We have returned from France and I want to share with you some of our final moments there. This was a trip… wow… You can read that multiple ways and regardless of the tone you will be expressing how I feel. If you aren’t aware of how our vacation has been you can get an idea from this post (Vacation in Alsace (part 1 – rough start) My kids were so amazing but shared with me on our way home that this was the worse family vacation they have ever had. That makes me sad but in a way it means our next family vacation should be better… hopefully much better! (always looking for a positive side…)

In this post – part 1… I will share lots of picture and and try to be brief with my words. The first set of picture is of my wife’s childhood home. I am sharing for two reasons:

  1. The before and after shows how hard my children worked to get this home ready for sell. I don’t have a before and after for inside but you can see from the outside the work that was needed and the work that was done.
  2. As we drove away we all realized that this was the last time we would be coming to this home. It was sad for all of us especially my wife who was saying goodbye to her childhood home and coming to the realization that this was closing a part of her life that included her parents.

The children worked most of the time sorting, cleaning, and moving things in the home. We did take some small trips around Alsace including one drive to Eguisheim.

This is such a beautiful village. We were enjoying our walk through the charming homes and streets when my oldest son reminded us that in 2019 we took Mamie (Isabelle’s mother) here to visit the Christmas markets. This would be the last thing we did with Isabelle’s mom… you can read about that visit here (Christmas in Alsace)

Here our some pictures of our July 2021 Eguisheim visit: (click on pictures to see big-you can do that with all of the sets of photos…)

Every vacation ends… even bad ones… so we said goodbye to our family in Alsace… took some group pictures… and were off to Paris. My kids collectively said they were relieved it was over… 😪

We drove the 5+ hour drive one day early with the idea that we could spend one day in Paris. (Hopefully the kids would be able to have an enjoyable day there) We planned on meeting up with a family from our Utah neighborhood who were on vacation like us. (they are a wonderful family… so I was excited to share some time with them) We returned the rental car and checked into an airport hotel for the night and the next morning caught the RER into Paris.

We did have some fear with France’s new laws concerning the “pass sanitaire”. (this is documentation – QR code – showing you have been vaccinated or have had a negative test result in the past 48 hours. This is required by everyone over 12 to go into certain public places) A week earlier we were not able to get into a museum because they didn’t “recognize” our CDC vaccination cards. We were required to have a negative test result within 48 hours of our flight so we knew that would work (it had a QR code) but worried for our friends. Fortunately in Paris the CDC cards worked and we didn’t run into any “COVID-19” issues. (the pass sanitaire rules were put in place while we were already in France… and watching the news I saw many foreign tourists annoyed because this caught them by surprise… )

When taking the RER from the airport to Paris I always get off at the St. Michel – Notre Dame stop and walk past the “dragon fountain” (not it’s real name). I use to visit this neighborhood in the 80s when I lived here. I would buy lunch and eat it in front of Notre Dame. This time we didn’t’ eat… just walked around Notre Dame looking at the restoration work.

Our first planned visit was to the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation. (This is a memorial to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy France to Nazi Concentration Camps and it is located just behind Notre Dame) This was a first time visit for us but not for our friends. Our friends had been here before and explained that the design was suppose to evoke a feeling of trapped imprisonment. WOW… what a dark claustrophobic bleak hopeless place… at least that is how it made me feel… I guess that was the architectural point… and it met its goal. (this vacation didn’t need more depressive moments… with that said I am happy I visited this place… )

  • Each light represents a person who was deported

The next stop was the Musée d’Orsay and it was also a first time for me… (I am a bit embarrassed to admit that). I have always wanted to visit this art museum. In the pictures below you can see how beautiful this once train station converted to museum truly is. (remember you can click on the picture to see it bigger)

I love the impressionist painters… There is no substitute for seeing these painting in “real” versus what I had previously only seen in art books. Unfortunately my pictures don’t show the true nature of these amazing works of art.

Isabelle has an ancestor who was a famous painter and we found one of his paintings in this museum. (Alfred Philippe Roll – See below)

After the art museum we had a late lunch next to the Louvre. Post lunch I took my youngest boy Ben back to the hotel while the others split up and enjoyed Paris. I was very concerned about Gwen and her friend.. walking alone… just the two of them visiting Paris… Gwen is 18… but not in my heart… so I annoyed her with many hourly check-in SMS messages. She and her friend ended up visiting the Catacombs which is another bucket list of mine… (so jealous)

We all agreed that Paris was a great day and the kids said “at least we had one day of fun”. The next day we were on the plane headed home… one quick complaint from me… having to wear a mask for that long flight home (almost 24 hours) was so annoying. The part that bothered me most were the elastic bands on my ears. I recommend getting one that ties for long mask wearing journeys.

PART 2 is coming this weekend… I will have some of my “weird” pictures for that post.