travel
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Blue Ridge weekend
A few weeks ago, my sister in law invited us to spend a long weekend with her family in the Blue Ridge mountains just a little ways from Blue Ridge, GA. She rented a cabin on the river which we accessed by a bumpy dirt road a couple miles long. The location was perfect and restful. Free Fun One of the things that I enjoy about a short vacation in the mountains is that it can be fairly inexpensive as far as activities go. Yes, if you choose to go horseback riding, ziplining, paddle boarding the cost will add up. But you can still have fun without paying for different…
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Last adventure in France: Fontainebleau
This will be my last travel post about our trip to Europe. I have enjoyed reliving our adventures through writing and recording our trip. Before leaving the north of France, we decided to visit Fontainebleau, a castle that began in the medieval times (nothing much is left from that era, just a small donjon stairwell) through the 19th century. It bcomes a large palace especially during the 2nd part of the reign of Francois 1er (1494-1547). Napoleon 1st will also spend time there in the 1800s. Since my husband and I had never visited the inside of the palace and the day was forecasted to be rainy, we drove to…
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A day in Paris
Ah, Paris! While it was an exhausting day trying to see all the sights, it was a beautiful day. When we asked the boys what they wanted to see or do in France, they all replied “see the Eiffel tower”. So while I have been several times to the Eiffel tower and my husband once, we decided to take a day to see our top sights in Paris. First of all, I am very grateful to my friend, Veronique who mapped out our itinerary for us. She asked me what we wanted to see in Paris and suggested we get a Mobilis pass which allowed us to use the same…
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Provins, Medieval town
Provins became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001. The town is known for its remparts, Cesar tower and fortified walls. The tower dates from the 12th century. Provins held a well known annual trade fair in medieval times and the town also boasts undergrounds tunnels with inscriptions. There are different tours you may take to learn about the city but since we had already done a couple of those in the past, this time we chose to wander the streets, the remparts and go to one of the shows, the legend of the knight. We first walked from one rempart gate to another. Since there were some renovations happening,…
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Parc des Felins and Terre des Singes (Feline park and Monkey land)
On our first full day in the north of France, we decided to visit the Parc des Felins and the Terre des Singes in Lumigny-Nesle-Ormeaux. These two animal parks are only 10 minutes from my friend’s house and we bought the pass for both and took advantage of the discount. This was by far our most expensive outing but it still was not too bad at a little over 100 euros for the whole family. We first stopped by the village’s boulangerie (bread bakery) for fresh baguettes for our picnic lunch. I was very impressed with the size of the enclosures at the Feline Park and how natural they were…
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Montpellier, a university town
I lived 7 years less than 2 hours from Montpellier but for some reason, it was not a town that we visited. I am sure we have been to Montpellier and driven through it but I do not recall visiting the downtown area. My older brother actually spent two years there at the university and after spending an afternoon there, I came away with how pretty of a town it is! We met my high school friend Caroline which I hadn’t seen in 21 years at her apartment and after some refreshments she and her family gave us a walking tour of the town. Through cobbled streets and other pedestrian…
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My “home town” of Perpignan and an excursion to Villefranche
I spent 14 of my growing up years in France and seven of those years were in the town of Perpignan in the south of France, half an hour from Spain. There we visited my Godparents which I had not seen for about 14 years so they had not met any of our children. It was an emotional reunion for me and I made them promise to come visit us! Villefranche de Conflent is a medieval town that dates back to 1098. The town is surrounded by ramparts and is very picturesque. We took a self guided tour of the remparts and walked around the town one afternoon. My son…
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Catalunya, Spain Part 2
We’ve been home for almost a week now and are still talking about how much we enjoyed our time in Spain! Girona In Girona, we ate lunch in a large beautiful park accross from where we parked. Parking was most often paying parking but usually just 1 or 2 euros for a couple of hours. Since we were driving a large, large van it was much easier to park in outdoor lots than parallel park most of the time. A note to large families when traveling: call the car rental company to make sure the car/vehicle you are renting is a true 7 seater. We arrived at the airport to…
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What I wore in Spain and France
Since I have started writing this blog, I have been paying more attention to what people wear. I was somewhat surprised to find that in my opinion people were more fashionable in Spain than in France. That might be because of where in Spain and France we were. We were in a nice hotel in Spain and visited pretty coastal towns where there were tourists from France and different part of Spain. In France we were in smaller towns/villages and I did notice more stylish clothes in Paris. I only saw white pants in touristy places a handful of time and never wore the pair I brought. Everything else I…
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Catalunya, Spain
After two wonderful weeks visiting friends and two countries, we are back in the US. As usual, our trip abroad was busy as we wanted to see as much as we could while we were there. We spent two days in Spain at the beginning of our trip and one more before our flight back. We flew into Barcelona since it was close to my Godparents’ and my high school friend who live in the South of France. It was also cheaper than flying into Paris. I will be recapping our trip over the next few weeks, focusing on fashion on Mondays and sharing our travels on Wednesdays and Fridays.…