Based solely on the limited evidence of the last 3 years, we are in the new habit of traveling internationally every other holiday season. We were last in Rome and Naples, Italy at the end of December in 2019, weeks before it became THE Covid-19 hotspot in the world.
This winter, we were in Paris for 4 days, (with one day visiting the surreal Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France) from Christmas Eve until the morning of the 29th. Mont Saint-Michel was a 4.5 hour bus ride from Paris, but is definitely worth the trip. I first learned of it from the 1990 movie “Mindwalk,” starring John Heard and Sam Waterson. The day after we left, Paris reinstated an outdoor mask mandate as Omicron rages across the world. France requires all visitors to be fully vaccinated get a vaccine pass to visit museums and restaurants, and the US requires proof of a negative Covid-19 test 24 hours before arriving in the US. We passed the Covid-19 tests in Paris required for our return to the Minneapolis airport, which was reassuring.
We were traveling with our 8 year old autistic genius son, Oliver, which both changed the activities we did while altering our timeline. It also required us to be extremely flexible with our choices, as well as the duration in any of our desired destinations. He is a very creative kid who will only eat about 4 things in the world, and none of them were convenient in Paris (except cold milk), so he lost a lot of weight on our long days of walking.
Oliver also is a creature of deep obsessions. We never know what is coming next, but we know from experience it will be both interesting and deeply pursued, as well as vehemently enjoyed. On this trip, Oliver became enamored with pigeons, which are in great supply. He feed them, loved having them gather and fly around him, and, at one point, tried to get one to jump onto his arm. Oliver also began sketching in earnest. We got him a few sketchbooks and he started a book of his drawings, appropriately named “Book Of Pigeons,” which helped the reader through the process of drawing pigeons, part by part, beginning with the feet. (Video below paragraph text)
We hope Oliver will always remember this trip, particularly because it allowed him to finally get some closure on another lifetime obsession of his: the Mona Lisa. This painting is hanging in the Louvre Museum, and is obviously a huge part of the draw to many of it’s visitors based on the line required to see it. Pro-tip: Musee D’Orsay (Orsay Museum) nearby is a much better museum if you are interested in more modern art and has a wonderful collection of the French impressionists.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed in Paris, particularly if you are claustrophobic and crowd-averse. It’s a large city with a cafe on literally every corner, and it’s like watching a sunset where you keep thinking it can’t get any better and then it keeps happening. It takes a while to get your bearings because there are no tall buildings, though the Eiffel Tower is often visible depending on where you are. Montmartre is probably the densest and the most interesting neighborhood, directly at the top of a deceptively steep hill beneath the obligatory Sacre-Cour cathedral. Loaded with shops and restaurants, it’s also loaded with people. (See link to video below).
Hard-wired to always have a camera with me, I remembered to be a parent first and a photographer second. I brought one camera and one lens, a 35mm. I watched a lot of amazing moments appear and evaporate right in front of my eyes. I saw a man walking that was a dead ringer for what I imagine Jean-Paul Sarte might have looked like at age 30. My hands were usually full of other things I had to carry, including baguette sandwiches, cappuccino, and an umbrella from the ubiquitous daily rain. I wanted to be as present as possible, occasionally catching myself taking photographs more for my memory enhancement than pushing myself creatively, the latter being my usual motivation, as well as using my phone to record videos of our son Oliver being Oliver.
For those who haven’t had the experience, Paris is still the most beautiful city I’ve been to, bustling and full of vibrant people who’s formality is occasionally mistaken for rudeness to the untrained eye. Even with my minimal French vocabulary, we found everyone to be extremely helpful and friendly. My rudimentary French was not an issue in any way until the very last morning, when our plane ticket didn’t specify which of the three terminals was required for our flight home. The Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris is enormous, so I’ve learned a good pro tip is knowing exactly where to be dropped off to shorten the distance you have to run to the gate…
The last thing I learned in 2021: If you can actually taste the food on the airplane, you definitely don’t have Covid-19!
Paris videos from my iPhone:
Accordion player in Montmartre
Mimes near the Eiffel Tower
Walking Marche Du Montorgueil
Oliver and the pigeons
People milling around at the top of Montmartre
Fellini moment from a vendor market on Christmas Day
Here are some highlights to give you a feel of this legendary city. Clicking any image will pull it up at a larger size, which will also allow you to scroll through all of the images with the < and > buttons.
