Fly into London or Paris
 

My wife and I are planning to spend 5 days in Paris and 5 days in London this fall. Does anyone have an suggestions about which one to fly into and which to fly out of? We pack light but tend to pick up things as we go, I just can't pass up the wine in France :)

Assuming you are taking the train through the chunnel between the cities it is pretty much a toss up. You may want to google up some of the sites that show activities in the two cities to see if you would prefer to be in one or the other on specific dates.

A few years ago we went to London at Christmas but headed to Paris for Christmas and Boxing day since London pretty much closes down during that time.

Taxes are more expensive to fly into London, but I like the British carriers better than American ones (and the fact that Virgin/BA fly straight from Orlando to Gatwick).

Given the chaos at CDG I would fly INTO it and out of London.

I didn't find any chaos at CDG a few weeks ago, in or out. (I'm not quite sure where I'd find chaos there)!

Carry-on baggage allowances are slightly less restrictive from Paris than from London, intercontinental departure tax from London is significantly higher than from those European countries than make a lot of fuss about global warming but won't dare put their prices up to discourage air travel in case anyone actually listens to them (though that matters only if the base fare from Paris matches London's) and you're more likely to want to shop in Paris than in London. Unless you like books.

So - if and only if the Abroad-London-Paris-Abroad routing is actually as cheap as the Abroad-Paris-London-Abroad one - London first, then Paris.

BUT the two cities have very different seasonalities. So check both the plane fare and the best hotel deal you can get before assuming one rouye really is cheaper than the other.

Taxes into London ARE NOT higher than taxes into Paris. They're normally identical.

I actually like shopping in London more, they have better (or at least more varied) grocery stores. :)

"I didn't find any chaos at CDG a few weeks ago, in or out. (I'm not quite sure where I'd find chaos there)!"

That's good to know because we are flying INTO CDG in a few weeks.


But where were you when all those "CDG is the worst airport in the universe" posts were on here?

The carry-on restrictions alone would have me flying out of CDG rather than LHR. If you don't travel with much in-cabin baggage, then it wouldn't matter as much, but I usually travel with quite a bit of camera gear.

"I actually like shopping in London more, they have better (or at least more varied) grocery stores"

Look, I'm an British ex-grocer. But not even I would claim that. Indeed, the highpoint of most trips to France -ahead even of its restaurants or Romanesque churches - is stocking up the car with those tins of petits pois, whatever game's on the shelves there but not here, with veggies that taste of something and with fish probably caught in our waters by costing half what Waitrose will rip me off for.

True, I can't find too many Thai-style chicken and pesto tortilla wraps. Which is yet another thing to be said in favour of Mamouth, Champion, Leclerc, Carrefour, Auchan and Casino.

Thanks for the advice. I was leaning towards flying into London and out of Paris and I think I'll stick to it. As to the shopping either London or Paris is way ahead of Northern Alberta!

The UK government just slapped a carbon tax on departures. It adds £40 to the outrage we're already paying.

It's almost enough to get you to France via Eurostar.

>>Taxes into London ARE NOT higher than taxes into Paris. They're normally identical.<<


Maybe it was a Frequent Flier mile thing - but my flight going into London would have been appreciably more in taxes (by $100 or so) than my flight to France. That is why I flew there.

>>Look, I'm an British ex-grocer. But not even I would claim that.<<

I have not found any grocery stores in Paris to match the ones in London. That said, the Champion grocery store near Mont St. Michel (Brittany) was excellent.

Mostly I look for chocolates, biscuits, etc. etc. to bring back as gifts.

Unless there's something special on that must be done (or avoided) on a particular date the only factor that matter is the cost of the flights & the Eurostar between them.

Do the maths & whichever one works out cheaper book that

Of course if you give us the dates you are travelling that may help just in case there something specifically to see / avoid

Hm, do your dates coincide with the rugby world cup which is centred on Paris, 7 September to 20 October - www.rugbyticketshop.com/view_matches.aspx.

You might want to avoid travelling to or from Paris around the dates of the games there, especially in the later stages. Travel and accommodation are both likely to be scarce and expensive by now.

The high taxes for UK is for departing flights. So, an open jaw US-London, Paris-US has the <b>potential</b> to be cheaper than an open jaw US-Paris, London-US. That's all.

That also eliminates the one carry-on restriction for flying out of an UK airport.