I’m not going to lie. One aspect of our trip to follow the Tour de France that I’ve been looking forward to is that we are traveling Business Class! This is a first in Trans-Atlantic travel for us, and is a treat!

Now before you turn hater on me, keep in mind that we’re just your common everyday traveler like most of you. Just as you probably do, we hoard our frequent flyer miles until we have a trip long enough to warrant giving them up. Fortunately for us, when we purchased our tickets for this trip, American Express Business Travel was having a BOGO sale on their Business Class tickets. A definite high five goes to the travel agent that pointed out that by taking advantage of the sale we could add a touch of luxury to our trip for slightly more money.

Boy am I glad that “membership has its privileges”! From the chilled glasses of bubbly handed around as everyone boarded to the clean bathrooms to the really good fare, the flight was over before we knew it. And here we sit in a warm Frankfurt airport awaiting our connecting flight to Lyon.

As I said, traveling Business Class is a treat! And I’m quite certain that Duane and my giggles and wonderment at everything came across as VERY neuvo-riche to those around us who were accustomed to traveling on their company’s dime.

We were delighted to find that our seats not only would lay flat, they had enough bells and whistles that we were presented a quick reference guide so we could figure out how to adjust the seat to the just right position and turn on the chair massage.

I must say the chair was pretty cool. But it was the food that stood out. We never wanted for food or drink! In fact, we had our own personal wine tasting of all the six wines they had on the cart before deciding which one we wanted. We couldn’t help but think back to our flight home from me running the Lisbon Marathon in which an American Airlines flight attendant crankily told me that if I wanted an extra glass of water that I should have brought my own!

Our meal was served in three relaxed courses; being given time to enjoy and savor each course. Yes, you read that correctly. The food was of a quality that allowed us to savor our meal.

As is our custom, Duane and I chose different options and had our contest to see who made the better choice. Duane chose the better salad course with his scallop and ham salad served over a green pea puree.

I figured that his would be the better, but the tomato and fresh mozzerella salad with a pine nut dressing was an intriguing twist on the traditional caprese salad.

For the main course, Duane had salmon with forbidden rice and I had beef with mashed potatoes and snow peas. Duane’s rice was delicious and more exotic, but the tenderness of the beef and the gravy edged Duane’s entree out in the end.

When we were less than 45 minutes from landing and they began serving us breakfast, I was astounded with the relaxed approach to the service. You’d think that we had all day. Our egg omlette with mushroom gravy was a good start to the day. The only thing missing was the yummy pretzel bread that we had discovered the with dinner service.