So We are Moving to Paris: Les Vacances

Farm land in Ramboulliet (40 minutes south west of Paris).

Starting about mid July, the French take on the serious business of vacations. From mid-July to mid-August, Paris witnesses a dearth of Parisians (although the decrease in denizens is equal to the increase in tourists). Restaurants and bakeries are closed for the summer. Markets and traffic are at 25% capacity.

Thomas and I find the atmosphere wonderfully calm. So much so that this year, we decided to stay in town during the summer and take our vacation in September.

Selecting a destination is quiet serious business. Parisians often know by March where they will be going in August. Far too much planning for our taste, but if you are taking a family of five for a four week vacation I suppose its necessary.

Somehow Thomas has convinced me to walk 170 km (105 miles) around a mountain as a vacation. Starting in early September we will take 10 days to walk through three countries. Sounds tiring, but the scenery should be spectacular.

As a preparation, we've been taking long hikes on weekends. The past few weeks we've been hiking through the forest of Ramboulliet making sure we put in as many hills as as possible. With heavy packs and walking sticks we walk through hills, farm lands, and small towns.

We found some hills!

Very Verdant. It's been a very wet year.

Very steep walk (you actually can't see the steeper part that Thomas is about to walk through) to the lake.

The French, being very serious vacationers, have worked in many many long weekends between May and August. There are so many holidays in May (all of which were on a Thursday this year) that they consider May practice for the summer. There is even a name for the day between the holiday and the weekend (the "pont" or the "bridge" ). People often take the "pont" as a day off. Four day weekend, anyone?

As a practice for our holiday, we decided to take a four day trip to Italy. Taking advantage of cheap air plane tickets throughout Europe, we planned a quick trip to Verona. In four days, we fell in love with the food, wine, and people. The Italians were generous, and everyone we met had a wonderfully friendly outlook. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, and were ready to come back again.