After a short hop over from the UK, we’re currently hanging out in a departure lounge at Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting for our Air Madagascar connection to our next destination. We’ve got about three hours to wait before our next flight leaves, giving me plenty of time to peruse the concrete wonder that is France’s largest airport.

We left at about 715am from Brighton, and after an uncharacteristically smooth journey to Heathrow airport, we caught our first flight of the day. It was our first journey with BMI, and I was pleasantly surprised by the seating and legroom on this supposedly bargain-basement flight, taking on almost premium-class characteristics. The journey was barely an hour long, giving us virtually minutes to sip our drinks before landing in Paris.

This is the first stopping off point on the way to our final destination; there are no direct routes from the UK to Madagascar, so we’ll be taking a total of three flights to get to our final destination of Nosy Be. We should have a total travelling time of around 17 hours, interspersed by plenty of hanging in airport gift shops.