I was holidaying around a 45 minute drive away from Fontainebleau in July, just before being informed that INSEAD wanted to interview me. I chose not to go, atleast not until I was accepted.
Come September, and I suddenly regretted it. It was time to look for housing (everyone else said that housing was going fast) and I just couldn’t find the right thing online. I am going with my wife, so just picking out a bachelor pad on the Internet wouldn’t have been smart. I flew with Pranjul (wifey dearest) for 2 days and got my housing sorted out. Also got a feel of the town. I think I’ll just put down some helpful points /advise for other people in a similar scenario as mine:
Getting to Fontainebleau etc:
- Charles de Gaulle lives up to its image of being a bad airport. Bus travels take time, often terminals are far away, directions are confusing. But its not so bad since the airport personnel are surprisingly helpful!
- There are a host of rental car options at the airport, most notably Sixt, Hertz, Europcar, Budget and Avis. Be careful as renting cars with automatic transmissions is significantly more expensive (than it should be).
- If you are relying on your GPS navigator to take you to Fontainebleau, please use your common sense in addition to the directions. My rental car’s GPS (BMW) gave me some unusual directions with regard to U-Turns and roundabouts.
- The drive from CDG to Fontainebleau takes almost an hour. You will approach Fontainebleau suddenly. We were driving in the thick of a forest when I looked at the GPS and told Pranjul “We should be there in less than a minute”).
- The hotel closest to the INSEAD campus is the Mercure, although it happens to be on a road (rue Royale) that initially seems to be shut at both ends! Don’t trust GPS here, go by common sense. There were other hotels (Hotel des Londres etc..) but being new to the place, I decided to choose a hotel with a known brand (Mercure is part of Accor hotels). It was a good choice, I think.
- Look up the parking areas on the INSEAD campus map BEFORE driving there.
- If you take the train ride to the Avon-Fontainebleau station, be aware that Gare de Lyon is as confusing, if not more, as Charles de Gaulle. The trains are not very full, but not exactly very well maintained. On a train ride to Avon-Fontainebleau from Paris around 10 pm, we could hear a lot of drunk “rowdies”.
Looking for housing:
- Robyn Schmitt of City-Junction.com was EXTREMELY helpful, although the apartments she had available for us were rather limited. The 1st one we saw was in a building that looked to crumble any moment and the second was too small to fit my left leg in.
- Office Le’ Immobilier is surprisingly good too, except be prepared for a little bit of a wait. They helped me find an apartment in a LOVELY building right opposite the Chateau. Unfortunately, I could only see pictures of the interior.. but comparing with other buildings/apartments, I’m sure I have a decent place. I think now that it was a good decision to go to Fontainebleau, instead of finding a place on the Internet.
- Don’t worry too much about distances. Fontainebleau is a lot smaller than it looks on a map. The distance from the Chateau to INSEAD is about 8-10 mins at a brisk walk. I don’t know the situation in the winter, I’m afraid. I intend to primarily walk to class, even though I will take a car.
- Try and find an apartment with parking.. as street parking is a NIGHTMARE. You have the parking lots available, but they will be prohibitively expensive for regular (home) parking.
- Real estate rates are as high as in Paris.. be aware that you will get what you pay for.
Fontainebleau:
- The first thing that hit me about Fontainebleau… no Pizza Hut, no Subway, no McDonalds.. not in sight atleast. The lack of American fast food joints has its benefits in that you have a better (and healthier!) lifestyle. The downside is the larger picture.. everything is new, and the learning curve is high.
- Vegetarian food in restaurants is a bit of a problem (atleast for me it is).
- Carrefour is 14 km away (10 mins by car) in a nice commercial centre (i.e. mall), which also unfortunately has only a few of the “big” brands one would normally expect.
- I found suprisingly few grocery stores in the town centre (the kind you have at every corner of the U.K. selling bread, milk etc).
- Everything in the city seems to be centered around the area near the Chateau, whether it is restaurants, shops, supermarkets or pubs. I may be mistaken as I was there for only 2 days, but it seemed so.
- The city and the surroundings are pretty, but not in the Switzerland kind of way. I was a little dissapointed actually at not being overwhelmed by the natural beauty or the town’s architecture.
- The roads in town are NARROW, usually just one lane each way. I think I’ll take a small car, rather than the SUV I was thinking about.
INSEAD Campus:
- I wanted to take a proper tour of the campus.. but I couldn’t find anyone at the MBA reception desk (lunch hours are unusually long in Fontainebleau!). However, I took a walk anyways.
- Its a rather sedate looking campus, seems smaller on the map, but bigger in practice. The buildings are well maintained however and the facilities seem top class.
- I saw lots of students sitting and having their lunch in the open sunshine, and many women (partners?) chatting away in the late afternoon, some with their kids.
- Footnote is a lot smaller than their website would make you feel!
- Wi-Fi access seems to be all across (although I couldn’t connect). The UMTS signal was also spotty, as was the EDGE signal.
Hmm.. I don’t know what else to say about the visit.. Leave your messages in the comments, and maybe I can fill the gaps!
