06h30 – A long day ahead, the first job was to catch the cats and get them into their travel baskets, not an easy tasks despite having done it many times. This all being done and the house secured* we were on the road by 09h00.
- * Some friends of ours who lived nearby had recently had all the copper pipe and brass fittings removed uncerimoniously from their house because of the high value of the scrap.
11h30 – Arrived at the cat hotel and all four cats, Sesame, Calico, Jéton and new girl Cressida, were let loose in their internally heated holiday home.
14h00 – Caught the direct train from Fleury les Aubrais (Orleans) to Paris Austerlitz. Very quick very smooth. Then we missed lunch and took the Metro/RER (RATP) to Aeroport Charles de Gaulle known as Roissy by the French.
17h30 – Well we were at the airport well ahead of time. Having printed out own check-in/boarding passes at home we sought to get our luggage through the system. We were to discover that this was called quick-drop or drop-in, anyway we choose to go to a desk and al went well. So luggage gone we wandered around and settled into a coffee shop. One never knows whether to go through to the departure lounge or not, some airports have more in the departure lounge than outside and some have very little. There is not much on the other side at Roissy. The coffee was awfull, made I think with UHT milk, very common in France.
19h30 – Up and away on time, thank goodness. We sat next to a Swedish woman on the plane Anna who worked for Alstrom and gave us some insights into our first trip to Stockholm together. Anna regularly travelled Stockholm – Paris.
22h30 – Arrived at Arlanda, Stockholm’s main airport. We knew we would be
Jumbo Jet Hostel. Click to enlarge.
arriving late and had taken the precaution of booling a hotel at the airport, we choose the Jumbo Jet Hostel. This is in fact a real Jumbo Jet, Boeing 747, that has been refurbished as a hotel/hostel, it calls itself a hostel and hotel comes from other providers. It was great, efficient check-in, clean room, very quiet and an acceptable if self-service from a fridge breakfast, with plenty of Swedish style coffee. We enjoyed the experience an ideal stopover for late/early arrivals/departures, just a short, free, 10 minute bus trip from the main airport bus station. Bus No 14.
