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2013-07-10 00:00
in France2013, Ntrips, Trips
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Some thoughts after looking back at the trip:
Unlike other countries I've visited, I usually would have some thoughts aout what I learned about the people and culture, but being French, I mostly knew those already :) However, and that was not a surprise, I overall found people more laid back and friendly than they are in Paris (a bit like comparing people from New York City to Wisconsin or something), so that was nice.
The variety of what we saw was pretty amazing, too much to summarize here. Clearly, France had a lot to see that I had never heard about.
While it was a lot of driving (more 3500km), sadly driving was the best way to get around on a tour like we did. Not a big fan of driving that much, but public transport in remote regions would have made things difficult, at best (never mind storing luggage while travelling between locations).
we got extremely lucky with the weather, we only got a bit of a drizzle a portion of a couple of days, when apparently it had rained almost non-stop for the previous couple of months, and summers are no guarantee of good weather in France nowadays.
Jennifer spent a long time plannign those 3 weeks, and we got to see virtually everything she had planned, and even a bit more.
On the flipside, despite it being a bit over 3 weeks, and not being all of France, we saw many many things, but a few were a tad rushed. We could have gone to fewer places, but once in a location, we both prefer seeing what there is there, than leaving some out for a future day where we are not super likely to come back just for a bit we left out.
We had a decent or very good dinner most evenings, but lunch was usually on the go. Some will say it was heresy to do this, but we had to pick between seeing things, or spending hours in restaurants everywhere. Our take was that we can (and do) enjoy food more easily now and later than going back to a remote place to see something we didn't have the time to see.
All in all, it was a super successful trip, honestly I can't really saw how it could have been better. A big thanks again to Jennifer for all the planning work (based on Rick Steve's books). |