First travel abroad - need tips/strategy for planning a trip to France!

Paris in 105 degrees? This would totally derail even this Paris lover. Kudos for being a trooper about it.

Would love to hear a more detailed trip report when you are up for it!

Yes, it was 40.something celsius, so 105ish. Definitely not the typical for Paris!

Our Paris time was spent doing the Seine boat ride, visiting the Eiffel Tower (our last name happens to be on the tower so fun to see that - no thanks to any of our talent!), Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Élysées, Sacre-Couer, a quick walk past the Louvre and Notre Dame (it was just too hot to stand in long lines), and spent a good bit of time just walking the small neighborhoods including the Marias. Really, the heat did limit us, but still we were satisfied with what we saw. It wasn’t the situation where we wanted to sit in a sidewalk cafe and people watch because of the heat you only wanted to find shade and the rare air conditioning break! Our hotel was clean and adequate, near a subway (Republic area?) but did not have AC, but at least a shower which we definitely needed!!

The rest of our time was in the south of France. Since we were visiting family, 3 days were dedicated to family get togethers (everybody wanted to host!!!). We did day trips to St. Tropez and Marseille (the Panier area and the museum on the water), went to a couple of local street markets which were fabulous in the Cassis area, did a boat tour of the Calenques and had a couple of evening picnics on the beach at the sea - give our family water, sand and food and we are SO happy! We had plans to visit Aix En Provence which got sadly nixed when a family member needed to change the day of her dinner party.

Again, because I had my 81 year old mom and didn’t want to ditch her TOO often :slight_smile: , we were a little limited in our “get up and go” time. But that’s fine. We got a great introduction to the area and the process of flying internationally. Taking the train from Marseille to Paris was GREAT - it was a 3 hour ride and a STEAL at 53 euros total for both ways. Very comfortable and smooth.

Thank goodness everyone had pools as well. Just VERY hot most of the time! (and they seem to be very anti-AC! And no screens on windows! - we had some hot nights sleeping).

We arrived in the UK a couple of days ago, my nearly 90 year old mother has done very well, She did not take a wheelchair in any airports, she wanted to walk after all the sitting! She napped all the first day and was up a lot that night. We are taking 2-3 days for her to just acclimate to the time change. My DS and I are just sightseeing locally, and the local grocery store counts as a fascinating site. This weekend will begin a 5 day excursion, hopefully everyone’s sleep is all set by then. This should give us a real chance to determine how ambitious we can be for the rest of the trip.

If you have Comcast cable and are planning to travel abroad, check out the Xfinity Connect app. I activated it on my mobile phone and can make & receive calls to & from the US, texts, too. It is quite helpful in allowing me to keep up with work stuff that would have been difficult to delegate.

For those traveling with seniors, I don’t know about the OP, but my 90 +/- mother is extremely tired after that trip. It has been about 4 days and on a short outing (2+ hours) she was quite weary quite soon. We were surprised how much less energy she has than usual. I am very happy that I planned for 5 days with no expectations upon arrival and that we have several currently unplanned gaps during our trip.

For those of you traveling with parents aged 90ish, kudos to both you and them for the undertaking! I’m sure it takes extra planning and care and is tiring all around. Glad to hear that some folks are still able to get out there and undertake such trips. I would imagine the long flights have to be one of the biggest challenges unless flying something other than coach.