A Pandemic Eurotrip

By mid-July, it seemed pretty clear that we'd actually be allowed to take the France portion of the trip we'd booked back during our Christmas "vacation," which we'd spent primarily on our couch in our living room in Oakland, California, thousands of miles from our standard Christmas crowd. England, on the other hand, wasn't looking so bright. On their big July 19 re-open, quarantine-free border crossings were opened up for all of western Europe *except* France. After four hours on hold with customer service, we managed to change our SF → Paris/London → SF round-trip to a simple SF ↔ Paris, we re-worked our easy week-in-Paris/week-in-England to a grand Tour de France, and everything seemed set. That is, until the week before our departure when England had a change of heart. Suddenly we had to sort out how to squeeze a quick stop across the Channel.

This entire trip was originally planned around two weddings just twelve days apart, one in Brittany and the other in Southern England. With all pandemic-related travel restrictions lifted with mere weeks to spare, we could hardly miss either. Nor could we cancel the Tour de France and let down all the very enthusiastic family and friends along the route. Suddenly our much awaited trip became a jam-packed adventure. Forget relaxation, this was a Eurotrip on steroids.

For lack of mental bandwidth, I'm afraid this post won't be much more than a photo dump. But, given that this blog is my glorified photo album, I think that will suffice. And after all, the most exciting part of this pandemic Eurotrip unfurled in the weeks since we've returned Stateside. Stay tuned!

We spent our first weekend abroad in Brittany to celebrate the wedding of Odile & Tancrède.

After Brittany, we got to enjoy a couple of days in the City of Lights, spending time with old friends and discovering a fantastic new ice cream destination in Alain Ducasse.

Next stop, Beaune! Only took me 8 visits to finally check out the Hospices, a rare example of a perfectly preserved medieval hospital. We met up with Nicolas's dad, Serge, on this leg of our journey.

Serge took us over the border to Geneva for a day filled with hiking, swimming, and fine dining.

Southward-bound, we next hit up Lyon where I fell in love with an adorable little tea salon called Le Luminarium.

In Crest, Nicolas and I finally got to meet his youngest (for now) nephew, Merlin, who's had some time to do some serious growing up since the start of the pandemic.

Our final destination in France, the Ile de Porquerolles, gave us our first and only day of proper vacationing, a world away from all our responsibilities, in a perfect slice of Mediterranean France.

We managed to cross yet another international border, entering post-Brexit England for the very first time to see Emma and Pete finally tie the knot - third time's the charm! (Third not for the actually getting married bit but for the scheduling and planning it all out.) En route to Battle, we squeezed in an evening in London with old friends and a proper British pub dinner, followed up the next morning with our breakfast of champions: scones and clotted cream.