After much deliberation and consideration, Dan and I decided to embark on a 3 week bucket-list adventure across 6 cities in France and Italy. Rather than join a tour, we did all the planning and logistics ourselves – the planning process itself extended over a four-month window of time. After months of preparations, the trip itself seemed to fly!
Since Dan was already retired when we started the planning process, he took on the challenge of booking transportation and accommodations. For my part, I researched and booked various activities and day trips. As part of our research, we picked the brains of friends that are seasoned travelers and avidly read Rick Steve’s travel guides.
We were particularly excited about staying in a lovely apartment in the ‘old’ part of Paris, just across the river from Notre Dame. However, the owner of that Airbnb cancelled just three days before our trip due to unspecified electricity issues in the apartment. That was a major bummer, and caused us to scramble for what we could find at the last minute. C’est la Vie!
The departure day finally arrived! We flew from Chicago to Paris and eventually connected with our gregarious driver, Steven; who immediately got into a fender bender in the pick up area at the airport! The traffic in Paris was insane.
We arrived midday on a sunny day, which turned out to be the nicest day weather-wise of our time in Paris. We strolled the Ile de Citie, featuring Notre Dame (remodeling well underway from the fire), and had our first Parisian meal; a very tasty charcuterie plate and some really nasty shrimp toast. We were weary from our travels and enjoyed simply sitting at our sidewalk table while soaking in the vibrant Parisian scene. 
We cancelled our walking tour for the next morning due to the forecast of torrential rain—that also allowed us extra time to recover from our jet lag. We had checked the forecast before leaving and had packed for rainy and chilly weather.
On Thursday evening the rain eventually letup and we had a tres romantique dinner cruise down the Seine. In a magical moment, the Eiffel tower was alight and twinkling as we cruised past it.
The night of our cruise was also the evening that France beat Namibia 92-0 in a world rugby match. Although the match did not take place in Paris, there was a huge viewing area / arena near our cruise dock that was completely jammed with loud and rowdy rugby fans. There was very tight security in the whole area (our bags were searched). The rugby match finished at the same time as our cruise, which resulted in some crowded and rowdy metro and bus rides ‘home’!
In a theme for our Paris stay, public transportation was not as reliable as expected due to a variety of factors… so our well researched plans for how to get from point A to Point B were quickly scuttled and we relied heavily on a couple of apps to connect us with real-time public transportation options—with reasonable success.
The Louvre is massive and takes up several city blocks. We visited the outside plaza with the pyramid (see pic below) but on the recommendation of our friends, we skipped going inside the Louvre, and instead spent a day at the Musee D’Orsay… which was marvelous. I particularly enjoyed the Van Gogh and Degas exhibits. That evening we went to a comedy club… although the most comedic part about the evening was our vain attempts to take a bus there, finally resorting to a cab.
Friday, we took a full-day bus tour to the Normandy area, visiting both Utah and Omaha beaches, related museums, and the American Cemetery. Our guide was extremely informative and took excellent care of our full bus of tourists. One of our stops was at an apple orchard for a ‘cider’ tasting with various degrees of alcohol content up to ‘paint-peeling’. One of the tourists in our group accidently spit out her mouthful of cider into a vat of fermenting plums and got chewed out by our owner/server, who was rightfully appalled. The American Cemetery was particularly moving–full of young men, boys really.
We visited the Eiffel tower (Tour Eifel) twice. Friday evening we went to the busy plaza across the river from the Tower, which was packed with people and vendors. We got several nice pictures of the water fountains and the Tower all lit up—it was an incredible vibe. Unfortunately, I was weary from our long day in Normandy and got a little freaked out by the noisy crowd, so we didn’t stay very long.
During our last full day in Paris, we did an ‘official’ tour of the Eiffel tower, visiting all the levels. Being ‘in’ the Eiffel tower was interesting, but honestly wasn’t as magical as viewing it at night from the river. We also visit the Arc D’Triumph and walked along the Champs D’Elysee. Another high-step count day!
The food and wine in Paris was incredible. A highlight was an AMAZING Beef Bourguignon (burgundy); it melted in my mouth and was the best meal I had on the whole trip – a very high bar indeed! Overall, I particularly loved the cheeses in Paris, and we both enjoyed the excellent coffee and wine. Although I adore croissants, I started to get tired of all the bread-SO MUCH BREAD! At one memorable breakfast, we may have had a misunderstanding with our waiter, and he just kept bringing us more and more bread of different varieties!
On Monday we boarded a high-speed train to Nice. Au Revoir Paree!
See the links below to read about the other 5 cities we visited on our Great European Adventure!