Roissey-Charles de Gaulle

From time to time we’ve had to stay at airport hotels. We’ve done it when we’ve had very early flights out in the morning and wanted to avoid getting up at 3M or 4AM for the drive and to allow for the time it now takes to get through most airport security lines. And we’ve also done it when our flight arrived late and we didn’t see the point of renting a car and driving the dark in an unfamiliar city or country.

Charm is not generally a word that would be associated with either airport hotels or surroundings and generally once checked in you’re not leaving the hotel until it’s time to leave for your flight.  

This is not the case at Roissey hotels. Most of the CD hotels with “airport hotel” in their name are in Roissey. This time our reason for staying at an airport hotel was that DH and I had arrived separately into Charles de Gaulle Airport. We met at a hotel in Roissey-Charles de Gaulle on Friday afternoon.

We walked through the Parc de l’Orangerie where we peered into the local bee hives and the cemetery and admired the Alex Labejof sculpture outside the Cultural Center. We stumbled upon an amazing open air photographic exhibit “Eternal Women Around the World” by Olivier Martel in the Town Hall Park.  We saw the vestiges of the southern portal of the original town castle and the walls of the stables which now mark the town walking trails. All together not bad for our first afternoon in France – and all while staying at an airport hotel.

We had our first taste of French food and wine and language and we were ready for an early start Saturday. Giverny was our first stop.