I keep meaning to write about my week in Slovenia (via Austria) and Italy (Venice and Verona), but I get sidetracked. This entry included.
The downside to impulse travel? Sometimes you make, umm, interesting decisions.
Sitting on the couch Friday night (July 12th), Josh, our friend, John, and I were thinking of something to do Sunday. Stonehenge? Brighton? PARIS!!! Because this is how we operate. It's amazing that we've seen any of the UK at all because we almost always end up on the continent when we attempt to travel outside of Kent/London. So Josh books the tunnel. I go to a friends house to borrow their baby backpack around 9pm. And then we encounter 2 problems.
First, the baby has the chickenpox (or so we thought). It looked very mild on Friday, so we're hopeful that because she had it at 3 weeks old last year, it will stay mild and we'll be fine. By Saturday night, I made the call that she and I would not go. It was looking worse. (it was an abnormal reaction to the MMR vaccination she had 14 days before the rash came out, not chickenpox at all.) Had we been a tad smarter, we probably would have planned an outing in the UK, despite the baby and I not going anyway.
Second, it was Bastille Day. The Catacombs were closed. Josh has now attempted to get to the Catacombs 3 times in the past 9 years and no-go. The first time, when he and I went in 2004, we arrived too late in the day and were told we wouldn't be able to enter. The second time, in 2011, the queue was so long that we would have stood waiting for about 2 hours. Our boys were 4 and 5 and they had just climbed 770 stairs up the Eiffel Tower (2iem Etage). We weren't going to get that much more out of them. This time, closed on public holidays. Had we been a tad smarter, we might have checked if there were any holidays happening.
But...everyone was fine. They climbed the Eiffel Tower again. They saw L'Arc de Triomphe again. They had McDonald's along the Champs Elysee. They had ice cream. They saw Notre Dame again. That's pretty good for a day-trip, especially when the city in question is 3 hours of driving plus 35min on the Eurotunnel, plus time for check-in.
If anything, we learned that Paris is doable as a day-trip and it probably won't be too long before we attempt it again. Maybe the Catacombs will be open?
Up next: a series of Slovenia/Italy posts!
The downside to impulse travel? Sometimes you make, umm, interesting decisions.
Sitting on the couch Friday night (July 12th), Josh, our friend, John, and I were thinking of something to do Sunday. Stonehenge? Brighton? PARIS!!! Because this is how we operate. It's amazing that we've seen any of the UK at all because we almost always end up on the continent when we attempt to travel outside of Kent/London. So Josh books the tunnel. I go to a friends house to borrow their baby backpack around 9pm. And then we encounter 2 problems.
First, the baby has the chickenpox (or so we thought). It looked very mild on Friday, so we're hopeful that because she had it at 3 weeks old last year, it will stay mild and we'll be fine. By Saturday night, I made the call that she and I would not go. It was looking worse. (it was an abnormal reaction to the MMR vaccination she had 14 days before the rash came out, not chickenpox at all.) Had we been a tad smarter, we probably would have planned an outing in the UK, despite the baby and I not going anyway.
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| WHY ME?! WHY ME?! |
Second, it was Bastille Day. The Catacombs were closed. Josh has now attempted to get to the Catacombs 3 times in the past 9 years and no-go. The first time, when he and I went in 2004, we arrived too late in the day and were told we wouldn't be able to enter. The second time, in 2011, the queue was so long that we would have stood waiting for about 2 hours. Our boys were 4 and 5 and they had just climbed 770 stairs up the Eiffel Tower (2iem Etage). We weren't going to get that much more out of them. This time, closed on public holidays. Had we been a tad smarter, we might have checked if there were any holidays happening.
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| Proud boys climbing to the 2iem Etage for a second time! |
But...everyone was fine. They climbed the Eiffel Tower again. They saw L'Arc de Triomphe again. They had McDonald's along the Champs Elysee. They had ice cream. They saw Notre Dame again. That's pretty good for a day-trip, especially when the city in question is 3 hours of driving plus 35min on the Eurotunnel, plus time for check-in.
If anything, we learned that Paris is doable as a day-trip and it probably won't be too long before we attempt it again. Maybe the Catacombs will be open?
Up next: a series of Slovenia/Italy posts!
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