I am shocked to learn that it has been six years since I last posted on this blog. What have I been doing? Well, that's probably the subject for another blog (coming soon) but I would be remiss if I didn't share this recounting of my second escape from Europe (the first being when we left by boat for Canada in 1949).
March
23, 2020 -- This morning Axel and I were counting our blessings. What a saga it was fighting our way home,
leaving European countries that slammed the door behind us as we left.
Our
winter escape began in Sitges, Spain where we arrived from Montreal on February
17 and was to extend until March 27. Behind us we had left a front yard with an
accumulation of about four feet of snow and ahead lay four weeks looking at
palm trees, strolling along beaches and partaking of Carnavale set to begin
in three days’ time.
Sitges lays
claim to being among the 10 biggest carnivals in the world. The thronged
streets testified to the possibility that an estimated 250,000 people from all
over Europe and beyond had descended on this normally quiet seaside resort with
the intent to party. Hard. For most of the six days of carnival, we stood crushed
in dense crowds and watched superbly-orchestrated and colourful parades, then
jostled our way through the busy streets of the Old Town to the apartment we
had rented for four weeks.
On
March 3, we took a two-day trip up to Begur on the Costa Brava to visit an old
friend of Axel’s and there, partook of a Catalan kitchen party where some 40-50
people ate, drank, sang, threw their arms around us, and danced for hours on
end in a large farm kitchen. I won’t say
we were the youngest couple there but without a doubt, the percentage of folks
were over 75. I came back to Sitges with
a bad case of the flu but after two days of sheer terror imagining death in a
Spanish hospital, I was good. We were following the events in Italy’s struggle
with Covid-19 but that was happening over a thousand kilometers northeast.
We
planned to spend the last two weeks of our European trip with German friends
who have a home on Ile-de-Noirmoutier in the Pays-de-la-Loire. The isle is one
of those spits of land where when the tide comes in the road disappears, like
at Mont St-Michel, and the strip of land becomes an island. But about four days
before we left Sitges to fly via Vueling airlines from Barcelona to Nantes, our
friends called to say they were concerned with how quickly the virus was
spreading in Europe and had decided to go home a week early. That necessitated
us changing our flight. I was glad of that as we were scheduled to fly on
Lufthansa and that meant flying home would be from Nantes to Barcelona and from
there, to Montreal but via Munich. The thought of four flights in a row was beginning
to sound scary and foolhardy.
On Sunday,
March 8, a week before we headed to France, we had sauntered along Sitges’ Paseo
Maritimo. It was a beautiful, warm day and the seaside was chock-a-block with out-of-towners
and locals walking their dogs. (They all seem to have dogs, sometimes two or
three.) The restaurants and bars on Playa San Sebastien were packed with people
enjoying the sea, sun, snacks and drinks. By Wednesday, however, the grade school
down the block from our apartment, like all the schools in Spain, had been
shuttered. The streets were empty. All you heard were the sound of wheelies
filled with groceries being dragged over the pavement. All stores except for
markets, pharmacies and gas stations were closed. We tried reaching out to
Lufthansa but it was no go, either by phone or online. I thought about
panicking then calmed myself with the thought that if we got to Barcelona
airport early, we could change our booking directly. I was getting good at
delaying panic until it was really necessary.
Barcelona
Airport was filled to bursting with people determined to get out of Spain as
fast as possible. Almost every third person was African and I imagined many
were the hawkers of sneakers, bags, and belts found along the Mediterranean beaches,
all rushing home to safety. Everyone was on a cellphone. The anxiety was
infectious.
We went
to the counter and calmly explained what we wanted to do but the fellow serving
us was overworked or overwrought, and after 15 minutes gave up and called his
supervisor. Thankfully, the supervisor was calm and methodical and determined
but it still took him 45 minutes to find us a way home sooner rather than
later. First, he asked if we were prepared to leave immediately. After some
dithering (and a withering look aimed at Axel), we said yes. But there were no
flights to be had that day or any other until the following Friday and that
from Paris, so we said: book it and we’ll visit with our friends until Friday,
March 20. Apparently, all the Europeans who couldn’t fly directly to the US because
of Trump’s ban had booked flights to Canada from which they could legally enter.
We were
rebooked to fly Air France to Nantes and from there to Paris for an Air Canada
flight to Montreal. We were kind of glad because that gave us one more week and
two less flights. We hadn’t heard much about what was happening in France, so we
were fine with that. Besides we were going to an island with a population of
14,000. Pretty isolated. What could happen in a week?
Well,
first thing that happened was that Vueling lost my bag. Not to worry, they said, you can spend 50 €
per day until the bag is returned which maximum should take five days. Then I
heard that Spain had shut down and Barcelona airport was closed on the day we
left. So, no flights out of Barcelona…or
very, very few. Have you seen my bag? Neither have I. And all I managed to
spend was 100€, nothing more because, well, everything on the island was closed
as well.
The
village of Barbâtre on Ile-de-Noirmoutier is quaint, quiet and steeped in maritime
culture. There is a renowned seabird sanctuary and long stretches of mostly
bare beaches. There are no big hotels on the shoreline and no buildings higher
than three stories on the entire island but along the shore, oyster shacks
abound. Best of all, at this time of year, the beaches are deserted. We had a
couple of lovely, long walks and then, just like that, everything changed.
Like
Spain, France was also experiencing exponential growth in COVID-19 cases. The
decree came down for self-isolation and because there were no police on the
island, suddenly the French army appeared. If you were going to the grocery
store or even to walk your dog, you needed an Attestation, a piece of
paper identifying where you were living and why you were out. Each outing
required its own Attestation.
At this
point, we were checking our flights every few hours fearing that we might be
stranded. That’s how we learned that Air France had changed the time of the Nantes
flight to an hour later. That made it impossible to catch our Air Canada flight
at Charles de Gaulle. We thought we better rebook our flight for Thursday, the
only other way to make the Friday flight. As we were doing that, we learned
that the Friday flight had been cancelled, and that we were booked on the
Thursday evening flight. We found an airport hotel nearby with free shuttle
service. (This was our second booking because the first hotel we booked
immediately advised us that the free shuttle service had been cancelled.)
On
Wednesday, March 18, we learned that our friend could not drive us to Nantes,
so we booked a taxi (for 150€ more than the cost of the return air from Nantes
to Barcelona). But we had had a lovely five days, lots of sun and relaxation although
we were ready to depart Noirmoutier by Thursday afternoon. Our driver, a woman
named Paty, arrived almost two hours ahead of schedule because she had other
fares which didn’t matter because we had basically been ready for hours. We
headed to the airport but not before I Purelled the door handles, the head rest
and the seat I was sitting on.
And
then, Paty drove us to the train station in Nantes. When I protested that we
had ordered a car for the airport, she tried to convince me that I had said gare.
I insisted (a little loudly) that I had said aeroport which even with my
lousy French accent sounds nothing like gare. Finally, she conceded that
perhaps she had mixed me up with another client. She had six that day; three to
the hospital. I sani wiped down the whole door on my side and the space between
me and Axel again.
At Nantes
Atlantique airport, our footsteps echoed through the hallways; it was that
empty. The Air France ticket agent offered to check Axel’s bag through and he
was ready to do it when I suddenly imagined being back home with only hand
luggage after five weeks. We passed.
The
flight from Nantes to Paris was in a near empty Airbus and took less than an
hour. While we were in the airport, I received a text message from the CDG hotel
we had booked informing us that the shuttle returning us to the airport was now
going to charge 5€ per person. At this point, I no longer cared.
Our
airport hotel was one of those that’s so small you can hit at least two walls if
you turn around twice, the kind that provides only two towels and one bar of
soap. The worst of it was that the hotel restaurant was shut tighter than paper
on the wall and there were no vending machines to be found. I consoled myself that in the midst of a
plague, being hungry for 12 hours was not such a hardship. I awoke looking
forward to a nice breakfast at Charles de Gaulle before our departure but there
too, all the restaurants, all the shops, and all the duty free were closed.
Just as well, considering how much the taxi, hotel and shuttle had cost yet a
small price to escape safely home.
The
only food available was at a convenience shop, a Relay, where they had pre-packaged
sandwiches and — God bless the French — real coffee (multiple choices thereof)
from a machine.
Here's
the thing. From the time the shuttle dropped us at Terminal 2 and at the
opposite end of from the Air Canada gates, we moved through CDG like a hot
knife through butter. We arrived
at 10:15 AM and were checked in, had breakfast, went through security and were sitting
at the gate (about a half km from security) by 11 AM. Basically, we went
through everything from top to bottom in less than an hour — in one of the
world's busiest airports. 🤨
One last thing. The Air
Canada gates are at the tail end of CDG’s Terminal 2. Walking through the glassed-in passageway to
get to the gate, Axel stopped and said, “Look outside. What does that remind you of?”
Yikes!
