Europe 2019
It occurred to me while I was posting on my snapchat this week that I have yet to blog about my traveling experiences. Since I was posting about my Europe trip, I figured I might as well talk about that. France, Italy, and Spain were the three countries we visited in 2019. We flew out Thanksgiving night on a red eye flight to Barcelona, then a connecting flight to Paris. It was only an 11 day trip so we had to make the most of the time we had. My husband and I love to plan trips and it helped tremendously to have an agenda of what we were going to do each day. I will do a breakdown of what we did for each country. I hope this is of good use for you!
France
November 29: By the time we got settled in our Airbnb, freshened up, and grabbed a bite, it was already night time. We decided to take a stroll on the Champs-Élysées. The whole time I was there, the song my middle school French teacher would play in class, was stuck in my head. It was annoying but funny to me that I made my way there after all those years of taking French. (SN: During my senior year of high school, there was a trip to Paris; it was too expensive but I was low-key bummed out that I couldn’t go.) Besides the Champs-Élysées, we went to the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Place Charles de Gaulle, Le Louvre, Grand Palais, and walked along the Seine river. Our Airbnb was in Le Marais, right across from the Hôtel de Ville.
November 30: We went to Château de Versailles and did a bike tour around it. The company of the bike tour is called Fat Tire, I HIGHLY recommend them. There was no way we would have seen as much as we did without the bike tour. Our tour guide was awesome, he explained the history with a sense of humor, he kept it interesting. We were able to have some food in the town of Versailles, it is such a beautiful place.
December 1: We did a bike tour in Paris, and this was probably one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip. There are too many landmarks to list, let’s just say we saw a whole lot. The funny thing is that morning we went to a cute little breakfast spot and took our sweet time eating, and all of the sudden my husband gets a call from the Fat Tire company saying they were waiting for us. We basically devoured the rest of the food and sprinted to the place, thankfully it wasn’t too far. After the bike tour, we went to Sainte-Chappelle. It was on this day that we rode the Lime electric scooters, and J ran a stop light (he was flying) and left me in the dust. I had to use my quick reflexes and since I had zero prior experience riding them, I nearly busted my ass trying to brake in time. Regardless of my mishap, I recommend the scooters, once you get the hang of them they are easy to use and super convenient. The Louvre is a must. Besides the most popular work of art aka the Mona Lisa, there are amazing pieces of art there that are worth the time. That night, we tried Escargot and it did not disappoint. I am a rather picky eater and I enjoyed it.
December 2: Ahh this day was amazing. We made sure to catch the sunrise at Trocadéro and you get an amazing view of the Tour Eiffel. For those of you that are into sunrise/sunset photography, this place is a must. Later on the day we went to Sacré-Cœur, which is located at the summit of Montemartre. This was our last full day in Paris so we just did one last stroll around the Tour Eiffel and took a little sweet video of us summarizing our time in France. BTW the subway in Paris is super easy to use, and we loved using it as our primary means of transportation.
Italy
December 3: Florence, the Birthplace of European Renaissance! This was my favorite city. The food, the vibe, the people, it was all great. Italians are so friendly, I love their energy. On this day we saw the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, and walked around the surrounding Plazas. We had pizza and a gelato, so so good.
December 4: The next day in Florence, we did a Segway tour through the same Fat Tire company. This was so much fun, they are cool to ride and we got to hear the history of this grandiose city from a Florentine. Leonardo Da Vinci, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Bocaccio, Filippo Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Guccio Gucci were all born here. The amount of ice cream shops here is crazy, and you probably can’t go wrong with any of them. Desserts here were delicious! They also had a famous sandwich place, All'Antico Vinaio, you cannot leave Florence without trying these!!
December 5: We rented a car to travel from Florence to Rome. The drive was nice and smooth. In Rome the historic district is paved with a stone called sampietrini. This detail is very emblematic of Rome. That night we went to the Pantheon and when I googled how old that structure was, my jaw dropped. I really cannot fathom how it withstood all those wars in Europe. Yes, of course there is cosmetic maintenance done in some fashion to the building but still. It still holds the record for the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. I can go on about the intricacies of the architecture but I won’t lol..
December 6: On this day we did another Segway tour. Our tour guide was Roman, and it was just us two in the group, so I bombarded him with a lot of questions. That night we saw the Trevi fountain for the first time, it is huge. The pizza in Rome was delicious. I will say that Romans are very particular about their food, and I confirmed that watching Stanley Tucci’s show on CNN “Searching for Italy”. We also did a tour at the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. It was a lot of history, and I will be honest I retained nothing. All in all, Rome is packed with history but would I revisit? Probably not. I just didn't get the same vibe that I did when I was in Florence.
Spain
December 7: We arrived in Barcelona around midday, and we had a tapas food tour booked that night. The group we did the tour with was big, and we ended up bar hopping with them afterwards. Tapas are Spanish appetizers, simply put. There was one spot where they had “porrón”, which is a traditional glass wine pitcher that originated in Catalonia. The sangria they served us there was like nothing I had tried before. After the tapas tour, there was an abundance of alcohol lol.. My husband became the most social person that night, and decided to be generous and pay for everyone at one of the places we went to. I will admit I was a little confused when he whipped out the card and said he was going to pay for everyone (there were 10 of us!!). I drank the same amount he did, if not more, but he was the only one hungover the next day.
December 8: If you talk about Barcelona architecture, inevitably you will hear about Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí. We visited Casa Batllo, Casa Milà, and of course my personal favorite, La Sagrada Familia. We also visited the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter), which is a historical neighborhood.
December 9: We did a tour of La Sagrada Familia this day, and I annoyed the hell out of J because I wanted to stop and take a picture of everything! The church is beautiful, the stained glass inside, the sculptures all around, the columns, everything is impressive. It was after this tour, that I began to pay more attention to architecture. The amount of work that goes into building something that complex is just beyond me. After the tour, we went to Parc Güell, which is a public park with gardens and Gaudí architectural elements. We got to see the city of Barcelona from high above and that concluded our trip. We had planned to catch a game of Barca to kill two birds in one stone while we were there but unfortunately they did not have a home game during those days.
This was longer than I anticipated but I hope it was insightful! The best advice I can give to anyone seeing more than one country while visiting Europe is to book bike tours, you save yourself tons of walking/time!
My most played song of the week.
