Winter Travels: Paris, Philadelphia & Boston

I love to travel in winter. Yes, the days are shorter. And it is cold. But the crowds are small and I’d rather be too cold than too hot (you can always add layers!).

Kyle and I decided at the last minute that a visit to Paris would be a great way to end the year. We both wanted to see the Notre-Dame restoration and while I visit Paris all the time for Wingback Travel, I rarely have the opportunity to visit as a tourist on my own schedule.

The first morning (jet lag bed damned!) I dragged myself out of bed at 7am to hit the street market at Vanves. We love this market, but you really have other go early. It is small, and the good stuff goes fast!

Notre Dame de Paris reopened and truly glorious.

We both really enjoyed going inside and seeing the restoration work at Notre-Dame. Clean and bright are the words I most associate with the building now that centuries of smoke and pollution have been removed. The stained glass is also shimmering again! That said, the visiting experience still leaves a lot to be desired. Notre-Dame was always Paris’s top attraction and with the reopening it is only more crowded. To get tickets, you must go online 2 days before and get them. They are free. There is no other way to get tickets at the moment. It is not hard to get them - you go on their website at 6pm EST two days before you want to go. When you get there, be prepared to join a very long line before entering. The line moves, but you do not just walk up and go right now. Inside it also very crowded. If you go, the best time if probably in the evening when everyone else headed to dinner

Otherwise, our trip to Paris included many great meals, museums, and shops. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with a festive evening at La Coupole with live music and dancing. For museums, I took Kyle to several of my favorites that he had never been to: the Carnavalet (history of Paris) and the Cluny (medieval Paris). We even braved the crowds one morning to visit the Musee d’Orsay (Impressionism). The wonderful thing about the Orsay is that you can keep going back to it over and over again and always find something “new” that you haven’t seen before.

The Barnes, Philadelphia, with works by Cezanne, Renoir, and van Gogh.

Back home in January, we headed down to Philadelphia one weekend. I had never been and had long been dying to go to the Barnes Foundation. I absolutely loved it. The paintings are hung tightly together in pairings and groups selected by Prof. Barnes himself. I loved this display - it encourages close looking and by comparing works you can get a better understanding of them (pictured above).

We also visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a big, encyclopedic museum with rooms full of European Old Masters and an equally fantastic collection of Impressionist and Modern painting. Cezanne’s Bathers, his largest work, is here. The Philadelphia Museum also has several fabulous period rooms, including a Gilded-Age New York living room and a Robert Adam room from an English country house (pictured below).

A Robert Adam interior, originally from England, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Lastly, we drove up to Boston for quick weekend trip. It was quite cold! We checked out the new Raffles hotel (pictured below), the first Raffles in North America. It’s swanky and the service is excellent. I highly recommend it, especially if you prefer newer hotels to historic properties. We were really in town though to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which did not disappoint. Before heading home the next morning, we went to Cambridge and visited the Harvard Art Museum. This museum is small but of outstanding quality. The campus of Harvard with its historic buildings makes for a delightful stroll.

The new Raffles hotel, Boston

While I was glad to get away during the dark days of winter, I confess that I am already anxiously awaiting Spring - and the start of our 2025 tour season! In March, Ross and I headed to England and France for site visits for future tours.

As always, thanks for following along and stay signed up for our emails to get the latest!

-Laura