Paris in the Time of Covid

 We've been to the City of Lights dozens of times. My spouse grew up there. Never in all that time have I ever seen the city so empty. We visited at the end of August into the first week of September and it was devoid of people. 

Let's start with a some lesser traversed spots in Paris. We strolled through the Marais to the Place des Vosges on a Tuesday morning. Usually this place is teeming with people, kids playing at any time of the day. On this day I counted only 6 people. 

Place des Vosges - mid morning

Hotel de Sully - mid morning

Another day after lunch we wandered down Rue Rivoli and through the side entrance to the Louvre. This is always tourist central, jammed with people waiting to get in, people coming out, sitting by the fountains, taking selfies with the pyramids.  Here's what we saw:

After the end of summer holidays in France, typically August 31, people return to the city but even then there are always tourists from other countries. It was rare that we heard anything besides French spoken and maybe the occasional English.  On September 2 we strolled from our apartment near Gare de Lyon across the canal St Martin and then to the Isle St. Louis to Notre Dame. 

This was about noon and it was barren. A few people wandering down the side street next to Notre Dame looking at the progress of the restoration and viewing the outdoor exhibits but never have I seen the square in front of the cathedral completely empty. 

At the time we left you had to be vaccinated to even get on the plane but we are so we went. The French government had also recently required a "Pass Sanitaire" for you to do just about anything except grocery shop and go to church. We applied before we left but never got our passes. We were able to get 3 day temporary passes after a negative Covid test at just about any pharmacy and those allowed us to eat out and visit the Hotel de la Marine. As we were heading home they announced France was considering a restriction to only essential travel again. 

Ultimately we are glad we went to see my spouse's 94 year old mother, who is just fine and had no problem keeping up with our 10-12,000 steps every day!

Place de la Concorde

Jardin Luxembourg

Palais Royale

Vacation Non-Vacation

 After a year of not traveling at all (unbelievable for our family) we needed a change in scenery. Desperately! We checked our options for some of our usual island destinations (Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire, St Croix) but couldn't make any of them work so we opted for the next best islands: The Florida Keys.

A week after the dawn of 2021 we packed our stuff and flew south. It was great to get first class seats for what we would pay for cattle class on most domestic flights. We landed in Miami, met the other family for lunch in Key Largo and caravanned south to Chardonnay House in Key Colony Beach, a man made area of canals at the northern tip of Marathon. 

This house was a very welcomed respite from the past 24/7/365 of living in our house.  We had 4 bedrooms, lots of desk space and lots of outdoor living space to essentially quarantine somewhere else. We worked and went to school the first week, in between dives and trips to the grocery store.

There were lots of walkers and bikers in the neighborhood and people were genuinely friendly.  Must have had something to do with the warmer, sunny weather?! Sunset Beach Park was at the end of the street and had nice views of the ocean. 

And then there was the diving with Captain Hook. It was more than chilly for our crew that is used to diving in warm waters (like 80+ degrees) but a good time was had by all!

At the end of our two weeks of non-vacation we all flew home with tentative plans for when we can all travel again and Covid-19 is behind us!