I tried to take in as much of France as possible in five weeks. Here are some photos and stories, presented in some order.

Paris

Our last trip was to Japan. It was 2 weeks, but it went by in 2 seconds. It felt like a dream when I got back.

Now we had 5 weeks: 3 in Paris, ~1.5 in Lyon, a few days in Annecy, and then about 2 nights in Paris before we went back.

Paris always felt like a place that encouraged people to slow down and take it easy. I wanted to do just that. My grand plan? Bring a camera to run around and take photos. Really focus on the small things around me and be more present. Do anything to keep a regular routine and feel like I lived there. So no real itineraries either.

We landed, got out of the airport, and made our way to our apartment in Montmartre. A true uphill climb for our sleep deprived brains, but I was rewarded with this wonderful photo.

Our apartment was just around the corner. We managed to get our luggage up the tiny, uneven stairs. It was so pink. There were cats playing in the courtyard every morning against the backdrop of a kid's daily piano practice.

We went for a stroll to acclimate and get a lay of the land, and I snapped as many photos of fun buildings as I could.

Our first stop was Substance Cafe, a supremely unique place where brewing coffee is at its peak. We opted for an omakase experience, so Joachim asked us what flavors of ice cream we liked, then brewed V60 pour overs, espressos, and even served milk that he froze / thawed three times to improve the concentration of fat. We drank until we were fully buzzed.

We gradually made our way back to the apartment after finding dinner and checking out a few thrift stores.

There was a particular scene we saw every night next to our apartment. The same locals would gather at the bar on the corner and drink, smoke, and have a great time until the night devolved into singing.

For the remainder of our 3 weeks in Paris, we had the same routine: wake up, French press, work for a few hours, then get out by 9AM to wander, eat, take photos and stroll until 3PM. I'd do some more work when folks in the US came online, then back out for dinner and evening shenanigans.

This structure drastically made the days feel normal, like I was at home. Peppering in bursts of work slowed it down even more; I wasn't letting the sensory overload of a new place overwhelm me. I went at my own pace, did the things I wanted to do, when I wanted to. Even if it meant missing out on some things.

One day we were walking around, baguettes in hand, and this scene appeared in front of us.

My camera doesn't have auto focus so I quickly fumbled with one hand to guess the correct aperture. No doubt his color coordination with the leaves was intentional. But I was so happy I captured it.

Later, one night, we were strolling around after dinner and I randomly pulled my camera up and took a photo. It was like my brain acted faster than I could even see what was in front of me or fumble with my camera to get the focus right.

I mentioned earlier we went to Japan. One of the best parts about Paris was visiting Kodawari Ramen and being transported to Tokyo.

What's missing in this photo is the sound. Kodawari Ramen was special, not just because of the food or the decor, but the ambience: they had speakers playing sounds from Tokyo (think street sounds like the crosswalk count down, cars honking, etc.). There's a weird thing with Tokyo where you're faced with the contradiction of a densely populated city that's eerily quiet (for the most part). The ambient sounds fit in perfectly, and made our ramen taste better.

I'm not sure how much we'd enjoy our noodles if we ate them elsewhere, but we liked the experience so much that we went back to their second location a few weeks later which was based on the Tsukiji fish market and had more seafood inspired bowls (and sounds).

The nice thing about a city with such rich art history is the public art. Statues striking poses create openings for some pretty fun photos.

When I saw this in real life, my eyes immediately went to the statue's finger, pointing to what the man was drawing.

I wonder what he's reading on his phone? And how frequently he chooses to sit there and create a scene to amuse others around him?

Oookay. There were a lot of them doing yoga. But this one was my favorite.

Lyon

After a wonderful three weeks, and so many more photos, we took the train down to Lyon. This city reminded me of Chicago or even Osaka in the way it loves food and how relaxed folks were. Well, the ones who were there. Everyone else left because it was August, so it was basically a ghost town filled with graffiti.

Here's one of my favorite Lyon stories. It was excruciatingly hot. We were walking up some crazy hill and I was stopping everywhere to take photos of random buildings. Savannah ran way past me and I lost her.

I noticed this wonderful house with graffiti and took a photo.

Just as I was about to leave, someone popped their head out of the window and asked if I was a photographer.

Uh, no.

He told me he used to be a fashion photographer in LA and moved back to Lyon to buy and renovate this old house. He described the old furniture in there (all antiques). I was hoping he'd invite me in, until I noticed he was shirtless. He said the AC wasn't working but the building did a good job keeping it cool. Didn't seem like it.

I asked him for one more photo, which I barely got in time (I wasn't ready).

He went back in, and I turned the corner to see Savannah making her way back to me, just after this entire 5 minute exchange took place. Oops.

A few days later we were back in this area and I saw him walking around outside. I only recognized him because he was shirtless again. He ran up to me, checked out my camera, and entered my phone number in his phone.

A few months later, Eric butt dialed me.

Night in Lyon was peaceful, and the river made for some really great photos with reflections.

The first night I managed to take this photo of the train over the bridge and I couldn't help but notice the reflection almost looked like a painting.

After some experimentation by a puddle, I took this photo of Savannah. Look closely at her feet and you'll figure out how I made it. I really love this photo.

Look. I'm not a food critic. But I know good food when I eat it, and Lyon was outrageously good.

Within one week, we ate at La Table Wei 3 times. Ruijun is a gem, and her food is a mix of French and Chinese cuisine. The first time we went I thought: one uses butter and one uses oil, how is that going to work? (Did I mention I'm not a food critic?) Man is she on to something. It was probably the first restaurant in the trip where I could just "read" everything I ate.

By the end of our meal, we found out she had a totally separate lunch and take away menu, so we showed up a few more times to try as much as we could.

One of her friends opened a pizza restaurant called Maria. Did we go here multiple times? You bet. I highly recommend it; you'll work up an appetite climbing the hill.

It was really hot outside, so it was uninhabitable inside with the oven. I'm actually not sure how they were making anything, let alone yummy pizza.

Another repeat offender on our restaurant list was Le Musee, a traditional bouchon. The first time, a bunch of locals stared at us until one of them eventually found the courage to ask: "you are a tourist? how did you hear about this place? it is a secret." I forget where, probably a blog post and we showed up randomly. Sorry!

On our second visit, we sat next to a visitor from Paris. He was an engineer. We spoke in English until the owner's daughter stopped by for a meal and he chatted with her the rest of the evening in French. It felt like they were on a date! He took time to translate jokes the owner was making in French so we weren't left out.

Oh yeah. The food was superb.

I don't have any photos, but we did also make it to the Paul Bocuse restaurant (after re-watching the Lyon episode of Parts Unknown). It's expensive, but I enjoyed it a lot. Who wouldn't want to try chicken cooked in a pig's bladder?

Here are a few more photos from the Lyon part of our trip that I grabbed while walking around.

One of the art exhibits we went to in Lyon had an entire section on a Chicago artist (I forget, I'll try to find it). The funniest part was it was all paintings of 2 and 3 flats from Ashland Ave. Felt like I was at some random local exhibit in Chicago looking at art of my drive there.

What did we do in our downtime in Lyon? I decided watching John Wick was a good idea. The third movie had just come out and Savannah hadn't seen any. We managed to binge all 3 just so she could see the Paris scenes in the last movie because we'd just spent 3 weeks in Montmartre. Have to tie it all together!

Annecy

After a fun stay in Lyon, we took a bus to Annecy, a tiny lake town by the Swiss border. Apparently it's the best lake in Europe. Savannah enjoyed going in, but I was too busy taking photos (which I'm not allowed to forget).

And yet another part of the lake that I didn't go into, but I grabbed a nice photo of this random couple.

I posted this photo below on Instagram during the trip and someone messaged me. It was another military watch collector from the UK who happened to be visiting and he recognized it.

We planned to get together a few days later in case our itineraries worked out. For now, our plan was ice cream, lake, and at least one touristy thing: the castle.

Kind of random but kind of cool. We walked up a mountain and eventually got a tour of this place.

Once we made it back down, the goal was the beach. I texted Nick to see if he was still free and voila! Managed to squeeze in a beer, talk watches, and share stories about other collectors we both knew from the forums. It's really such fun when these meetups just work out. I was glad I brought a watch on this trip!

We ended our stay at Annecy with dinner at this lovely restaurant. Found by chance, but it was owned by a husband / wife duo. As an aside, this was pretty common during our trip, and I have to say, the fact that one of them also did front of house made the experience so much more fun. They loved sharing stories about their restaurant and their menu. It was my most memorable meal in Annecy.

We made our way back to Paris to end the trip. This time, we used our very little time to be proper tourists and finally went into the Louvre and the Catacombs.

The Mona Lisa is tiny, and seeing so many skulls was weird.

By the end, it felt like way longer than 5 weeks. It's going to be hard not doing slow travel everywhere we go now.