France & Italy 2021 {Day One~Paris}

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to pull off a trip to Paris and Italy, which thanks to COVID was no easy feat. To back up a bit... I told my Mom in late 2019, or maybe early 2020, that when she could see, I would take her wherever she wanted to go. She had her (delayed due to COVID) cornea transplant in May 2020, so this past March we booked a trip to Paris and Italy.

Then when Delta surged, we started sweating it. Things started to look up, and then Omicron struck. I will write a post at the end about traveling during COVID, but for now, just know that in the two weeks leading up to the trip it was A LOT to keep up with, and in many cases, requirements changed daily.

But one of the first signs that things wouldn't be going as planned was this past summer when our direct flight from DFW to Paris was cancelled. They rebooked us on a flight to Miami and then a flight from Miami to Paris. Later our flight home was changed as well (3 or 4 times actually).

Due to several of the changes, I had to go pick up Mom (and drop off Poppy) on December 11th. We had a 4:00 rapid COVID test scheduled so we could get to France (one of the changes that came the week of our trip). We got our negative test results and finished (or I started) packing up.

On Sunday December 12th, we left for Miami and then eventually made it to our flight to Paris....

We arrived in Paris on Monday, December 13th. There was an initial line to show our vax card and negative COVID tests (both required to enter France), but then we sailed right through Border Control. Unfortunately there was a giant traffic jam getting into Paris, so the trip took about 3x as long as normal.

We still arrived at our hotel way before check-in time. They said if we gave them about an hour they'd have the room ready, so we headed out to one of the pharmacies I had previously identified that conducted COVID testing. We got a COVID test (seriously the guy swabbed the back of my eyeball!) and I purchased some pharmacy items I like to buy in France. We had our negative results in about 15 minutes and that gave us our Pass Sanitaire (in the form of a QR code) that we had to show to get into all the restaurants, museums, etc. (also into Italy on the 15th). We walked around the Christmas market at the Tuileries for a bit.

Once our room was ready, we went back and put on warmer clothing, and for me my warm shoes (this was really the coldest day of the trip). We then headed to Musée de l'Orangerie. The main purpose of the visit to the Orangerie for us was Monet's water lilies...

The scale of the paintings is just mind blowing...

We then walked to Sainte Chapelle.

We walked by Notre Dame...

Then across from Notre Dame is my favorite Christmas Market in Paris at Square Viviani.

This is the cheese guy. The cheese guy made us a Raclette and Jambon on a baguette that we split since we still hadn't had lunch at this point (we were dumb. we should have each had one. it was awesome.)

We then got sucked into the Nougat booth. We tried several kinds and purchased Salted Caramel. He "gave us" a couple of other kinds. Truth is, I spent a stupid amount on Nougat because I had zero concept of the weights and whatnot, but it was very good! And he was very personable.

The last sight we walked to see that day was the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). It's all decked out at Christmas and definitely worth a look...

We finished up the day by having a Roasted Chicken dinner at Loup, and then walking back to the hotel.

This trip, I chose a great hotel with a fantastic location. I didn't get a pic of the outside, so I borrowed this one from trip advisor. We stayed at Le Relais Saint-Honore (Trip advisor rates it as #94 of 1,868 hotels in Paris). It's a very small hotel and they greet you by name when you come and go.

I also borrowed this pic because this was our room. I have pics below, but the day I took the pics was very overcast and my pics didn't do this pretty room justice...