There has been labor unrest in the UK and France for months now. So far I’ve been very lucky and it hadn’t affected my plans. Well, until this week.
I had two more cemeteries to go in France. One along the Atlantic coast — Brittany American Cemetery — and one down south along the Mediterranean coast — Rhône American Cemetery. I was NW of Paris yesterday about to head west to Caen. Then the news came out that, there was going to be a rail strike in the 6th and that refinery strikes had closed 4 of France’s 6 refineries.
To get to Rhône I was going to fly from orly airport, south of Paris. My rental car had to be returned at Charles D. Airport, north of Paris on the 6th. This would have required getting from CDG to ORL by taxi, or maybe bus, on a day with, literally, 10s of thousands of others heading towards Paris.
Plus! The gasoline shortage was mostly hitting around Paris and the west coast and south coast.
I risked being stuck somewhere out west unable to find gas with a car that I couldn’t just leave at any SIXT agency, or, sitting at CDG unable to get to ORL for my flight on the 7th to Nice (Rhône).
Gotta be flexible.
Canned my two remaining hotel reservations out west and headed towards Paris. Spent the night at Chateau-Thierry, about an hour away from CDG. Fueled up there.
This morning I drove the last hour to CDG and dropped off the car. It was a good thing I added fuel the night before because the gas station I was going to top off at had no gas. Luckily, the fuel gauge still read full by the time I got to CDG, so maybe no fuel charges. Spent $25 for 1.5 hour train ride to ORL airport. Am now ensconced in an IBIS Budget hotel on the airport grounds. Got two nights here and if things are functioning again on Friday I fly to Nice and grab a rental car to go visit Rhône. Then the next day train to Milan, spend the night, then train to Florence to see the Florence American cemetery, then fly back to Paris.
My budget hotel, it’s clean and spartan, I’ll survive two nights:
Orly Airport from my “budget” room:
