It’s been a lovely couple of weeks in Scotland. From the stone-ringed streets of Oban to the misty hills of the small isles, from the wild winds of Skye to the winding cobbles of Edinburgh – we only wish we had more time.
But if there’s anything that can soften the blow of leaving such a beautiful place, it’s the clarion call of the Arctic. Mountains, icebergs, and perhaps some of the more elusive wildlife – walrus, bowhead whales, and Arctic fox.
And dare we even hope for polar bears?
There’s little time for hoping on travel days, particularly leaving an Airbnb. Our Edinburgh townhouse does not have particularly stringent rules about outclearance, except that towels should be piled in the shower and garbage should be taken out. This is simple, but simple is not always easy – as I find as the flimsy garbage bag gives out while I am attempting to remove it from the bin. Nor are there any extra bags to be used as replacements.
Inspiration strikes, and I use one of the recycling bags to dispose of that disaster – and replace the recycling bag with a small kitchen garbage bag instead. Will that be enough? I guess I’ll find out when I get my review from our host.
We manage to pack up and huff the bags down from the upper floors in time for our pre-booked UberXL to take us to the airport:
It’s a tighter fit than last time, but we manage
30 minutes to EDI, and then bedlam as we walk inside. There’s a school group on our flight, and they have taken over the SkyService Premium line – so we’re moved to the next line instead. We could have used the automated bag tagging system, but I’m not sure it would have spat out ‘Priority’ or ‘Heavy’ tags, and we don’t want to risk losing our luggage this late in the game.
Our move proves prescient as the system does not have our overweight baggage allowance factored in, and so the agent needs to override that before our bags could be loaded. That alone saves us something like 80 GBP between the two bags.
We drop our bags on the conveyor belt and head through security. Our Air France business class includes a security FastTrack – which still isn’t terribly zippy, but much faster than the alternative.
From here we’re able to use the Aspire lounge:
Photo Credits: Aspire Lounges – EDI Website
We initially have some trouble finding seats together, but then a large group clears off and we’re able to find a nice spot for all four of us. Like many lounges, they have started an advance reservation system so we would use that next time – many of the tables we did spot are empty but reserved.
They have a surprisingly decent breakfast spread:
Including one of the best sausages I’ve ever had – full stop.
They also have pizzas available to order, which we purchase so that the kids have a guaranteed lunch they’ll enjoy. The pizza arrives with peppers, but those are easily removed. It’s otherwise a tasty pizza with a light, fluffy crust.
Time marches on, and it’s soon time to head to the gate. The student group boards first, and we follow soon after.
The flight follows the standard European business class model in which each seat has an empty seat next to it. While I prefer a larger business class seat, this makes it easy to spread out and to have my lunch out while also working on my laptop.
Just before departure, my wife notices some of the heavier bags being sent back to the terminal due to lack of room aboard the plane. Glad we had our ‘Priority’ tags! No idea how we’d get our bags to Svalbard if they were delayed enroute.
Farwell, Scotland:
Speaking of lunch:
Air France does it right. Very tasty, particularly when paired with a bottomless glass of champagne. (Though I get no refills – I want to have my wits about me once we land.)
It’s a short flight. We’re in the air for perhaps 90 minutes before we start our descent.
Bonjour, Paris!
If you can spot the Eiffel tower in the background, you do not nead reading glasses
Again, our USD$80 has the added benefit of being first off the plane and early access to immigration – or at least it would, if we weren’t travelling with a child under 12. Still, we’re through immigration shortly before our Priority-tagged bags hit the conveyor belt.
So, was the business class upgrade worth it? Absolutely – premium access to check-in, security, extra baggage allowance, more room in flight, and a faster time clearing the airport are all huge benefits.
Now – with baggage in hand – we need to find out how to reach the Radisson Blu. We’d hoped it would be less than a hundred metres away – but in reality it’s more than a kilometre, much too far to walk over uneven sidewalks and cobblestones. (I realize that cobblestones give new builds that European feel, but they are a huge nuisance when trying to haul your bags from one place to another.)
A quick search indicates that we’ll need to take the CDGVAL train to Terminal 3. Confusingly, there are both signs for trains and for Terminal 3 – and we decide to follow the Terminal 3 signs instead. This leads us through a labyrinthine warren of hallways and escalators that eventually deposits us in front of the train, which itself is both busy and surprisingly twisty. There are repeated warnings to watch for pickpockets, though we fortunately do not run into any issues.
We disembark at Terminal 3, and then it’s just a short haul across the cobbles to the Radisson Blu. There’s a definite sense of temperature shock – we left the low 20s of Edinburgh for the 30s of Paris – but the journey is short enough for it to not particularly matter.
We arrivate at Radisson Blu at roughly 3:30 pm to mixed news – our first room is ready, and the second room is next to it. However, that second room won’t be ready for at least 30 minutes. They could give us another room but it would be further away. We opt to stick with the closer second room.
I ask about the second uncancellable reservation that we initially made when the hotel was still the Pullman, and they say that – if it was pay on arrival – we don’t need to worry about it.
For those looking for activities near Charles de Gaule airport – but who don’t want to make the full trip to Paris – the Château de Chantilly estate was highly recommended by Ponant Photo Ambassador Cindy Miller Hopkins. We’d love to try that at some point but there’s no time today – we just want to get in and get rested.
Up to the room to relax and unwind for a bit, and to debate our options for dinner. Their main restaurant doesn’t open til 7 pm, but we have a 4 am wake-up tomorrow so we’d rather get to sleep sooner if possible. Initially it looks like room service may be our only option, but then I swing by the bar area and see that they have burgers and steaks on their menu. That’ll do.
We also take some time to loadmaster our bags. Our hard sided suitcases were 5 kilos and 1 kilos overweight respectively, but we’re able to shuffle enough into the duffle bags to make up the difference.
We then head down to the bar for dinner. My wife and I start with frozen Aperol spritzes:
Then three of us opt for the hanger steak:
While our son has the burger (not pictured).
It’s pretty good, though expensive at 32 Euro for the steak. It’s also not quite the a point (rare) that we ordered, but it’s still tender and the peppercorn sauce is fabulous.
We’d tried to inquire about the second room a few times – and it took nearly 90 minutes after our arrival before it was ready. Still, not a big deal in the grand scheme of it all. Our two rooms are in a separate locked-off hallways so we need to get one of the keys recoded to open that as well, but then we’re finally in and settled.
The rooms are stylish, clean, and perfect serviceable:
With dinner behind us, the kids head off to bed while I go out for a forage. I try (unsuccessfully) to use AI to help me find somewhere to buy a bottle of wine – many of the convenience stores at the airport have addresses that seem to resolve to somewhere nearby, but are actually located elsewhere. I give up after the third attempt.
I do, however, manage to figure out a path from our hotel to Terminal 3. The road layout is not intuitive, and the route I thought would work best instead led me to a rabbit’s warren of incomplete sidewalks – which I definitely do not want to see at 4 am with 40 kilos of luggage in hand.
Back to the hotel, where I opt for a simple pint of Gallia from the hotel bar (for a whopping 13 Euro), finish up the day’s post, then head off to bed – perchance to get some semblance of sleep before we’ll all be suddenly woken at the ungodly hour of 4 am.