Talk about an unplanned trip — the itinerary is not even worth sharing, but the experience is – because it was one of our top 5 trips.
The regions, sites, and attractions we aimed to visit can be found in this Map Link. We developed an initial itinerary and then ended up using google maps to get around.
Midway through the trip we found a website/app that was our saving grace: Visit A City: Create Your Personal Travel Guide. This discovery came as a result of changing interests among the travelers and a collective need to organize our plans more effectively — it served its purpose well.
- Day 1-2: Madrid, Spain
- Day 3: Toledo, Spain
- Day 4-5: Paris, France
- Day 6: Versailles, France
- Day 7: Paris, France
- Day 8-11: Nice, France
- Day 12-13: Barcelona, Spain
- Day 14: Montserrat, Spain
- Day 15: Barcelona, Spain
- Day 16: Madrid, Spain
This has been our longest trip yet, and I will share the good, the bad, and the ugly – more like my favorite memories, some lessons learned, and a few recommendations. This is in no way a full trip summary. This map link provided above as all the attractions we visited. Feel free to reach out in the comments below if you wish to hear our experience at any of those specific location or event.
My Most Wonderful Memories
- The very passionate and moving Flamenco Dancing Dinners in Spain – so good! This was a great way to also feel cultured.
- The Chicken Paella dish in Madrid after walking ~6 miles, site-seeing.
- Sunset Rooftop adventures in Paris and Barcelona – such good Tapas!
- Enjoying the social life of Madrid, people doing less eating and more talking down those nice narrow streets (in all cities, one being the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona)
- Of course the monuments, bus tours, Day trips, walking tours were all great in Paris – I really appreciate how the front architecture of each building is kept, regardless of the building’s purpose.
- Tapas Bars and outdoor restaurants seemed to all have small portions and many options – so we went crazy – trying everything!
- Site-seeing!
- Palace of Versailles was so grand – a must see – halfway through the trip we did not want to see another museum – but even in that state of pickiness and low energy, we still enjoyed seeing (mostly the outside) of this palace. We were interested in how these people accumulate so much wealth and power to build something this extravagant.
- Eiffel Tower – and the giant fountains like the Magic Fountain (it’s not just a fountain – it was epic)
- Museu Picasso (it was refreshing to see that Picasso wasn’t always good, but painted a thousand mostly bad pictures… it’s like a numbers game – ill just have to do 10, 000 hours of engineering and finance, then ill be a legend!)
- Getting away from the bustling city, hiking in Montserrat (enjoying the views), and going up the very steep cable car in Montserrat.
- Just relaxing in Nice (south of France) on the beach while halfway though the trip and exhausted.
- Having better beach days in Barcelona – the beach had sand instead of Rocks which was also fun but hurts.
Lessons Learned
Plan better would be the engineering answer, but honestly, it was planned enough; there were instances were planning would have made it easier to get around, but it was probably more fun trying to learn the languages and figure stuff out as we go (at least in the context of a long vacation where we know we can find our hotel or call a ride share car if we gave up). In my daily life, I plan and execute meticulously for everything I do: I often worry about uncertainties, make sure to manage risks well, and I am always double checking. A few days in the trip, I realized that there is sometimes more freedom in just being and experiencing, rather than being the project manager of a trip. This Epiphany took a load off and helped me to have more fun..
Ok – Actual lessons learned!
- It would have been helpful to brush up on Spanish and French – especially french. In Paris and Nice, we often found ourselves stuck in conversation. Spain wasn’t so bad since we understand some Spanish, but if we understood more, the Flamenco dances would have probably been a deeper experience.
- On a 16 day trip, pace yourself! we are used to shorter trips so out of habit, we jam-packed each day with events; halfway though we were dead – the point of no return and energy depletion occurred in Nice. We had to recover and ended up canceling a few events and taking a day off from our vacation, staying in and watching 2 seasons of Big Bang Theory… Yes – this could also happen to you.
- Obtain a local chip for your cell phone – they are relatively cheap compared to our overall money spent. This would have decreased our Wifi hunting time.
- The cheap round trip flight shouldn’t be seen as a trophy because it’s all about the OVERALL trip cost – flying in and out of different cities tends to work out better.
Final Thoughts
Do it! It is definitely one of my favorite trips – the culture, foood, monuments, and overall experience is amazing. If it wasn’t for the mounting guilt of not being at work, I would have loved to stay for at least a year!
