snapshot of Europe

Traveling France and Italy

Written by Becky

I write you today with sore feet, a bit of jet lag, and tons of incredible memories from our time abroad. Josh and I got back this week from an adventure around France and Italy.  Over the next month or so I plan on giving you a little taste of our travels every Friday.  Today I wanted to give you a few highlights. I’m sure I’ll be writing more in depth and in a more sensical way after a few days of rest, but I couldn’t not give you a little snapshot of how the trip went.

Cafe Chairs in Paris
We flew the direct flight from Salt Lake City to Paris. Then we trained around Europe making stops in Paris, Beaune (in the Burgandy wine region of France), Venice, Lucca (in the Tuscan area), and Rome. Each city fed us delightful intrigue into culture, history, and of course food and drink. Here are a few bullet points of the trip:

Venice snacks

  • Dinners often lasted 2-3 hours and we enjoyed every minute of them
  • We got lost in every city we visited, sometimes more happily than others
  • We stayed in two ancient walled cities
  • We drank wine every evening and over a few lunches too
  • I took a cooking lesson, and learned how to de-bone a fish and make homemade pasta
  • We learned to eat at 8 or later every evening or we’d be eating with people twice our age (although a few times we caved and ate early)
  • We drank coffee at some of the oldest cafes around Europe, places where Lord Byron, Goethe, Puccini and Charles Dickens also sipped on cappuccinos
  • Rick Steves was our personal guide as we feel we are now good friends with him
  • I ate escargot, Josh ate quail and beef tartare, and we both enjoyed every bite
  • We trained through the southern part of Switzerland which was a magical 14 hour travel day
  • I had the best pizza I’ve ever tasted in a small shop in Rome
  • We saw artifacts and art that dated back to B.C.E. time periods
  • We saw remnants of a city underneath another city
  • We watched two full seasons of Downton Abbey and began speaking in British accents at some point
  • I found and bought a set of vintage French copper pans at an open market then stubbornly carried them throughout the rest of our travels
  • We tasted Boeuf Bourguignon and Coq au Vin in their region of origin
  • We ate gelato so often we lost count
  • We took tons and tons of pictures that will take us forever to go through

There is so much more I want to tell you.  Each Friday I will be highlighting a different city that we visited.  I hope you’ll entertain my wanderlust for a few weeks!  And don’t worry, there will be much food involved. And lots of photos too.

Laundry in Venice

 

Comments (15)

  1. I am so anxious to hear about your trip in detail. This post is beautiful.
    Everything sounds wonderful and how cool you took a cooking class!

    My husband and I dream of doing this in the next few years! You’ll give us lots of good ideas. 🙂

    • You would LOOOOVE France and Italy. If you guys every decide to go I will sit down and help you plan it out in more detail.

  2. Wow, what an adventure you had! All of your bullet-point highlights make me want to leap on a plane and head to France and Italy this minute. I’m looking forward to reading more of your posts and seeing more photos.!

  3. yes! you can write about Parisian, and other European delights all you wish! I won’t tire. : ) I’m really glad you guys got to make this trip.

  4. Ah! so lovely 🙂 Keep the posts like this one coming!
    That sentence made me laugh out loud: “We drank wine every evening and over a few lunches too”. I realize 90% of my dinners include a glass of wine and 50% of my lunches too. Gosh, I must look like a total alcoholic! I’ll blame it on my French heritage 😉

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