This year seemed like a good one to wrap up with one more adventure, this time exploring France in December. This was the trip I originally booked for this year and it was actually for work (a travel marketing course in destination).
With the rise of omicron (this makes me think of the Transformers every time I hear it), France changed their entry requirements starting on the day I was scheduled to leave, so there may have been some last minute scrambling to get a PCR test back in time… but a little luck and more money than I would have liked to spend and it all worked out. After the market, I went home for a quick shower and to grab my suitcase and on y va! YFC was very quiet and there was only about a dozen people on my flight to Montreal. Just a short layover in Montreal, where my colleague Leah flew in to meet me, and then we were off to Paris. More than 20 people were denied boarding on our flight because they did not have a negative test to enter France with. Flight was delayed leaving because of this, but we made up the time in the air. Excellent travel karma continued with an empty seat beside me. Several movies later, we arrived in Paris. Customs was a breeze, luggage also arrived, transfer driver Ali was waiting (his claim to fame that he was Justin Trudeau’s private driver at the G8), and off to the hotel we went.
For the first three nights of our French adventure, we stayed at Les Jardins d’Eiffel in the 7th arrondissement – a great location for us since we both like to explore by foot and there’s plenty of stuff nearby. Room wasn’t ready yet (not surprising since it was before 10am), but we left our stuff and wandered off to meet the Eiffel Tower up close and personal. We ended up with a very chilly and rainy day, so after getting rained on for a while, we decided to jump on a hop-on-hop-off bus to ride out the downpour. By the time we finished, it had mostly cleared off. Back to the hotel to officially check in and change into dry clothes. Then we found some supper (when in Paris, you eat pizza… but it was the most delicious pizza with artichokes) and did a night cruise on the Seine. By the time we returned, it was well into evening, which meant I was allowed to go to sleep (though the first two nights I barely slept at all). I have to admit – Paris has never really been on my radar. I always figured I’d get there eventually, but it’s quite lovely and I’ll definitely return.
Day 2 – We started the day off right with a 5km walk from our hotel to the Montmartre area for a food tour. We had a small group of about 10 people from Canada, the US, London, Spain, and Germany and a hilarious guide named Theo. We stopped for macarons, chocolates, and crepes (with some sites along the way), and then we had a meal together in the food tour (Secret Food Tours) headquarters with items the guide had picked up in advance (because Covid and because many things are closed in Paris on Mondays). No one left hungry, even me (there was some substitutions made on the tour for me). Post food tour, the rain was back so we decided to check out the crazy Christmas display (astronaut Santa!) at Galleries Lafayette, before walking back to the hotel.
Day 3 – We hopped on the train and headed out of Paris to explore Versailles (final destination Versailles Château station). Seeing these major tourist attractions with really small crowds is really something. We explored the palace, spent some time walking around the garden (it was lovely even this time of year, but it must be absolutely stunning when the flowers are blooming and the fountains are on), and then checked out Marie Antoinette’s estate before catching the train back (though from Versailles Chantiers station instead – the police had shut down Versailles Château and we have no idea why). To wrap up our last full day in Paris, we walked along the Seine, explored the grounds of the Louvre, visited the Magic of Christmas market, and just generally enjoyed the sites. We also walked more than the distance of a half marathon today.
Day 4 – With one more morning in Paris, we decided to check out Musée d’Orsay. What a pleasant surprise – soooooo many impressionist and post-impressionist works on display there. What a happy little art nerd I was. I’ll be honest, I teared up a little getting to see so many Van Goghs in person. Art aside, which is definitely worth a visit, the building itself is amazing. Part of it used to be a train station, so the light and lines are lovely. Back to the hotel to gather up the things and then it was time to head to Gare de Lyon to catch the zippy fast train to Avignon (about 700km in just under 3 hours). In Avignon, we stayed at the Mercure Pont d’Avignon Centre (not super fancy, but great service and clean), which was a great location to be able to walk anywhere we wanted to go in Avignon. For the evening, we checked out their small Christmas market and light displays, grabbed a few snacks, and then called it a night since most things were already closed.
Day 5 – Since the boarding time for our river cruise wasn’t until 3pm, it left us with lots of time to explore Avignon. First up, we visited the papal palace and nearly had the entire place to ourselves. This palace was the seat of Western Christianity in the 14th century and is a combo of palaces built from two popes. It’s definitely worth a visit even if you don’t care about the history at all. We also explored the nearby garden, which is also nice even in December. From there, we walked down to the Pont d’Avignon, where we of course stopped for a little dancing (and now you have the song in your head, I know you do). Only four of the arches remain of the twenty-two it originally had, even though it was rebuilt several times throughout history. A bit more shopping and exploring and it was time to board the beautiful AmaKristina river ship, where we spent the rest of the day.
Day 6 – First up on our river cruise itinerary, a visit to Arles to walk in the footsteps of Vincent Van Gogh. During the year or so he spent in Arles, he created many paintings – so our guide Andrew walked us through the streets to show us where they were created, what they were based on, and even to point out landmarks that still exist from his paintings. We also visited the Van Gogh Foundation, where they had one of his paintings of a moth that I had never seen before (in person or print).
Today was a two excursion kind of day, so we also visited Les Baux-de-Provence, a cute little commune with less than 100 permanent residents in the Alpilles mountains. We went to a artistic light show at Carrières de Lumières, which is a former rock quarry. The exhibition we saw was on Cézanne and Kandinsky – it was amazing. I’ve always wanted to see one of these and I don’t live in a populated enough area that one would come to me, so I’m really glad to have gotten to experience this. Then we had a bit of time to explore the winding streets of the commune and the great views from the top.
Day 7 – First up today, a visit to Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct that was started in the first century. We went through the visitor center to learn more about the history and the mechanics of it, before having some time to explore the grounds. You can still walk along the lower section, which gives you some lovely views – but the very best view to me is from the river bank below.
Our afternoon tour to Carpentras was cancelled (river cruise itineraries are never truly set in stone because you need to adapt to the state of the river – but they are even less so during a pandemic), so we had more free time in Avignon to wrap up the day. I really loved it here and could easily (and did) spend hours exploring the windy streets.
Day 8 – Our adventure today was a visit to the little town of Grignan, followed by a visit to a truffle farm. Grignan is another charming little commune, known for the castle that remains that was often mentioned by Madame de Sévigné in her letters (she was a French aristocrat and her letters give a lot of insight into French life at the time). The truffle farm was a highlight, as Christian and his truffle dog Hollie did a demonstration for us and found a handful of truffles. After that, there were some truffle products to try or buy if one wanted.
The truffle farm is in Richerenches, which is known for its weekly truffle market and is where truffle prices are set. This area products 80% of France’s truffles. They day before we visited, truffles were going for about 700 euros/kilo.
Day 9 – This morning found us in the little town of Tournon. I did a chocolate and wine pairing activity that was on Ama’s agenda, but then quickly wandered off to explore Tournon and its sister town of Tain-l’Hermitage myself. The weather was beautiful and it was nice to just walk around in the sun. We spent the rest of the day sailing after this, going through a few more locks on the Rhone. The process is interesting, but after you’ve seen and been through a lock, you’ve seen and been through a lock.
Day 10 – We arrived late at night into Vienne, so this morning was time to explore it. Vienne is known for some well-preserved Roman ruins, including the first century temple of Augustus and Livia and a Roman theatre. It has a lovely cathedral, though it is currently partially covered in scaffolding.
After a morning in Vienne, we moved on to our final port of the cruise in Lyon. About 10 minutes from our ship, docked at Quai Claude Bernard, in Place Carnot is the Lyon Christmas market. It’s the largest we saw on this trip in terms of number of booths, though the one in Paris had a lot of festival rides. The markets we visited were much more food-oriented and a lot less of the Christmas décor you see in pictures of markets in places like Germany and Austria. We did a quick visit initially and then came back for supper. The Canadian maple shack was hilarious and the French were buying up stacks of those maple cream cookies we all know.
Day 11 – Our last full day on the AmaKristina started with getting up early to get stabbed in the nose. Today the ship excursion was a bus tour to the Beaujolais region for a wine tasting. While I’m sure it’s a lovely area to explore, I’d tasted enough wine already on this trip (it still all tastes like burning poison to me, on par with the evilness of olives) so we opted to do a free walking tour of Vieux Lyon with a local guide instead.
To wrap up day 11 – very bad news. Completely unexpectedly, since I had no symptoms, I tested positive for Covid. Omicron is a sneaky ninja. I was already in my cabin when I got the email, and so the last night of my cruise was spent there. I took a rapid test which confirmed the same and then decided to spend the rest of the night watching movies. My roommate moved to an empty cabin for the night. Throughout the evening, I learned of more people with the same fate.
When traveling during a pandemic, this is definitely a risk a person takes. I was incredibly careful, masked at all times except when eating (even outside), socially distanced, hands were washed often, and I spent most of the time on the ship in my cabin. This was not the case with many of the people onboard my river cruise. I work in this industry so I was ready to deal with this if it happened, but I also expect suppliers I travel with to prioritize my safety as well, and AmaWaterways failed at this in all regards (it takes a lot to get me to officially complain about anything, especially when traveling – but Ama will be getting some feedback). More than 15% of passengers tested positive, and those are just the ones I was aware of.
Just for a break in the text – some pictures of the AmaKristina.
Day 12 – Today involved a bit of scrambling. Three other Canadians onboard also tested positive, so we decided we would stick together so no one would be alone if they got sick or have to spend the holidays alone. After disembarking the ship, we headed to a testing center to do another PCR test, just in case. Our driver, Fahim, was absolutely a bright point of the last of my trip to France. After testing, he brought us to our hotel (he also brought us to our apartment and delivered some things we couldn’t easily order to us). Unfortunately, all of our results came back positive again and that meant we had to find a place to live. You cannot isolate in hotels in France, so we got permission from an AirBnB host to rent her apartment for our isolation period starting the next day.
Days 13 to 22 – I spent the rest of my time in France staring out the window at the magpies, watching streamed TV and movies, having video calls, and trying to assure everyone I was fine with ridiculous Facebook status updates. I retested on day 19 with the hopes of making it home for Christmas and got a result that was weakly positive. I managed to find an appointment after a couple of hours of looking to retest on day 21 (Dec 24th). Santa brought me a negative test for Christmas, so I spent some time on Christmas Day rebooking my travel (with the help of an amazing agent at Aeroplan)… then there was many video calls with family and a Christmas dinner with my flatmates.
Day 23 – Nine days later than planned, it was finally time to fly home. I have to admit, I’ve never been so happy to go to an airport. Fahim picked me up and it was off to the Lyon airport. Killed some time with Starbucks and a book until it was time to fly to Montreal. Several movies later, landed early in Montreal, breezed through all the customs stuff, and had something to eat… sat around for hours and then finally boarded my flight home.
So… I think I need a do-over on some parts of this trip. I don’t recommend catching Covid on another continent, but I do recommend being prepared just in case. I’m thankful to have not gotten sick and now I guess I should have super human powers (I was hoping for the ability to fly, but no luck so far). I’m also so incredibly thankful for all the messages, emails, and calls from people checking in on me – I felt very, very loved. I’ve been asked if I regretted going and I don’t (though admittedly I would have liked to spend Christmas at home with my family). I’ve always wanted to spend Christmas in Europe, but this is definitely not what I had in mind. I don’t plan to stop traveling (except that I’m broke and now pretty much out of points and travel credits), so it may be a little while before the next adventure.
Please don’t travel without covid insurance.
Ange out.
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