Journey from Oran, Algeria to Lyon, France

The flight from Oran, Algeria to Lyon, France took about two and half hours. We reached around 21:00. Once we reached Lyon, we thought immigration will take atleasst an hour (thats how it is in India and Algeria :(. Here in France, no need to fill any forms also. The officer scans your visa in  the system and then he stamps in your passport. We were done with immigration in 5 mins. There are 2 options to reach from the airport to the Lyon city: Rhoneexpress and Satobus. We took the rhoneexpress (mini tram) to the city... If you have surfed all the info before and noted them down in your mini  notebook then there is no way you can get lost in this organized and planned city... There were sign boards in the airport with regard to directions to get to the satobus(8.5 Euro per adult) and rhone express (11 Euro per adult).. There is also information counter [i]where they are kind enough to provide you with the metro map, city guide, city map etc....

Inside the rhone express

When we were wating for the rhone express we saw a TGV (Super fast trains in France) pass through by... The first sight of a TGV just passing by you makes u think can a train really travel so fast? It leaves u bewildered. The rhoneexpress had comfortable seats :) We bought the ticket from the train master who was very friendly and he spoke good English which made us happy.... In France, most of the people in the service Industry do speak English apart from French :)

Chicken with yummy French fries :)

We got down from the tram, to see our hotel, Campanile, was just opposite the station.... We were so happy... We had dinner at the hotel restuarant which was really good... We were ready for the next day... Sight seeing in Lyon....

Planning a vacation to Western Europe!

A trip to France, Italy and Switzerland has been on the cards for quite sometime now... So we made the Schengen visa and now the planning had to start.... We planned the trip for the first two weeks of September... It took me almost the full of August to plan the entire trip out... We didn't want to go through a travel agent.... The vacation was a successful one, all went as per the schedule,  we were able to find the hotels and all the tourist places with the help of maps without much difficulty... I felt an air of satisfaction and pride when all fell in place :) MH (My hubby) was pretty impressed with my planning and organizing skills :)  Planning tools used were internet, Lonely planet's Western Europe guide book bought from Landmark, Madras... Endless hours I spent on surfing to find out which cities to visit, where to stay and what to do in each of these cities... Finally the itinerary was done... We flew from Oran, Algeria to Lyon, France... We used the Eurail pass to travel in train within Western Europe... I would recommend to plan your trip by yourself instead of going through a travel agent if your young at heart, want to be a little adventurous, have the time to plan and resources -fast internet and want to save some bucks :) The following posts will be on each of the cities we visited and some travel tips as well :)

My first post

The idea of starting a blog has been in my mind for more than a year now... I used to wonder what will I write in my blog and so on and so forth... Finally, I have realized that I have lot of stuff to pen down, so here goes my first post...A small introduction about myself.. I am an Indian woman living in Algeria with my husband... The main reason for starting this blog is to let my family and friends as to the happenings in my life here in Algeria... Living far away from my homeland, hope this blog helps me feel closer to my family and friends back home.... The people who have inspired me to start a blog is the muscat blogosphere :) Before moving to Algeria this February, I lived in Oman for a year :) My first few posts will be about our recent vacation to France, Italy and Switzerland :)