Enjoy a fairly incomprehensible, but still beautiful, tour
of the canals of Copenhagen with us! We saw a lot of fascinating sites from the
water, including the Little Mermaid (inspired by the Hans Christan Andersen
story), the Royal Library of Copenhagen, the Royal Playhouse, the Copenhagen
Opera House, the Naval Base, a castle, the Nicholas Tower, and more. Watch out
for the low bridges so you don't get decapitated!
It was a pleasant way to spend a sunny fall afternoon.
Just out of 10 days of COVID isolation in a Helsinki hotel
room, we missed our first scheduled night in Paris. But we rallied and made it
for the last couple of days. We were never so happy to get on a plane!
(Masked.)
Not yet restored to normal energy, we couldn’t go inside
anywhere in Paris, so we spent a day or two slow-bopping around the glorious
city, taking lots of breaks to rest and people-watch. We spent the first morning
walking around with our former exchange student (and Spanish daughter) Laia and
her cousin Anna. After they left, we had no agenda, which gave us the
opportunity to discover new parks and search for the Love Lock that Lisa had attached
on a stairway near Pont Neuf in 2018. (Don’t worry, haters, it was NOT on the
bridge but on a sanctioned chain, and she did not throw the key in the Seine!)
It was long gone, as the Parisians cut them off regularly, but we found a new
place to lock our love.
We also walked around on the Isle de la City, saw the
roofless Notre Dame Cathedral (covered with scaffolding and dwarfed by a
gargantuan crane), strolled along and even dipped our toes in the Seine,
sauntered through the courtyard of the Louvre, ate lunch in a sidewalk café, and
visited the booksellers’ kiosks along the Left Bank. When our feet got tired,
we caught another Seine River cruise and saw the city’s main attraction, the
Eiffel Tower! The 1-hour sightseeing tour on Vedettes du Pont Neuf cost 15 euros
each, about $17.
We ended the day with a scrumptious dinner in the Latin
Quarter.
