I've been meaning to write a series of posts about our wonderful trip to France in September. As always happens, I got caught up in other things, but will try to post this day by day account as time allow.
I need to start with Day Zero. We booked Air France from Philadelphia (instead of Harrisburg) and decided to drive to PHL (about 90 or 100 minutes) rather than take a commuter flight. This was decided based on the time of layovers at PHL, especially the return. When I fly out of Philly, I always use a satellite parking rather than the on site. It's much cheaper (about 50%) and you're picked up at your car and discharged directly at the door to the ticket counter. It sure beats lugging you baggage to a waiting kiosk in a parking lot. We almost always use Colonial Parking in Essington, about 3 miles from the airport - open 24hours, continuous service and pickup and drop off directly at your vehicle. Those folks are wonderful.
Terminal A at PHL is the international terminal, although one section is used for domestic flights. Anyone who flys US Air through PHL knows B and C as crowded, difficult to move through and full of carts selling everything under the sun. Terminal A is like a breath of fresh air. Plenty of seating and walking space, clean well stocked shops & eateries and clean rest rooms.
Air France has one gate at PHL. Their ticketing area was very efficient and fast, the security lines were short and we were quickly at the gate. Since Air France did not fly the Sunday version of this flight the day before (cancelled in early August, due to slow bookings) our flight on an Airbus 340 was pretty full. There was even a team of professional bicyclists on board returning to France from a competition. And British Airways, which is next to AF at Philly, had the British Walker Cup team which had participated in the Walker Cup in the Philadelphia area the day before.
Boarding was chaotic as all plane trips are these days. I've never figured out why travelers have to bunch up around the entrance. It's not like getting on a street car. It's not leaving until you get seated. And it's not like "rush seating". And boarding passes were checked 3 times between the terminal and the plane. But we did push back on time and take off.
Flight is about six and a half hours. Fortunately I was able to sleep through about four hours and woke up about an hour before landing in Paris. The cabin crews on both Air France flights were excellent. They all spoke English and were friendly and efficient at the same time.
We landed at CDG a few minutes early. And our wonderful vacation begins. | 
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