It may only be 6:23 (!) to go from Mon­tréal to Paris, but the total trip was closer to 24 hours.

We left Ottawa Sat­ur­day after­noon and took the Grey­hound to Mon­tréal. The bus was almost empty and we were at the air­port around 7 pm. A quick lunch/dinner later, we started queu­ing for check-in, which took over 1:30. Another line-up for secu­rity and we boarded the plane just before mid­night. I fell asleep as soon as I sat down and only woke up when we were fly­ing over the U.K.

Once in Roissy, we lined-up again for pass­port con­trol — since I wanted to enter France as a Cana­dian, I was in the “for­eign pass­ports” sec­tion which I found hilar­i­ous. As Feng pointed out, pass­port con­trol in France is a bit of a joke: the immi­gra­tion offi­cer was just tak­ing pass­ports, glanc­ing at their owner and stamp­ing them. So much for machine-readable pass­port — there wasn’t even a com­puter at the immi­gra­tion desk! The pass­port were nor swiped nor checked more thor­oughly and no ques­tion was asked. Suits me, but com­pared to enter­ing Canada or the U.S.A, it is def­i­nitely a joke.

We missed the first train to Nantes because we had to wait for our checked-in lug­gage and they took for­ever to come. By the time we exited Ter­mi­nal 3 and walked to Roissy’s train sta­tion, it was well past 2 pm on Sunday.

The train sta­tion hadn’t changed: still only a cou­ple of booths open for a huge line-up of tired trav­el­ers. Train tick­ets’ priced raised a lot too but we didn’t really have the choice and couldn’t wait until low peak period (the fol­low­ing Wednes­day!) to travel. We boarded the train and feel asleep again.

Three hours later, we finally reached Nantes.

Grey­hound Bus Sta­tion in Ottawa

Above France

Roissy Charles de Gaulle

Roissy SNCF Station

Does he really suck? (first thing you see in Roissy)	First thing in Paris: Ham and Cheese Sandwich!
Yep, French Still Smoke Anywhere	Roissy
Wait­ing for the Train	Roissy Train Station
Roissy is Falling Apart…	In the Train

Last Sta­tion Before Nantes

Related arti­cles:

1. The Lon­don Eye
2. Ottawa By Night
3. Our South­ern Neighbours
4. Bor­der Cross­ing — Panamá To Costa Rica
5. Prince of Wales Bridge