Day Trip to Avignon

Our day trip to Avignon was even better than our trip to Aix and we really fell a little bit in love with Avignon. In fact, we plan to go back for an overnight or few day stay sometime in the future. The train ride to Avignon is about twice as long as Aix at…

Day Trip to Aix-en-Provence

A third of the way through our month in Marseille, we took our first day trip. We chose Aix-en-Provence because it shows up on most south-of-France day trip lists and because we had chosen a Thursday, which coincided with one of their market days (which are Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday according to what I read). …

Life in Lyon

We started our abbreviated Leg 15 with six nights in Lyon. Our flights went according to schedule and after a layover in Frankfurt, we arrived in Lyon mid-afternoon. We took the Rhonexpress train from the airport to the train station and then an Uber to our Airbnb because it was raining and we didn’t want…

Marseille: We’re Home

First of all, I definitely intend to complete my unfinished blog posts from our Leg 14 in South America, including our trip to Machu Picchu that I didn’t get a chance to write over the summer. But for now I am skipping ahead of those experiences to record my impressions of Marseille after 2.5 weeks…

FAQ – What Did We Learn on Leg 10?

I pride myself on the fact that Chad and I are always learning. The desire to learn is one of the main drivers of our desire to travel. But I have to admit, after our Leg 10 in Spain and Portugal, it was a bit of a challenge to come up with new travel lessons….

FAQ – What Were Our Leg 10 Numbers?

Leg 10 in Spain and Portugal was another terrific trip. It was a bit shorter than our pre-COVID legs at 12 weeks (technically 13 on my budget with the time at home at the beginning and end). However, we fit in a lot in that short amount of time. And it was our first new…

Our Time in Porto

We greatly enjoyed our four weeks in Porto. It is a beautiful city with perfect August weather (highs most days in the low 80s Fahrenheit, lows around 60 degrees, lots of sun and no rain), and easy to get around. Though we didn’t see or do anything too spectacular in Porto, it was very liveable…

Learning in Lisbon

While Faro was a great introduction to Portugal, we really started to understand the country during our week in Lisbon. It began with a great start – a cheap and easy Uber ride from the train station to our Airbnb apartment where we met our host (review below). The apartment was spacious, clean, and had…

Faro – Our Introduction to Portugal

Portugal is the first new country we’ve visited since the beginning of COVID and we were very excited to experience a new place. We weren’t sure how similar or different Portugal would feel from Spain. After all, they’re close neighbors. However, we quickly learned they are very different and as much as we love Spain,…

Sunny (and hot!) Seville

We spent a terrific (but toasty) five days in Seville as we made our way from Ronda to Portugal. Five days was just enough time to get to know the city, see the main sites, and fall a little bit in love with Seville. Plus eat lots of tapas and try the famous regional vino…