Tomorrow my friends and I head out for the European vacation that has been in planning for many, many months and has undergone a number of transformations.
It began when a couple of friends invited me to join them for part of their month long trip to Avignon in the South of France. An excuse to go to Europe is hard to resist so I started thinking. Then, when a British friend, Jenni, told me that she was getting relocated to Switzerland (just a train hop away from Avignon), the thinking became much more serious. I sent out feelers to my traveling friends and got positive hell yes’s from Beth & Marcie. We started saving our money and dreaming up what we would do when we got there.
I was going to school taking some web application classes and one of the assignments was to create a web page that involved a topic that we researched. Since I had research to do on my trip and my Avignon trip friends were looking for a place to share information, http://www.monavignonfrance.com/ was born. 🙂
As the weeks and months drew on, it ended up that my British friend would be staying in the UK after all. We still thought Switzerland would be a nice place to visit, but then Stephanie came along and said that she wanted to join our trip and said, “We need to go to Amsterdam! Please, please, please!!” We sent numerous emails and spent a number of evenings poring over dozens of travel books. We even poured red wine all over Marcie’s laptop! Oops. :/
At last it was decided we would spend 16 days between three cities Avignon, Amsterdam and Paris, 4 days in each city, 3 days spent traveling.
There are so many things to see. When people ask what I’m most excited for, it’s really hard to say. Today, I’m most looking forward to a day trip to Nimes where we’ll see Roman ruins, aqueducts and an area and stop at the Jardins de la Fontaine.
From there, we’ll hop on the train again and head South to the sea. It’ll be too cold for a swim at Le Grau-du-Roi beach, but we’ll still dip our toes in and I’ll pick up some sand to add to Stacy’s sands of the world collection. (I think I am the largest contributor to the collection so far.)
We’ll be going on a wine tour on Saturday which sounds wonderful by all accounts. All too soon, we’ll be hopping on the train for 6 hours to Amsterdam.
The place I’m most excited about in the Netherlands is the Keukenhof gardens – about 45 minutes from Amsterdam. Our timing should hopefully be perfect for tulip viewing.
Jenni will be coming in from the UK to join us. Very much looking forward to seeing her! May even have a chance to share a drink with another UK coworker who will be there for the weekend. 🙂
In Paris, there are so many great things to see, it’s hard to know where to start. We’re lucky enough to have my coworker Nicolas show us around the Palace of Versailles and then we get to show him around the Louvre. Can you believe he’s lived in or around Paris all his life and has never seen it??? We’re only planning on a one day stop at the Louvre though I have heard that you can’t see the whole thing in a week. We’ll have to choose wisely…
