Not long after getting my home upgrade projects to a stable point, I took off on my second major adventure of the year, my first ever trip to France. I had a photography retreat planned at a historic château in the countryside outside of Paris. I coupled this with a general tourist trip within Paris itself. I planned to go to Paris a few days before the retreat so that I could adjust a bit to the time change, and then I planned to come back after the retreat and stay for lots of sightseeing.
The run-up to the trip was a bit stressful because of the changing Covid rules. I had gotten the vaccination and a booster, but it turned out France required you to have gotten the booster within 9 months of the last primary shot, which I missed by a few days. I had thought it was more important to get it closer to the travel dates so that the antibodies would be strongest, but bureaucratic policies don’t seem to make complete sense. Fortunately, a few weeks before I left France changed the status of the US to “green” which meant that they would let you in even if you were unvaccinated if you had a negative Covid test. At the time I was getting ready to fly I thought it required a PCR test within a couple of days of flying, which I got and it was extremely expensive, but it turned out I could have gotten by with the less expensive antigen test. Interestingly going through customs in France was fairly trivial, as the passport was checked through an automated photo booth, and they never asked for any Covid test documents. I guess that was all handled by the airline which required me to upload all my documents before being cleared to fly. Once I got through, after some iterating I managed to connect up with a driver I’d arranged to take me to my hotel. It was a hair-raising trip through Paris traffic, but we had an interesting time trying to have a minimalist chat, both of us using Google Translate.
I got to my hotel, Hotel Félicien, which is located on ‘the right bank’ in the 16th arrondissement, and despite a long flight and lack of sleep I went out for a much-needed walk to do a little exploring. My hotel was only about a mile from the Eiffel Tower. I walked there, then on my way back headed up a long stairway on Rue Beethoven into the Passy area, and ended up at a nice little restaurant (La Passy) where I had a late brunch and my first Parisian meal. I eventually navigated back to my hotel [10,845 steps].
Late the next morning I went exploring again and headed in the opposite direction from the previous day. I ended up at a nice restaurant (La Mirabeau) where I again had brunch — as well as many other nice meals later in my trip. After a little more exploring, and walking through several neighborhoods and districts, I made my way back to the hotel and rested for a bit (slept). In the evening, I went back to the Eiffel Tower to photograph it at night and catch the light show. I got some nice pictures and videos, but I stayed a bit too long. After returning I messed around too much and ended up getting only 2 1/2 hours of sleep [11,250 steps].
The next morning (Saturday) I thought I’d walk to Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, which seemed quite doable looking at the map. Strolling along the left bank of the Seine took longer than I expected (nearly 2 hours), but it was a beautiful walk. I was impressed at how active the French were, as I passed many many people walking, riding bikes, electric scooters, or running and exercising in other ways. (This health consciousness was seemingly in direct contradiction to the omnipresent smoking around the city). I also saw some classic French scenes such as mothers and daughters walking hand in hand. Apparently, I passed close by the famous Shakespeare and Co bookstore, but I didn’t realize it so I never checked it out. It was a bit anticlimactic actually seeing Notre Dame Cathedral, as it was under construction, but I might have explored around a bit more had I not been quite so tired. I’m glad I did the walk, and it was good to see the surroundings on the little island in the Seine. Heading back along the other side of the river, I passed by the Louvre. It is a huge area, and I went into the courtyard and scoped it out. There were a gagillion people there on a Saturday. I didn’t know if it was always like that, but I later learned that this was spring break week for French schools. 
I continued to walk back and scope out some other locales along the way. Eventually getting exhausted around noon, I found a nice restaurant (Chez Francis) and had a nice brunch. On this little excursion, I believe I passed through the 16th, 15th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 1st, and 8th arrondissements. I finally dragged myself back to my hotel after 22,700 steps.
On Sunday morning, I did a little more walking around before packing up, checking out of my hotel, and meeting up with my photography group for our kickoff luncheon. This was a very enjoyable few days serving as a wonderful introduction to Paris.