This spring break trip involves me and Meredith, with three co-workers – Meredith, Regina, and Victoria – and a former student, Shelby, who is also Regina’s daughter. The main part of the vacation is going to be spent in Nice on the French Riviera, but first we have to get there. That meant driving to Toronto again to use the cheap airport with a direct flight to Paris.

The first part went very well. The trip went well, and we all met up at the airport, where we got through security efficiently, which put us at the gate three hours before the flight was to leave. Since the flight started boarding about an hour before departure, that really put us there two hours early. Not too bad, and we puttered the time away reading, wandering, and eating.

The flight was great, and so we arrived in Paris. Customs was efficient, and so we found ourselves trying to figure out the train system to get into Paris proper, when we figured out that although we had brought a guidebook on Nice, we did not have one on Paris. Ooops. Mer and I put our heads together and figured it out, and so, in the end, we got to our hotel around 11:00 am, Paris time. Sadly, the hotel was very busy this weekend, and so our rooms would not be ready until standard check-in time at 2:00.

That was a curve ball. Mer and I count on grabbing a two- or three-hour nap on arrival to help break up jet lag, and now we would have to tour in Paris, running on no sleep for about twenty-three hours. Not an insurmountable issue, but it did mean we were a bit foggy.

We decided to go get lunch, and I remembered there were good restaurants on the two islands in the Seine River, where Notre Dame is located. We walked there along the river, which is always a good way to get to know a city. We found a small cafe on the Ile Saint-Louis, the smaller of the two islands, and we ate a leisurely lunch. The weather was quite good, and the sun came out, so we walked over to Ile de la Cite, the bigger island, and walked in the park surrounding Notre Dame. Today was Palm Sunday, so the lines to get into the church were quite long. We enjoyed the outside of it, and then made our way back to the hotel, where we got some rest.

We got launched on Paris Tour part two at 6:00. We decided to take a riverboat tour of the Seine, so we took the Metro over to the Champs-Elysees  and walked down to the river. We got on a fairly crowded boat where the top deck was roped off. We were confused until we finally figured out the river was so high that the boat barely could get under bridges. Anyone sitting on the upper deck would have been in danger from low clearance. In fact, the boat turned before Notre Dame because it could not make it under one pedestrian bridge, but we still got great views of the city, especially the Eiffel Tower.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the tour, but by then it was 8:00, so we found a creperie (crepe restaurant) where we had supper. Since it was so close to the Champs-Elysees, we took the time to walk up to the Arc de Triomphe, where we took the pedestrian tunnel to get right up to it. Since it was now almost 10:00, the crowds were largely gone, and Victoria even got a picture of the full Arc with no traffic in the picture, which is very difficult to do.

From the Arc, it was back to the Metro and home to our new, modern, and funky hotel, which includes iPad-controlled lighting, shades, and TV. It is in a perfect location, next to the train station, for us to catch our train to Nice tomorrow morning.