Day 2 in Paris – lots of walking! I think my feet hate me. We had a great day exploring a few of Paris’ many bucket list sights. We started the day by visiting Notre Dame. What an amazing place – really spectacular. We then walked along to the Louvre. I’m not sure what’s more impressive, the artwork collected inside the walls of this incredible building or the building itself. The last part of our walk took us through the Jardin du Tuileries – beautiful gardens and lots of places to sit and admire the fountains. It was also great to get back to our little apartment to relax with some wine and cheese.
A very recognizable building.Inside Notre Dame.Stain glass everywhere.Mark – maybe not so happy to have another photo taken.Traveling by boat long the Seines (not me, I’m on shore for a change.)Mona and me! Easier to pose with the poster than the real painting.The Louvre’s main entrance.A view of the Seines from a Louvre window.A well manicured tree in the Jardin du Tuilerie.
We made it – landed in Paris at 6:40 am. We had 2 good flights although a crazy woman and her two children sat in front of us on the flight from Washington to Paris. We just drank more wine to deal with the situation 🍾😉.
Our Airbnb apartment is exactly like the photos and was very easy to find. We got here by about 9am. We then decided to walk to Montmartre which is fairly close. After sitting all night it was great to walk around. We have 3 days in Paris before we pick up our rental car and head for Reims. Got to make a plan😉
Sunset on the wing of our plane. The Basilique du Sacre CoeurHeading back to the apartment, we found many wonderful street scenes.
Hey everyone. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted anything. Mark and I have been home in Braeside doing some renovations and getting ready for phase 2 of our year off. This past weekend we had a great visit in Toronto with both our families and it was a wonderful way to start our European wine tour.
So here we are at Toronto Pearson International Airport, waiting for flight 1 to take us to Washington where we’ll connect to flight 2 to Paris. Let the wine tour begin🎉😉🍾
I started our wine tour off right with a glass of wine with lunch.
Well we have finally come to the end of phase 1 of our year off. Mark and I are resting in a hotel in Orlando, waiting for our flight to Toronto tomorrow (Sunday, Aug 7). From my previous post, you know we had to wait to get into Riverside. We ended up moving Crimson Kathryn over to Riverside on Friday (about 2 minutes by car and 20 minutes by boat – one bascule bridge to pass through between the 2 marinas). We tied up on the end of the haul out dock and then spent the rest of the day packing up. We decided to store all of cushions and fabrics in an climate controlled storage facility just up the street from Riverside. It took us several trips on Friday and Sat. to move all our stuff but it’s worth it.
We started the final storage prep today at 6:30 am and were ready to leave by 12:30pm. Unfortunately, Riverside couldn’t haul out the boat today so we left her in the water, leaving her in the hands of the Riverside workers to haul out and store our boat.
Tomorrow we’ll get into Toronto around 3:30pm and spend a few days visiting before we head home for a few weeks. Phase 2 of our year off begins on Aug. 29 when Mark and I fly to Paris, France for a month of touring the wine regions. Evelyn will be joining us on Sept. 10 (after she defends her Master’s thesis on Sept. 6) and spending the fall with us as we visit France, Greece and Australia. Caroline will spend a week with us in Greece – it will be great to have the four of us together even if it’s only for a week.
Here are the last photos for phase 1.
Mark leaves the boat all ready for haul out. This is Riverside – a bit dumpy but affordable. A good deal with good people (quoting Mark). These sandhill cranes blocked the entrance to the hotel so we went in the exit.
Hi everyone. We’re still hanging out at the Harbortown Marina waiting for Riverside to have room to haul us out. We’ve had a chance to relax and enjoy the lovely Florida weather (from inside our air conditioned boat😎⛵️). We’ve rented a car for the week so we can get around and see a few sites. Today we spent the day at Kennedy Space Center. It was very interesting and really neat to see all the rockets and the space shuttle Atlantis. We heard all about NASA’s next venture into deep space and the spacecraft that will be taking some crazy folks to Mars (it won’t be me!).
Wifi is working better thanks to our funky wifi booster called “Groove”. This device is new for us and it hasn’t worked since it was installed at the top of the mizzen at Hop’o’nose. We took it down and tried it with a different cable and now it works great, boosting the wifi signal here at Harbortown so I can include some photos with this post.
Lots of manatees in this part of the ICW. We saw some but no photos of them. We saw a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral from a big distance. Our last night at anchor by Serenity Island, just south of Melbourne, Florida. Melbourne, Florida – not quite as nice as the other Melbourne we’ll visit in November. Riverside Marina – jammed full of boats. Room for one more, please?Mark checks out a Saturn 1 rocket on display in the rocket garden at Kennedy Space Center.
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 