European Vacation 2002
When Michelle was asked to travel to London this past spring on business, we decided to take the opportunity to tack on a vacation to the front end of her trip. Since Michelle had never been to Europe before, anywhere we would have gone would have been great for her, but we opted instead to keep it simple: London (easy choice) and Paris, over 10 days.
We've learned from our other overseas trips that if you really want to get a good feel for a place, you've got to spend some QT there, not just whip through in a day or two. So we limited ourselves to London and one other major city. And, if you are going to see any other city in Europe besides London, it's got to be either Paris or Rome. Our choice there was easy, though: our trip was a sort of 10th annversary gift to ourselves, and what city is better for romance than Paris? There was only one small mitigating circumstance: our not-yet-one-year-old son, Gabriel, who went with us.
I think a lot of our family & friends silently questioned our wisdom (or our sanity) in bringing our infant son with us, but he actually proved to be a wonderful addition to the trip. He was a real trooper, tolerating some long days of touring; he didn't have any major meltdowns; and he enjoyed travelling, especially his view from the backpack I wore. We're actually quite glad we took him, although it wasn't quite the romantic anniversary get-away we had hoped...
Anyway, here are the galleries from our trip, listed in order:
- London Gallery #1: Houses of Parliament, Big Ben & Westminster Abbey
- London Gallery #2: St. Paul's Cathedral & The Tower of London
- London Gallery #3: Tower Bridge, Hyde Park & Buckingham Palace
- Paris Gallery #1: Arc de Triomphe & The Eiffel Tower
- Paris Gallery #2: Notre-Dame & Sacré-Coeur Cathedrals
- Paris Gallery #3: The Louvre
- Paris Gallery #4: The Gardens of Versailles
- Paris Gallery #5: The Palace of Versailles
- Paris Gallery #6: Musée d'Orsay and Musée Rodin