Paris, South of France + Barcelona

We are back from an amazing trip to France and Spain.  Even though I used to live in France (Strasbourg, Paris and Nice) I have not been back since 2003 and the kids have never been on a longer than 3 hour plane ride. The girls far exceeded all of my expectations and were incredible little travelers. This trip was in celebration of our 10 year wedding anniversary and I couldn’t imagine not bringing the kids with us.  This was the kind of vacation where we were on the go for almost every day.

In Paris we rented an apartment on a charming side street by St. Sulpice. We went to churches, museums, up the Eiffel Tower and did a walking tour in the Marais. And in the south of France we rented a little house in a village in the Languedoc region where we toured vineyards, castles, went on hikes and swam in the sea, gorges, rivers, lakes and a pool. We fit in a LOT during our one week with different trip each day; Carcassonne, Gorges d’heric, Cirque de Moureze,  Lac Salagou, St. Guilhem, Roquebrun, Pezenas, Via plage, Cassan chateau, Abbaye de Valmagne

We ended in Barcelona where we had another walking tour and visited churches, parks and finally had our only “chill” day of sitting on the beach just down the road from our apartment.  All in all despite some chilly weather in Paris everything from our flights, train rides, rental car and sightseeing all went perfectly and the girls have already asked to go back.

When we got home yesterday I asked them if they are city kids or country kids and they both agreed they prefer the country (our time in the south of france was the highlight for all of us) but all 4 of us also agreed that we would be happy to live in Paris.

I have about 400 images edited from this trip so I’m sharing just a small percentage of them here for a little taste of what our family has been up to during our 15 day European adventure 🙂

Here are highlights from our week in the southwest part of  France, the “country” portion of our journey.  Here is a view of our village:

See the castle ruins all the way on the top?  We hiked there:

And here is the view from the patio at the house

This was right down the road:

We went on amazing hikes; this is at a gorge

And another hike, the Cirque de Moureze

And some villages nearby

Carcassone

The vineyard in our little village

Couple more of a nearby village

And some highlights of the city portion- first, my favorite city in the world

And Barcelona: