Ooh La La

Just so you know- we officially love France!!  


I’m sorry that this is so long but we had a lot of ground to cover and we also want to be able to look back and read where we have been. Luke will follow up with a post containing pictures. So power through :) 


Our first stop was Nice on the French Riviera. Unfortunately, we arrived mid-day without eating and so our first French experience was not our favorite. The French have very specific meal times. Lunch is between 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. and dinner starts at 7:00 p.m. This meant that our 3 p.m. arrival left us with little options. We winded up eating at a shabby outdoor cafe with a very unfriendly, non- English speaking French man. After traveling from Venice for over 6 hours, it was a disappointing first encounter. Since Luke and I were feeling so comfortable with the Italian we picked up, it felt like a rocky start to a new language. However, we still managed to walk around the city and see some great views. The weather was warm and sunny and there is nothing quite like a French sunset. We didn't get to explore as much as would have liked but felt that coast was for sure worth the stop. The beach was beautiful and we winded up walking for quite a while. And if you heard that the French are comfortable sans bathing suits, you were right! We had to advert our eyes on quite a few occasions.  For dinner we found a very nice little restaurant and had our main staple, pizza :) The staff was very friendly and didn't mind our poor French. The next day we picked up our rental car and I successfully drove us to Monaco! We were really excited to go there to see the famous casino, the Monte Carlo, and also because it is home of Prince Albert. It was fun to walk around and see his palace and there were also quite a few pictures of Princess Grace Kelly around. I find it interesting that Monaco is its own country and that no one pays taxes. It also had a harbor filled with some of the largest yachts I've ever seen. It is a very ritzy place and I am glad that we stopped there even if it was just for an afternoon because we probably will never be able to afford an actual vacation there.

From there we drove to Arles, which is in Provence. We were there for 5 nights. Arles is famous for Vincent Van Gogh who spent a lot of time there painting. It also has Roman ruins, cobblestone streets and outdoor markets. We really enjoyed our time there and were able to drive around every day to different sights/towns nearby. Many of the towns also had ruins, such as Orange and Pont Du Guard which has the largest aqueduct in Europe. It was impressive to tour the museum and the see the actual sight and imagine how big it must have been when it was first built. Other cities we explored in the area were Avignon, Vaison la Romaine, Roussillon and Les Baux. We spent each day touring 1-2 towns. Some were smaller and really didn't have much to see while others we spent more time exploring in. Vaison la Romaine was a pretty town with more Roman ruins, a trend for a large part of southern France, but not really impressive compared to what we had already seen. We hiked to the upper part of the town to glance around the historical center and take some pictures. Roussillon was a very quaint town on a hilltop of Ochre, a type of clay. The whole town is colored in red and orange hues and was worth a stop just because of how pretty it was! Avignon is famous as it used to be where the pope officially lived and so it has a papal palace and some grand structures. It also has a very medieval feel which we really found appealing and the main city center is entirely surrounded by ramparts! Les Baux is another medieval city and had a very interesting castle that we were able to tour and got a picture in the stocks. The audio guides were very thorough in describing what life during that time was like. We also experienced the mistrals which were very strong in that part of Provence.

Our next stop was Sarlat which is in the Dordogne region. We didn't really plan to stop there but during our planning we found that it was going to be easier to keep our car and drive to Normandy. The distance between Provence and Normandy was going to be a long drive so we planned to spend two nights poking around the river valley. And we were quite pleased we did though we didn't actually spend much time in Sarlat and wished we had. The Dordogne River Valley is a beautiful region and we were able to squeeze in some castles. Now, it was colder than we had been used to and it also rained a little. This was good for one reason because it meant that there were almost no crowds (except at Carcassonne which is pretty much a tourist trap). This was fun because Luke and I took lots of fun pictures and we were the only people in them for once! We did a short boat tour and then drove between the five towns that line the river and stopped at some of the castles or chateaus as they are called. It was a bit tiring to squeeze into two days but we find that since we are here, we want to do as much as we can. We'll just be unavailable when we get home for a while as we'll be catching up on our sleep :)

On the way to Normandy we stopped near Amboise to see Chateau de Chenonceau. This was more of a mansion than a castle but was still very pretty and also had gardens and a labyrinth. We didn't dally though because both Luke and I were very anxious to get to Normandy. We really wanted to see all the WWII sights and beaches and were excited to be by the ocean. Our hotel was probably the cutest we have stayed since traveling. It had a little restaurant that had wonderful food including savory crepes and pizzas. We ate there every night. For breakfast we would go to one of the bakerys and get quiches and pastries. The town we stayed in was Bayeux and was very centrally located and has a very famous tapestry with some historical scenes as well as some graphic ones. Luke and were trying to imagine what the little old ladies were thinking when they were needle pointing the male anatomy. We found that most people spoke English and were very friendly. The Caen Memorial Museum was amazing and thoroughly goes through pre-WWII through the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. We spent 7.5 hours there!! One whole section is devoted to D-Day and takes you step-by-step through the planning and the day of. It was one of our favorite museums. There was a more modern section that talked about censorship and it was a little anti-American. It boldly stated that the U.S.A is the most wasteful country in the world and that between us and China, we are the only ones that can do anything about global warming (I'm not exaggerating). I found that to be a bold statement that seems to take responsibility from the rest of the world and puts it solely on two countries. The section that was devoted to the Cold War had a plaque that had a statement about the opposing ideologies of the U.S. and the Soviet. America was described as one “whose ambition was to win over the world to its liberal model and establish a social order based on the law of supply and demand, private enterprise and faith in God." and then it also refers to "American hedonism". Again a bold statement especially when you consider the definition of hedonism. Those are just my own thoughts on the matter and really I am not well-versed in politics so I won't continue on but I just thought I would share some of the opinions that are out there regarding our country. We also toured the D-Day beaches and towns that played a role in the war. Luke and I were constantly in awe when we thought about what happened in these places as well as the obvious thankfulness of the communities that were liberated by the American troops. Many of the towns had reader boards along the sidewalks in English detailing the troop’s efforts in liberating Normandy. Our flag was also flying high in most towns and along some of the highways. The U.S. cemetery was beautiful and sad at the same time. I felt very proud to be an American while visiting the places that so many soldiers fought and where really the turning point of the war was. This part of France experienced the most physical destruction during the war because of it's location. We loved Normandy and enjoyed every day there. It was nice to have a car to drive around see all the history and to explore France. We for sure appreciated the experience and took some amazing pictures.

Well we are off to Paris. Actually, we are already here but I will blog about that at another time.