Chewies tour de France

We are back home and just barely getting back into the swing of things, and, as of last night, unpacked. With respect to updates, details and pictures are on the family website, so my posts will contain mostly summaries and thoughts. A couple friends actually requested a slide show, you know like Sunday night missionary service, so maybe we'll have a slide show party some evening in the next couple weeks!

All in all, our France trip was fantastic. We flew into Paris, out of Nice, and stopped in the Burgundy region in the middle. Our travel agent managed to give us small headaches by failing to reserve us a crib at any of our hotels. Fortunately, it worked out and lil-M only had to sleep with us 1 night...she's the only one who gets sleep when that happens. Despite the crib episodes, lil-M was great. She happiliy went from place to place, slept wherever, and made lots of international friends.

The goal of our trip was to "experience" France. We felt that we passed with flying colors. In Paris we took in the typical sites, Notre Dame, Latin Quarter, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Champs Elysees, and Arc de Triumphe. I could almost imagine the cyclists circling the Arc de Triumphe...maybe someday I'll get to see it for real! Although they are typical tourist sites, we thoroughly enjoyed them.

Since lil-M doesn't enjoy sitting still long, our time sipping wine in sidewalk cafes wasn't as frequent as many visitors, but we managed a couple long lunches. We did, however, eat lots of panninis and patisseries in the many parks while lM made friends with the other little kids. We were pleasantly surprised at how kind people were to us with having a kid. I think we expected them to throw us out of the country, so when they actually were accommodating, we were thrilled.

We left Paris on the fast train, heading for Beunne. It's pronounced Bone. Beunne is the capital of Burgandy, although it is quite small. Here we stayed in an amazing B&B in the country, and an equally amazing hotel in town. This area was beautiful. You could see the alps in the background, and there were rolling hills of vineyards in the foreground. The town was clean, the people were kind, and the best of the French culture was alive. We did a very fun wine tasting in an old church. The tasting winded us through the cellar and the church with lots stops for tasting along the way. Beunne was my favorite of our tour.

Next, we took a longer, but still fast train, ride down to Nice, on the Riviera. We spent time in Nice and visits a few other small towns nearby. The culture here was very different than in Paris and Burgandy. I would describe it as Mediterranean....I know, how original. Anyway, the Mediterranean Sea was beautiful. We swam in it once and gazed as much as possible. One enjoyable part of Nice was the broad mix of people from lots of different countries. It's the beach, and like in the States, everyone vacations there.

I'm ready to go back. I'd make a few changes....1. No travel agent, 2. More time in the countryside, 3. Hit the other coast, 4. Take a nanny along!