Despite leaving Paris (sigh…) only this morning, it feels like we've been traveling for weeks. It was a wonderful stay in Zagreb. We had a good flight, saw beautiful snowy alpine scenery along the way and landed in Zagreb spot on time - very smooth sailing indeed. We had a wash and a rest as soon as we checked in and eventually headed out as dusk fell to enjoy Zagreb's awesome Christmas lights. We were upgraded to a fabulous one bedroom suite with views...

Saturday 8 January - Well here we are - unexpectedly back in Paris for a week. Never a hardship. We found an absolutely outstanding apartment on AirBnB. Our pre-Christmas stay was out in the 19th and whilst a wonderful apartment - a fairly dire location. This time around we paid (a bit) more and stayed in the 8th. Much better pricing than usual, probably due to the soaring Omicron numbers. We left Amsterdam with the sun rising over windmills on our left and ...

23 Dec - We were up awfully early today - laundry takes forever when there're multiple loads. The apartment resembled a commercial laundry by the time we departed, but at least it would have time to dry by the time our fab owner returns. Bed made, quick sweep, breakfast and out the door at 8 am in a military fashion… At which point we ordered an Uber and the wheels fell off. Apparently the spot where we were standing was awkward and no one was interested...

So. Paris. Finally. Short version? We came, we saw, we walked about 200km (at least), we dined out on luscious lunches and expanded our portfolio of lunch destinations substantially (Julien, Pharamond, Republique, Leon with more still to try). We got Covid booster shots, visited museums and indulged in Picard's best gourmet frozen food. We walked some more. We tried to go to a show, but were foiled by Covid. We enjoyed the Christmas decorations and lights and ...

Here we are, back in one of our many spiritual homes, the Irish countryside. (Other spiritual homes? Paris specifically and Spain generally.) We went out for dinner with our owners on night 1 and they are now off on their holidays whilst we start our travelling lifestyle again. We didn't need to prove our vaccination status at all during our 3 days in Dublin, which felt very weird indeed - as did the lack of QR checkins. Definitely relaxing and nice, but stil...