We returned from France late last Wednesday. My wife and I took our almost 15 year old granddaughter, her first trip to France. We spent 4 full days in Paris plus we traveled to the the South of France including Monaco, the Loire Valley and Normandy. Our travels around France included the use of trains and rental car.
Observations:
Covid was not a big issue for us. It didn’t stop us from doing anything. Most of the time we had to wear masks indoors and on public transportation. The museums and Eiffel Tower all accepted our CDC card. We were not asked for any Covid information at CDG passport control. The process for getting a Covid (Antigen) test for return to the US was relatively easy. We took the test at the closest pharmacy to our hotel in Paris. It cost 30 Euros each. We flew on American Airlines and entered the results into their Verifly app. We only had to show the approval in the Verifly app at CDG check in.
You can tell that tourism is way down. We stayed in small hotels and B&Bs and I don’t think any were ever full. One B&B had only 2 of the 5 rooms filled each night we were there. We never experienced large crowds except the Sunday market in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. A lady on the shuttle to Mont St. Michel said the crowd was half of what it would be normally this time of year. Our tour guide in Normandy said this was only his third tour this year. We took tours of the Louvre and Versailles. They were not private tours but we were the only ones on the Louvre tour. and the Versailles tour only had 9. The tour guide said that tour companies are not offering some tours because there are not enough tourists to make it financially worth while. She worked for several companies and said one was cutting their fee 30-40% because of less than full tours. We never had to wait for a seat at a restaurant or cafe.
Driving in France was relatively easy. We used Europcar and were extremely pleased. Our Toyota Hybrid small SUV was almost brand new and got nearly 50 MPG. Gas price ranged from $6.5-$8.5 a gallon. The high prices were on the motorway which is expected. The lowest prices were at Leclerc stations. We used Google maps and rarely got lost as my wife is a good navigator.
Our credit cards worked most of the time, but once in a while we had to use a different card. They all are chip cards and at a few gas pumps, I had to enter a pin number. They always worked great on the motorways, we never used cash to pay tolls.
We mostly used the bus system in Paris. We liked that because you got to see various parts of the city. I used Google maps for all public transportation routes. It worked very good for finding a bus route and the closest stop. I had cell data all the time so we got realtime results.
We had a great time in France. Most of the places we and been to be before, but it good to revisit with our granddaughter. Most everyone was very friendly and helpful. You could tell they were glad to have tourists again.