Yesterday was our last day in Paris in the first stage of our French journey, so we spent it in a very… contemplative way: riding the Big Bus twice, making full use of the 24‑hour ticket. Let’s just say we had absolutely no desire left to tackle the metro stairs — where escalators seem to …
Continue reading A Moody Day in Paris: Between Notre‑Dame and the Seine
Yesterday’s schedule was an easy one for me and Anna, simply because I’m physically exhausted. I sleep very little, and the constant noise outside doesn’t help at all. I need to make a small parenthesis here: back home we wake up to the sound of mourning doves, otherwise it’s complete silence. We have no neighbors …
Continue reading Paris on Fast‑Forward: the cure for tired feet — a double‑decker bus
Our visit yesterday had the calm, gentle feeling of a well‑deserved vacation morning. We set off toward Château de Chantilly without any big expectations, but with that pleasant curiosity that follows you when you’re about to discover a new place. And honestly, from the very first moments I found myself wondering how on earth this …
Continue reading Chantilly: a Must‑See Destination Near Paris
Yesterday felt like a kind of D‑Day for us: we finally managed to escape the “ghetto” of the 20th arrondissement. We are saved, whole, and unharmed — though we’re left with a slight post‑traumatic twitch that makes us look obsessively in every direction when we walk down the street, just in case we step into… …
Continue reading Freed from the 20th Arrondissement, Arrived in Versailles: From Ghetto to Grandeur
Yesterday was a very difficult day and, honestly, a pretty strange one. We woke up, didn’t eat anything — I was already spiraling because I couldn’t find anything that resembled a healthy breakfast — and we decided to try the “old school” method: walking straight into hotel lobbies and asking in person if they had …
Today I revisited the Louvre. My first visit was twenty years ago, and I clearly remember the exhaustion I left with. This time was no different. The Louvre remains a major cultural landmark. For the rest of my family, it was their first time at the Louvre, and the impact was strong. It’s a museum …
Today was another full day, even though our bodies still refuse to acknowledge Parisian time. We woke up between 3 and 4 a.m., completely rested and ready to go, as if the hour were perfectly normal. At the same time, we discovered a local habit that’s hard to understand for North Americans: terraces stay open …
I’m not sure what came over us, but this summer we set our sights on a Tour of France… the scenic version, not the athletic one. We bought the tickets about two months ago, but I never had time to work on the route the way I usually do. Work was so demanding that I …
Continue reading From Ottawa to Paris — Day 1: Unscheduled Authenticity
