Aaron 'n' Floss In Europe

Bonjour from Paris! (Oops make that New York City, we forgot to post this when we left Paris!)

We are over due for a blog catch up yet again! Finding time to sit and "journal" is hard when there are incredible cities to explore, although we are glad to have this blog for our own records as well as being a great way to share our adventures with you.

Since we last wrote we have been in Spain and France. Visiting Barcelona, Nice, Lyon, Blois and Paris.

Barcelona, Spain

We arrived in Barcelona on the 21st of August. After spending 19 days driving through the UK the dry heat of Barcelona was a shock. We jumped in a taxi and found our way to Las Ramblas the main strip in the city, in traditional Spanish style Las Ramblas was buzzing late into the night when we arrived with food stalls, buskers, and hundreds of tourists wandering up and down the road. We had booked to stay in a share apartment on Las Ramblas, the apartment turned out to be nothing like was advertised online. We had a TINY dirty room that acted more like an oven during the day and never cooled at night. As a result we decided only to stay three nights before moving to the budget hotel next door, air conditioning and a clean bathroom was bliss after the worse than a hostel horror of the apartment. We spent our time in Barcelona relaxing and enjoying the laid back Spanish lifestyle, sleeping late and nibbling tapas into the evening. We hired a funny little gocart GPS guided open air car that we drove around town one day and explored with. We visited Gaudi's famous Sagrada Familia and climbed Montjuic a mountain over-looking the city with fantastic views. We went to Camp Nou stadium and watched Barcelona flog Read Madrid in the Spanish soccer super cup, that was a night we will never forget. The stadium was packed with over 95000 people and wow there were some passionate supporters. Kick off was at 1030pm and the night went late, no busses, no trains and no taxis in sight when the game finished. We walked a loooong way home with many other soccer fans until two young guys from the UK hailed a taxi and we all piled in together. Here are a few pictures from our time in Barcelona:

Tapas Bar

Sagrada Familia

Spanish Super Cup

Fountain on La Rambla

Park Guell

Us in the GoCar

No comment necessary

GO CAR!!!!

La Rambla above and panorama below.

Nice, France

On the 27th August we packed up (again) and headed to the airport bound for France. We were delayed for four hours with Vueling airlines doing last minute maintenance but soon made it to France in one piece. We stayed at Hotel Wilson for three nights, a sweet family run BnB that we found via lonely planet. We were put in the Frieda Kahlo room which had a nice little French balcony. Breakfast each morning was in the communal dining room decorated by gifts from travellers all around the world. We met some nice people over croissants, tea and bread in the mornings. Breakfast was always shared with their two tortoises and dog. Aaron went scuba diving around the Nice headland and saw octopus, eels, fish and cuttlefish. We explored the old city and enjoyed the French cuisine. On our last day we hired a convertible Fiat and drove South to Cannes soaking up the sun. We spent the day swimming and laying on the beach and drove home via Montecarlo. We were blown away by the wealth in that town. In the space of a few minutes we saw three Ferraris, one Masserati a Bentley and a Lamborghini!! Here are some pictures of us in Nice:

Our little balcony in the Frieda Kahlo room.

Boats tied up at the Nice marina.

Dive site is just around the headland

Beach in Cannes

Monte Carlo

Carousel

Lyon, France

We arrived in Lyon on the 30th August and settled into an awesome airbnb.com apartment, this apartment has probably been one of our favourites. Our host and her family lived in another apartment in the building and each morning made a delicious breakfast for us including warm croissants, home made jams and fresh juice. Whilst in Lyon we caught up with our friends and newlyweds Craig and Alison. We had so much fun together exploring the old town, some Roman ruins, saw a beautiful fountain, rode the furnicular, checked out a mini movie museum and enjoyed the local cuisine. Thanks for letting us crash your honeymoon Craig and Alison! Here are a few pictures from our time in Lyon:

We woke up to this amazing breakfast each day in Lyon.

La Fontaine Bartholdi - Steam comes out the horses noses!

Waiting for the Furnicular

Outside the Basilica in Lyon

Inside the Basilica in Lyon

Panoramic view of Lyon from behind the Basilica

Photo of a photo of Aaron singing in the amphitheatre at the Roman ruins

Smaller amphitheatre at Roman ruins.

Blois, France

We decided to make our way out to Blois for an overnight stay as we had heard that there were some great bike rides around the area. We hired two bikes and bought a packed picnic lunch for our ride to Chambord to see the famous chateau. Half way through our bike ride Aaron's pedal fell off and for the third time his chain fell off, unfortunatly we had to wait by the road for over an hour for the company to drop off a replacement bike. We made the most of our time sitting in a paddock and ate our lunch but sadly we had to head back to the hotel to make our train to Paris and missed out on seeing Chambord.

The Pedal.

Our beautiful picnic spot

Paris, France

Paris! What can we say? The city of lights and love! We had 6 days in Paris and loved every minute. Again we stayed in an airbnb.com apartment right near Chatelet Les Halles and a short walk to the Louvre. Our host was a young local actress/ stand up comedian who was so nice and had really set up the apartment with everything we needed for the week. The only questionable thing about the apartment was the 6 floor, 135 stair climb up each time we needed to go home. Daily workouts... check. We started our Paris experience with a trip to the Eiffel Tower, we had bought tickets online so when we arrived we were very pleased to bypass the long queues and went straight to the top! Although the day was slightly overcast the views were breathtaking. We visited the Catacombes, Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle which is one of Aaron's favourite places in Paris with amazing stained glass windows around the entire upper room of the church. Paris put on a number of glorious sunny days for us and on one of these we decided to see the Louvre, Champs Elysees and L'Arc de Triomphe. We walked up the Champs Elysees and then decided to get on a three-wheeled scooter cab on which had a very nice French man who drove us up and around the L'Arc de Triomphe while giving us information about the surrounding area. That night we went to the Moulin Rouge and saw the 9pm show. It was a fun evening and a sequin-filled show including miniature ponies, live snakes and a significant lack of clothing. On our final day in Paris we went out of town and visited the Palace of Versailles. The weather was a perfect sunny day and we spent a good 4 hours enjoying everything the Palace had to offer including a golf buggy tour of the beautiful gardens and a visit to the Queen's Hamlet. Our final night in Paris we spent time wandering around the lit up Eiffel tower and splurged on a fancy dinner.