Eurotrips and Such: France

Before I get started, I forgot to add in the 'Spain' post that I had to travel solo....in a way. 2 of my friends were supposed to go on this trip with me but one told me at the last minute she wasn't able to go because of financial issues and the other I haven't even heard from.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let me tell you about my time in France....

First off, we weren't there long enough which is the perfect excuse to go back someday. Half the time was spent on a bus driving from Spain to France so we didn't get there until around 7pm. Then the next day we had a day trip to a perfume factory and got back around 4pm but had to leave the next morning. Anyway, I really enjoyed what little time I spent in France. We didn't go the traditional route which is Paris, Eiffel Tower, etc. We were in the south of France in Cannes (you know, the place with the huge film festival) then spent a brief moment in Nice followed by a morning pit stop in Monaco on the way to Italy.

I wasn't there for long so I couldn't do much and therefore there's not much for me to talk about in this post. I will say that the beach (which was across the street from our hotel) was beautiful with CLEAN and clear water. Emphasis on the clean which is rare in American beaches. I tried French food and yes I mean snails. It wasn't the usual escargot because they didn't have it at this particular restaurant but it was some other snail. The waiter said the difference is that the snails we had live in a different part of the ocean or something like that. They were actually pretty good but fishy smelling so try to just eat it without smelling too hard.

In my opinion, one of the best parts of France (and the entire trip) was the hotel we stayed in. It was awesome because the rooms were really like little apartments. There was a kitchen area with a table & chairs, stove, sink, refrigerator, and the cabinets had full sets of dishes with silverware and everything. We were in a quad so there was one room with a big bed, another with bunk beds and a pull out couch. And the bathroom was clean which is always good. The pool at the hotel was also beautiful but we opted for the beach. If you ever go to Cannes be sure to stay at the Pierre & Vacances Cannes Beach @ 11, av Pierre Semard, Cannes la Bocca.


That's really all I have to say about France. I mean, it's the freaking French Riviera, what more do you want! Next up: Tales from Italy!

Eurotrips and Such: Spain

So as I said in my preview post, I recently returned from 2 weeks of touring in Europe. I went with a tour group of about 40 people to Spain, France and Italy. I haven't decided yet if I want to give the name of the tour group I went with. I'll know by the end of this post. I'm not sure how to go about this so I think I'll break it down by country and give you my highs and lows.

 Spain:
This was by far my favorite part of the trip which is good because that's what I was most looking forward to. We went to Madrid, Barcelona and a little town called Zaragoza. To be honest I thought I would like Barcelona the best but it was somewhat disappointing (largely because of the hotel location). Madrid however was a very pleasant surprise. The good thing about Madrid was that our hotel was in a very good location with tons of little shops and restaurants all around. It was also walking distance to a lot of things like the Prado and Reina Sofia Museums. In fact, the Reina Sofia was located directly behind our hotel, all you had to do is walk out the back entrance and there it was.

Where the row boating took place at Retiro Park.

We were also very close to Retiro Park where we had a fun and interesting day of row boating, the mafia and bunnies. A crazy combination I know, maybe I should explain. The row boating is pretty self explanatory, you pay a few Euros and rent a boat for 45 minutes, nothing complicated. After the boats we went walking around the park and ran into an older (maybe 30s-40s) Spanish guy named 'Carlos' with a rabbit on a leash. Her name was Lolita. He pretty much showed/followed us around the park for the next few hours. The most interesting thing is that he barely spoke any English and we barely spoke any Spanish which was actually kinda fun. The good news is that he showed us a cheap place to eat and we found our way to another part of the park with a little lake with swans, turtles, frogs and a waterfall. While there we asked for a picture and he said he couldn't because he was in the mafia. Red flag much? Not that we ditched him right away. We saw some other tourists and offered to take pictures of them when they told us to ditch Carlos because he was probably a pick-pocket. Soon after that we ditched him when he told us to follow him through the park somewhere and we walked in the other direction. All in all, it was a good day.

Lolita

Barcelona was cool but I honestly liked Madrid better. For starters, we got upgraded to a 4 star hotel in BCN which sounds like a good thing but it turned out not to be. The only REALLY good thing about that hotel was that the breakfast was more like what we have in American hotels, ie. eggs, fruit, meats, etc. The other hotel breakfasts mainly consisted of bread in the form of croissants and pastries. My main issue is that this hotel was far away from everything, which was really annoying considering that our previous hotel was walking distance to everything thing. As if the 10 mile trek up the hill to the hotel wasn't bad enough, there was absolutely nothing fun or even remotely interesting to do nearby. Correction: There was ONE really good Italian restaurant down the hill with the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Otherwise that place was a bust.Other than that, La Rambla/Las Ramblas/La Ramblas or however you say it is a pretty cool little area. Lot's of shops, restaurants and bars. It's really busy and always full of people. I think the most interesting part was the big food market La Boqueria (I think). There's all kinds of animal parts, fruits and other food for sale in there. I recommend trying the coconut smoothie. Very good.

Smoothies in the food market, they have all kinds of flavors.

Of course no visit to Spain is complete without a little Sangria.....

Not sure why the pic came out weird after I rotated it...whatever.

If you're planning a trip to Spain, here are the places I recommend:

Madrid
-Retiro Park
-Royal Palace
-Gran Via
-Debod Temple
-Hotel Mediodia (nice central location in my opinion)
-Plaza Mayor

Barcelona
-La Ramblas
-The beach (obviously)
-La Boqueria

That's all for now, the next post will be about my brief encounter in France.

(ps: Hold tight to your purse, pick pockets are rampant in Spain and it's ALWAYS crowded as hell)

On The Beach

A little something I jotted down after a somewhat romantic interlude during spring break:

Think I fell in love last week
We spent nights walking on the beach
He says so wrong things just like me
He kept me laughing endlessly
My Aussie hubs just for Spring Break
Loving on the beach and staying out late
Sad we had to go our separate ways
I hope we meet again someday