Four Days in Lisbon
After four wonderful days exploring Madrid, I boarded an overnight train to Lisbon, eager to get to the city I fell in love with from a travel show. Arriving in Portugal, I was tired but energized, anxious to soak up another new location and culture for four days before heading back to Madrid and then back to the states. Day One My train pulled into Lisbon at just around 8a on Sunday morning, and I emerged from the train station to a city unlike anything I anticipated. From the first few moments, walking out into a massive traffic circle with a statue at the center surrounded by generations-old buildings, I…
Four Days in Madrid
When you book a ticket to Europe on a whim at a dirt cheap price, rest assured that the travel included in said tickets is not glamorous. I did my best to prepare for the elongated, exhausting trip to get me there: a 6a flight to Washington, DC then a whole day to hang out until my 6p red-eye flight to Madrid. I set my alarm extra early, scheduled my Uber to the airport in advance…I’d even picked up a nice eye mask and neck pillow so I had a better chance of falling asleep on the plane. And for the most part, that’s exactly how it worked out. I…
Paris Part Sept (Marché Mouffetard, Jardin du Luxembourg and Home)
This is the final post in a seven-part series about my trip to Paris. Read the other posts here. My last day in Paris had finally arrived, much as I willed it not to. I was still pretending like the cold I was coming down with didn’t exist, and I was determined to make the most of one last wonderful (and finally sunny!) day in the city. As I’d poked around for ideas beyond galleries and museums, I stumbled onto a post about Hemingway’s Paris and flagged it for future reference. It highlights an area of the city I hadn’t otherwise covered, and included a chance to wander through one…
Paris Part Six (The Louvre)
This is part six of a seven-part series on my trip to Paris. Read the other parts here. When I first moved to New York, one of my early adventures was spending an entire day at the Met. I walked every nook and cranny until my legs ached, soaking up gallery after gallery. On my first trip to Paris, the Louvre was top of my Must See list, entering the palace of art and glimpsing masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Unfortunately, that trip was so short that really, those were the only things I saw at the Louvre then. I didn’t get to dig into the full…
Paris Part Cinq (Place des Vosges, Le Marais…)
This is part five of a seven-part series on my trip to Paris. Read the other parts here. For those of you paying attention at home, by this point in Paris I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of food but – somehow – not a single croissant! That was quickly remedied on Friday morning when I walked just the two blocks from our flat to Des Gateaux et du Pain, a bakery named by multiple sources as home to the best croissant in all of Paris. Folks, this is not a drill. This croissant changed my life. But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Paris Part Quatre (Champagne in Champagne)
This is part four in a seven-part series on my trip to Paris. Read all the parts here. By Thursday, I was feeling more comfortable than ever in the city. I had the Metro system down pat, a favorite shop to stop for necessities like instant coffee and nutella for my breakfast toast. With a lot of Paris under our belts, we’d set aside the day to knock out one more of my top priorities: drinking a sip of champagne while in Champagne. My aunt had rented a car to get us to the region just northeast of Paris where the bubbly comes from, and once we got the car (graciously…
