BrucatosgotoParisandTunisiaNovember2025

  After the cold wave that hit Paris yesterday, and walking back from dinner and REALLY freezing, it was a relief to get into our lovely and really warm room last night!  In fact, it was so warm that  R  never got under the duvet at all!  I had been trying to figure out, with the weather being what it is, and  R  not having a really good coat with him, what we could do today that was indoors.  I hadn’t really come up with much, other than possibly re-visiting and touring the  Opera Garnier , which we haven’t done in some years.  But truly, it is such an incredible building that it is worth seeing more than once!  I was up this morning really early (about 4-ish) only to find that the Keck schedule from Hawaii had been released – which really put paid to any plans  R  had for today!   R  had been waiting for several weeks for the schedule to come out, as his next assignment is to go over it...

Up this morning about 5 am and decided that after our big dinner last night, that we were really in no need of breakfast!  So, showered and all packed up – it’s amazing how things somehow just manage to fit back inside those 21” suitcases – and even though we had a shuttle scheduled for 8:30 am, we both wanted to get to the airport earlier.  So, down to the lobby with everything at 7.  The lovely gal at reception contacted the shuttle service, and arranged for a driver to actually arrive in 15 minutes!  And he did!  Lovely vehicle, with seat belts that work!!  And within another 15 minutes we were at the Carthage airport!   We were, in fact, SO early that the Air France desks weren’t even open, and we had to wait about 20 minutes for that to happen.  But got our boarding passes quickly, and then headed to immigration and security.  Again, just a minute or two wait for immigration, and even less to get t...

  Now I have to admit that our Volkswagen Jetta was truly a delightful vehicle – except, of course, for the trunk lid … but that notwithstanding, our little VW drove beautifully, I  SOOO  enjoyed the manual transmission, and it was an amazing way to experience Tunisia.  That all being said, I have to admit that I was rather relieved to drop it off successfully this afternoon at the airport … and it was a great thing that we did, too!  We have never really come across an airport before that had absolutely  NO  “RENTAL CAR RETURN” signage.  And of course, I hadn’t asked when we picked up the car!  I guess I just figured that when we needed to know, it would be there!  WRONG!     So … to start with the day.  We were up about 5 am, and down to breakfast about 8.  As the first site we were going to was only about an hour’s drive away, and we didn’t want to arrive too early,  R ...

(with door!)  What a concept!!   Hello from Tunis!  We have made it safely back here to the lovely  Hotel Belvedere Fourati , and there was even a parking space waiting for us out front!  How nice was that?!   Up this morning early, about 4:30 am for me.  I slept really well in our VERY warm room – the room came equipped with a wonderful wall mounted AC/heater unit that managed to heat up our very chilly room quite nicely!  But added to that, with all the driving yesterday, I was ready for bed by 8 pm … so I did get a goodly number of hours in!  First problem in the morning, though, was a lack of any sort of shower curtain/door or anything.  I know that with RV’s, you can have a “wet” or a “dry” bath room – well, this one would certainly qualify as wet – and added to the fact that there was no hair dryer in sight, I opted against showering … as did  R .  So, up, dressed and up (2 flights ...