One Night in Toulouse

Our adventures with Shawn and Kate concluded in Toulouse, where they were catching a flight to Greece.  Michael and I were excited to have an excuse to finally visit the 4th largest city in France, so after our afternoon in Carcassonne, we all piled in The Pony and continued onto Toulouse. Toulouse definitely has a very different feel than the rest of the cities and towns we've visited in France.  It seemed...

A Visit to Carcassonne

We were thrilled when our friends Shawn and Kate wanted to make visiting us in France a part of their honeymoon.  They begin in Paris, trained down to Montpellier, and just needed to get to Toulouse by the 25th to catch a flight to the next part of their trip in Greece.  We were happy to take them to Toulouse, since we'd never been, and decided to break up the 2.5 hour drive with a side trip to the medieval town...

Knocked Up Abroad: Tips for the Pregnant Traveler

Even though I'm a pretty experienced traveler, I was a little nervous about the journey back to the U.S.  It's a really long trip, about 17-18 hours door to door with 3 flights, 2 layovers, and I was doing most of it alone while 22 weeks pregnant.  Even though I was all, "I can handle this!"  Secretly I was thinking, "this is going to be long and boring with heavy things I have to carry myself."  I coincided my...

Villasimius: Paradise in Sardinia

It's sort of funny how we ended up in Villasimius.  The whole idea to even go to Sardinia began over Christmas during our dinner at Terra Terra in Florence.  Christian, our amazing host, told us all about his life on the beautiful island, which we already knew was accessible via a very cheap flight on RyanAir.  He described the pristine beaches and laid back lifestyle so passionately that by the time we had...

Prague City Guide: Dos, Don’ts, Eats

After all the traveling that Michael had been doing (I think he was home a total of like, 4 days in the last month), we took a very relaxed approach to our trip to Prague.  We didn't go into the trip with any sort of agenda - we ate and drank, we slept in, and we didn't pressure ourselves to see a lot of "sights."  We didn't go to any museums (shocker!), we took a very different approach to our boat tour, and we...

International Travel: Toddler Style

Some people might call her crazy, some might call her optimistic, but I call her One Brave Super Mom.  My sister-in-law J.J. courageously traveled thousands of miles to a different country with her 2-year old son, just to visit us in France!  Thanks to the (huge) help of her parents, the trip went smoothly and can officially be considered a success.  When I asked J.J. if she minded sharing some tips on traveling...

An Afternoon in Cadaqués

A few weeks ago, our lovely friends Shannon & Ryan came to visit us in Montpellier.  We had a blast showing them around our town and then jetting down to Barcelona for the weekend (more on that very soon!).  We spent our week together walking all around, drinking tea, eating strangely flavored chips, and duck.  A LOT of duck. On our way home from Barcelona, we wanted to stop for a meal and a drink...

Amsterdam City Guide: Dos, Don’ts, Eats

Our next adventure, right after New Year's, took place over 4 days in Amsterdam!  Thanks to RyanAir, we got tickets direct from Marseille to Eindhoven for only 45€ each.  The bus ride from Eindhoven to Amsterdam was easy and relatively fast, and before I knew it, we had arrived. It was my first time to the Netherlands, but The Hub had already been a few times, most recently on a work trip in November, so...

Italian Road Trip: Riomaggiore, Firenze, Siena, Torino

I almost don't want to finish and hit "publish" on this post because then that means that the trip has been taken, the pictures uploaded, the entry written, and our time in Italy is really over.  For now.  I think the best part about our nearly 2,000 km road trip was realizing how close Italy really is.  It only takes about 5-6 hours to get to the border (depending on what part) and now that we know The Pony can...

Florence City Guide: Dos, Don’ts, Eats

You know how when people talk about trips to Italy and then they're like, "It was magical!  Dreamy!  So romantic! Amazing food!" and you're all, "Shut up, I hate you.  I want to go to Italy."  Disclaimer:  that's what's about to happen.  Because Italy was awesome. There were days I thought I'd never be done with this first post about our trip, but finally, it's finished!  We spent the majority of the time...