Originally Posted by Mike Jacoubowsky

The most-important thing, which I now know, is that BRU bears no similarity to either CDG or LHR- airports that are kinda fun once you know you're way around, but a potential nightmare for the first-timer.

My son and I will be taking the train from Grenoble into Paris (we're following the Tour de France, with our bikes, of course!) and the plan had been to spend an evening in Paris either Saturday or Sunday, but right now it looks like we're better off spending Saturday night in Grenoble (so we can get a shower after a long day on bikes) and take one of the morning trains into Paris. We'd then head with our luggage to Paris Nord, where I understand there is a luggage facility, ditch the bags, watch the 'Tour finish, then take the 9pm train to Brussel.

From what you're saying, we'd be better off staying at an airport hotel? Are there hotels more-or-less directly connected to the airport? The original plan had been to stay at the Ibis Midi which is directly across from the train station, which I figured would be a relatively-safe situation.

Thanks, appreciate all the help, and thanks to the mod for moving this to the right place. I'm not quite sure of the etiquette in terms of resurrecting old threads.