Paris, 2024. Back to our favorite city. What a trip it's been.

We get to spend a couple of days in our favorite city before heading home to Alaska. Unfortunately the weather in Paris is cold and rainy. It doesn’t matter—we still love it here. We arrive the day before the reopening of Notre Dame. We couldn’t get anywhere near it, so we watched the opening ceremonies and first mass on France2, the French PBS service that did an amazing job of video production covering the event. The rain stopped on our last day so we spent it walking the city.

Avignon, France. 2024

We have left the warmth of Nice for a blustery and quite chilly Avignon, in southeastern France’s Provence region. Avignon is set on the Rhône River. From 1309 to 1377, it was the seat of the Catholic popes. It remained under papal rule until becoming part of France in 1791.

Nice, France, and Monte Carlo. 2024

We’re going to spend a couple days on the coast of the Mediterranean exploring Nice and the Cote D’Azur. Some sun and warmth will be nice for a bit.

Florence, 2024

After a high-speed rail journey from Pompeii, we’re exploring Florence for a couple of days. Walked around a bit in late afternoon when we got here and then hit the museums on our first full day. The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze. I took a Renaissance Art class in grad school, which I ended up loving, to get some needed humanities credits. To see so many paintings in real life that I had seen in a text book was incredible. David wasn't too bad either. We were both amazed at the vibrant colors of so many of the paintings. This is definitely a city we’d like to visit again.