California Comeback: RC2: Paris 10-miler and Rue Cler

Let the recaps begin!

I shared the itinerary of our trip to France and Switzerland last week, and now I'm back to share some photos of the highlights.

First a note about the name of our trip:

Last year, we took our first big international trip together (to Italy), and the timing couldn't have been more crucial: we left on our trip one week after Will's PhD defense. After 6 years of toil (the last year and a half of which required some especially difficult weeks and long hours), he was pretty worn down, and a vacation was exactly what he needed. I did most of the planning, since he had zero time to work on the itinerary, and I remember thinking much of the trip would be an unintentional surprise for him. I made sure to schedule in a decent mix of exciting adventures and relaxing downtime. We dubbed the trip "the Revival Crusade"--a playful way to characterize our intention of taking Italy by storm and returning with renewed energy.

[I keep meaning to post about that trip last year, but in short: it was a huge success.]

Fast forward 14 months. We moved across the country, started new jobs, and made a new home. We're both enjoying our jobs, but let's just say that Will was averaging four hours of sleep a night. Another Revival Crusade was in order!

We settled on France and Switzerland as our targets, and my cousin from Switzerland helped us sketch out a general plan when we saw each other in California in July.

Will's need for a repeat Revival Crusade (RC2) didn't go unnoticed; we nicknamed our new trip the "Croisade Renaissance Deux." Voila--we were ready for take 2.

After much research and planning, we arrived in Paris with just about 3 hours of sleep fueling us. Our excitement won, however, and we walked ALL around the city to get our bearings.

It turns out we covered 10.6 miles that day. Who knew Paris was even that large? (Those miles were broken up by a much-needed nap.) Our first day turned out to be the only sunny one we spent in Paris, so we were thankful we packed so much in.

We started by crossing the river and exploring Paris' Left Bank: these pictures are my favorite from Hotel des Invalides (Army museum with Napoleon's tomb) and the surrounding area.