Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris

When you arrive in Paris from overseas, you will most likely arrive in CDG or Charles de Gaulle airport, also known as Roissy. The other Paris airport is Orly which is used mostly for domestic and certain european and carribean flights.
If you fly Air France, Delta, Continental, Emirates and some other airlines you will use CDG Terminal 2. Other airlines such as Singapore, Malaysia, Olympic and Lufthansa use the older Terminal 1.

I will talk about terminal 1 which I find messier, dirtier, but at the same time has more charm compared to terminal 2.

CDG1 is now finally linked to the suburban train (called RER) via automated trains called CDGVal (the same automated train can be found in Orly airport, called , what else ? OrlyVal). This makes life a lot simpler and predictable than the old system of getting of the RER and wait for a shuttle bus that arrived unpredictably and not too often!

If you depart, be sure to find out in what hall you have to check in (assuming that you indeed depart from CDG1)..some halls are upstairs and others downstairs. Prepare for long snaking lines (my experience of flying to Asia especially, but also to the US). If flying to the US, prepare yourself for questioning first by airline personnel, x raying of all your baggage, and staying in line again to check in (I am talking about the experience of economy class pax as I always fly cheap!).

Once checked in, you should not really dither and wait til the last minute before going through passport control and to the gate. The passport control can be messy with long lines (if there are lines at all. Often just a disorganized crowd ), tons of passengers and, lo and behold, just 2 agents checking passports!

I find the most interesting aspect of CDG1 its architecture. Do you remember the tv series Lost in Space. Whenever I watch this series I got a feeling that this was a future that people at that time imagined it to be like (and how wrong they were). Well, CDG1 would give you the same impression. It probably was extremely futuristic at some point in the past, but not now. It does look a somewhat worse for wear Startrek ship now. Once you leave the check in area, you will go via glass tubes to reach the center of the round terminal building. It was like going into a film set from the past. The long glass tubes that criscross the atrium (that are at an angle, so not uncommon to see people grabbing holds of others or the side panels to stay up!) bring departing pax to passport control or arriving pax to bagagge claim area. After spending an eternity waiting for your passport to be checked, you will go through a long underground tunnel to get to the satelites where the gates and the jetways are. Indeed, the round main building is encircled by satelites that each has several jetways. Once in the satelite, prepare yourself for a long line for security check, and once in the boarding area for tight space and seats that come right out of the sixties or the seventies when people were not afraid to mix colors and patterns. But, the satelites with the big glass windows really are plane spotters' heaven as you can see many planes right up close and CDG1 does have the variety of airlines that make spotting well worth it.
Whenever I arrive from overseas at CDG1 I cringe thinking what tourists would think of it and what first impression they would have of France! Each time, we would be stuck in the corridor packed with people from several 777s and A340s waiting for passport control. Of course there would only be a few agents for the hundreds of pax. The lines were not marked either, so verbal fights might ensue when people inadvertently cut lines (Hard to tell the head, the middle or the tail of the queue as people arrive from different doors at different points). A mess!
Once your survived the queue for passport control, you will be treated to the spaceship feeling of CDG going to baggage claim via the angled tube with moving sidewalk. Try not to fall.

Arrived in baggage claim, there would be another madness. Take your time to go to the toilet and freshen up. Your bags will take forever to arrive. And no need fighting people for carts or to be next to the moving belts...In the end, everyone always walks out about the same time, that is, a long time after they landed.

Americans especially used to complain about smoking in Paris airports. People used to smoke in many places in the terminal including under the No Smoking signs (I myself used to do this. Hey, I have become French ok?). This is no more. Since February this year, all public buildings are non smoking. So if you are a smoker, go out after checking in and have your cigarette there. But leave enough time before boarding time to fight the crowd on your way to the plane.

Transport to the city
Once reunited with your bags you can either take a bus, a train or taxi to the city. There are also shuttle service that you reserve in advance. However, once, after spending 12 hours in the airplane and another 2 hours waiting for passport control and my bags, I rode all over Paris before being dropped off in my house. Yes, you might be the last one to be dropped off which means that you will have a free tour of Paris which could be a good thing if you were not tired, sleepy and feeling dirty (and cranky after the madness of CDG1).

If you take a taxi, be prepared to dish out up to 40 euros to go to the center of Paris. If you are connecting to a domestic flight from Orly airport, there is an Air France bus that connects the two airports though it cost money (This Air France bus is for all pax, not Air France pax only). Otherwise, if you are sensible enough not to have a huge suitcase to lug around, take the suburban train (RER) via CDGVal. Comfortable ride for a few euros (8 euros I think or a bit more) and it will take you right into Chatelet, or Gare du Nord or Luxembourg (station in Paris, not the country!).