It’s been almost a full week since we got back from Paris. I had just enough time on Monday to get all my pictures downloaded and organized so I could remember where everything was, and then had to get through a work week before I could start formatting.
This was our first real vacation since Covid. First time out of the country since 2019, and first time off the continent since 2018. I feel like I had to learn how to vacation again.
I’ve been wanting to get back to Paris since my sister and I brought my mother, ten years ago. (How that’s been a full ten years ago boggles my mind.) We were only there for three nights, and I had found so many cool things to do. When BF and I do a big trip, we try to anchor it around an event that we would not get to do around here. We’d been through several different ideas this winter, when I stumbled across Peter Gabriel’s European tour. The date in Paris was great. And so this trip was born.
We had great weather. We had a lot of great food, and saw a lot of cool things. I still have a bunch of things I’d like to tick off the list, so we’ll probably be back.
This entry’s pictures are from our forced march first day. We flew through Iceland, which had the advantage and disadvantage of getting us into town when our room should have been ready. Except the person with our room had elected a late check out, so we had to kill another two hours. Hence, the forced march. We stayed at the Holiday Inn near Gare de l’Est, which is near the Canal Saint-Martin. That was a great first day walk. We came back by way of the Place de la Republique.
The wait was worth it – we’d opted for the king suite. Here in the States, the “suite” means they stuck a couch bed into the room. The pictures online didn’t lead us to believe that it was anything other than that, but we actually did get two full rooms. And they were not tiny, like some of the European hotel rooms I’ve gotten. They were very Parisian sized, but definitely comfortable for the week we were there. (And their king size bed is smaller than our king size bed, but not terribly so. We slept quite well while we where there.)