September 13, 2022. Welcome to Europe! After a few weeks in Southern Africa, I flew Kenya Airways via Nairobi with a stopover in Paris. I was looking forward to public transit, museums, gorgeous churches, and lots of food. At the same time, I wish I’d spent a little more time in Africa. The great migration, where thousands of zebras move together, is suppose to be happening now in the Masai Mara. Just another reason to return!

As a reminder, the goals of this trip are to visit new places and use mileage programs. Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe isn’t a popular airport and therefore flights are very expensive. Even though I didn’t care which European city I flew into, the prices were 700-1200 for a one way economy ticket. I refused to pay that. Time to explore my rewards programs and see how to make it cheaper. Kenya Airways is connected with Air France/ KLM which is a Chase partner. I have the chase sapphire reserve credit card so it was easy to move points.I picked the Air France/ Kenya Airways flights because I could fly business class for 50k miles or the equivalent of $750 in the chase travel portal. Much nicer and cheaper than booking an economy ticket with cash.

When flying to Europe, the price was the same to fly to Paris or to continue on to another city. I had my heart set on Italy but decided to schedule a long layover and spend a day in Paris.

I’ve never explored Paris before so I was excited to take the train into the city and wander around during my 12 hour layover. Thankful, I’d slept 5hrs on my overnight flight from Nairobi to Paris (lay flat seats really help!). CDG is a very large airport which meant they had the amenities I wanted ( luggage storage, train to city, lounge with shower facilities) but also made it a bit hard to navigate.

It took me longer to leave the airport than I planned because my phone got stuck in the airplane seat and I had to get engineering to remove it, and then I waited at baggage claim for 30 minutes before remembering by bag was checked through to my final destination. Oops! Immigration and customs were quick and I finally started following signs for bag storage and trains. Thankfully, they were near each other. I decided to store my daypack since I didn’t want to carry it all around Paris. It cost about €10 which I decided was worth not having to carry it all day.

There were tons of airport workers directing and assisting tourists with buying tickets for the train into the city. The train takes 40-60 minutes and cost €10.20 one way. It is a commuter train and mine had a few delays but I made it into Paris by 1030.

First stop was a coffee and a second breakfast in a Parisian cafe. Breakfast was delicious and gave me time to plan my route. It also started pouring so I spent an hour or so at the cafe watching people run for cover.

My plan was to meander through the streets and generally follow the river from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. I got turned around a few times and enjoyed just strolling around. Somehow I ended up in the university district and I enjoyed seeing so many young people out.

After a Nutella crepe under the Eiffel Tower, I headed back to the airport. The first metro line I tried was under construction but I was able to transfer to another. After a few transfers, I make it to the main train station and I caught the train back to CDG airport. My flight didn’t leave until 8:30pm but I arrived back at the airport around 4pm. I wanted to give myself lots of time plus since I was flying business classes, I had access to the Air France lounge.

Air France is a nice airline and they put a lot of effort into their home airport lounge. I took a refreshing shower, ate tons of French food, watched the chefs give a presentation, and wrote a blog post. Way too soon it was time to head to the gate for my flight to Napoli.

This was just a taste of Paris. One day I’ll go back and visit the museum and more churches. But now it’s time for Italy!