it worse, an agent outside of the Passport Control area started letting in panicked travellers who had just arrived on the scene, right at the front of the line. Not cool, fella. Eventually, one of the three agents sitting in the booth with the guy doing all the work finished his sandwich and opened a second booth.
The tension in the line was palpable as our collective cortisol levels spiked. In spite of this, everyone was well behaved and no one raised their voice or made a fuss, which is never a good thing anyway. There are special booths for people who do that and those ones open up instantly.
We eventually made it through Passport Control and shot out the other side like a couple of gazelles, dragging our carry-on luggage along corridors, up and down escalators and stairways, ducking in and out of the flow of fellow travellers. We arrived at our gate, expecting it to be empty and were relieved to find they were in the mid-way in loading the plane.
We boarded, found our seats, sanitized every surface with an alcohol wipe and buckled in. And there we sat… for an hour. We didn’t learn the reason for the late departure, but without a connecting flight to catch in Vancouver, we had no real concerns. It was someone else’s turn!
Smooth Sailing
We all secretly hope and pray for a normal, healthy person to sit next to us on a long flight, don’t we? Our vacation isn’t over and we just want to get through this as painlessly as possible, so no weirdo’s please. We were in luck as the young fellow next to us had a very interesting story. And he thought ours was pretty interesting too. He had already been travelling for 12 hours from his job in Africa, where he helps set up gold mining operations. He travels this particular CDG to YVR route every three months and when we told him of the holdup at Passport Control he smiled knowingly and asked how many agents were working. We told him and the lightbulb went on when he reminded us that the new law which raised the retirement age to 64 had just been enacted and French workers are showing their displeasure by working to rule. Bingo, now it all made sense, sort of.
Part 3: The YVR Saga
Being a daytime flight, neither of us slept much. This is often a 10+ hour flight to YVR but for some reason, today’s flight was a speedy one and we touched down at YVR in just 9 1/2 hours.
We flew through the automated customs kiosks (why they don’t use these at CDG is beyond me) and made our way to pick up the bikes from the luggage carousel. Our flight’s luggage started coming up the chute. Just minutes later, a gong show ensued as luggage from an Air China flight started showing up on our carousel. A YVR baggage supervisor made the dubious decision to remove the Air China bags from the carousel to keep them separate from ours. It reminded me of the Lucille Ball chocolate factory episode because the bags started coming fast and furious and the baggage handlers could not keep up. The Air China bags soon clogged the space between carousels, while the confused non-english speaking passengers came looking for their prized possessions.
After a half hour, we noticed there were still plenty of other Air France passengers waiting for their bags, so we kept hoping our bikes would arrive. But, when we noticed the same bags going past us time and again, we checked our airtags. Mine showed that my Bike Friday was at CDG, while David’s was in-communicado.
By this time, the reality that our bikes were not coming sank in so I headed to the luggage inquiries desk to report them missing. As soon as I filled in the form and handed it over to the agent, we gum-booted it to the taxi stand outside the Departures area. We had a ferry to catch.
Part 4: Island Bound
We were aiming for the 3pm sailing to Swartz Bay and needed to get to the Tsawassen Ferry Terminal in record time. Normally we would take the bus, but ride-hailing services have changed the world of travel so we pulled up the Uber app and hailed a ride. The Uber was there within 5 minutes. It really felt like an Amazing Race moment when we told the driver that we needed to catch the 3pm ferry, and it was already 2pm. In other words, hurry, hurry, hurry!
Being islanders, we have travelled between Vancouver and the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal ad nauseum over the decades and we have always taken Highway 99 to reach the ferry in the shortest time possible. But it appeared to be this driver’s first rodeo, because he flew past the Highway 99 turnoff and just kept on going. I thought, surely he will hang a right at the next street. Nope, and not the next one either. We had to be inside the ferry terminal by 2:40 to get on the ferry and at this pace, it was not looking good. Navigating city traffic and waiting at traffic lights was making me squirm in my seat. As soon as the Uber came to a stop at the ferry terminal, I leapt from the car and sprinted to the ticket booth. I had our ferry tickets in hand by 2:39:30. Once again, we made like gazelles and rushed through the long corridors to the waiting ferry. We were the last passengers to board.
Our good friends, John and Debbie, had offered to drive us home if we were on the 3pm ferry as they would be returning to the island too. We werent’t sure where they’d be, so were happy to see their smiling faces as we boarded the ferry. We had so much to catch up on that it was the fastest crossing either of us can recall.
Home Sweet Home
As we pulled up to the house, I could see our JR, Tashi, peering up the driveway. Leaving your beloved pet for five weeks is always tough so I’m not sure who was more excited, but she darted up the driveway to greet us. She even managed to land a few kisses, which is normally out of bounds. After a few roundy rounds and ball tosses, contentment set in and she assumed one of her favourite positions… the lap.
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