FRANCE
Paris is always a good idea. As promised, Fran and Conal make their first return to Paris after surviving the Covid-19 pandemic.
By Conal Healy
Friday, October 20, 2023, 5pm: It was October 2023 and Fran and I were back in Paris. Hurray! The first time we had come to Paris was in May 2019. Fran fell in love with the city of light.
On our second day in France, Fran declared: “That’s it. We are coming back next year”.
A few months later (back in Australia) we were busy making plans for a France trip in 2020.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Soon our view of the world shrank from Global to Post Code. We could travel just about anywhere we wanted – as long as it was within our local suburb.
For travelers with itchy feet, those were frustrating times.
It took us four years to get back to Paris. And it felt good to be back.
What will we do on our first night in Paris? It was a question, a dream, a fantasy I had asked myself as I waited for the international borders to re-open.
It was always the same answer: Go to our favourite café, have dinner with the locals and drink beers.
And on a cool spring evening in 2023, that is what Fran and I did.
Earlier the taxi had dropped us to our apartment in Canal St Martin (in the somewhat unfashionable 10th arrondissement). It had taken about an hour from Orly in the Friday evening traffic. We were welcomed by our Airbnb host and got – in French/English – a tour of the large apartment.
By local standards, the apartment was spacious (about 22 square metres) and was described as an “artist’s studio”. It was, as promised, quiet and light filled. It had been renovated in 2014 and overlooked a central courtyard.
More importantly, it had a washing machine and racks to hang up our laundry.
It would be great to say we charged from the apartment to embrace a night in Paris … it would be very romantic to stay that.
We didn’t.
Our luggage had four days of dirty washing. We also had damp/wet clothes from the Dublin storm. We threw our clothes into the washing machine and hit the “On” button.
With the machine churning, we pulled on our coats and went out to enjoy a Friday night in Paris.
Where were we going? I knew just the place. I had been planning this night out for years. It was a place with great atmosphere.#
It would be a chance to map out our Paris Plans and our month-long road trip.
Paris in October:
Dawn – 7.47am, Sunrise: 8.20am
Dusk: 7.20pm, Sunset: 6.48.
UV index: Zero
on the road less travelled in Ireland and france 
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