Paris at last!!

OMG, we are in France, and the whole procedure was so easy…we are SO happy! Leaving the USA at LAX was straightforward - we didn’t need to have a covid test once we had shown our Australian covid vaccination certificate, and all our worries were unfounded. So the flight was uneventful- very efficient and Lufthansa! At first we thought it would be quite empty, but it did gradually fill up, but we were able to move to have an aisle in the middle with no one next to the middle person…but each row had people…and the second flight from Frankfurt to Paris was totally full. Anyway, all easy - we officially entered the EU at Frankfurt and had to show what we were doing in France (he even scrutinised our walking itinerary!) but friendly and easy…and not particularly worried about covid status (just how long we would be in EU). And the second leg to Paris was just a domestic flight…

So here we are, ensconced in our Ibis hotel near the Gare de Lyon and all is perfect. This afternoon we had a reconnoiter to find the Gare de Bercy which is very near the Gare de Lyon, but we’d never seen or heard of it before. But that is where trains leave for Burgundy and the Dordogne…so we bought tickets for Saturday (Amr is very good at those ticket machines) for going to Vezelay and the start of our walking programme!!!

Having achieved that we wandered towards the Bastille area, and had a beer first, then a meal…I had moules with frites, and Amr had beef tartare and we had salads…so perfect, we just couldn’t believe that here we are, Paris acting normally…we need to put on masks walking into the hotel, and when in restaurants they ask for our “passe sanitaire” and are totally satisfied with our digital Oz vaccination certificate….that was one thing that we wondered about, but obviously non French are welcome with whatever certificate they have…so all GOOD.

What a life…we are not all in it together - we are in Paris!Read more