As if I needed another reason to visit France….late last year, Lonely Planet released it’s Best in Travel: The Top Ten Cities to Visit in 2014, with Paris, France topping the list. The travel website bestowed the ranking, noting that the world’s most beautiful city is now more beautiful than ever – due in part to the much needed renovations and reduced congestion throughout the metro area.
As chance would have it, just a few weeks after learning the news from Lonely Planet, my husband and I stumbled upon amazing fares from Chicago to Paris. After 15 tense minutes of technical issues online, we are now headed to Paris in October! Qui! I can hardly believe it myself.
After the initial shock wore off, we finally recognized that we had quite a bit of planning ahead of us. Filling our 11 day trip with exciting adventures will not be a problem. However, narrowing those adventures to a handful of cities/regions will be. Although Paris is a must see for us, we recalled from our trip to Spain how much we enjoyed seeing the smaller European towns. This memory and our love for wine prompted us to add the regions of Provence, Champagne, and either Burgundy, Beaujolais, or Bordeaux.
Now, I freely admit that getting my husband and I to agree on wine regions to visit is a challenge (he likes red, I like white and Champagne). Yet, I am reminded of something a friend told me. When asked which areas in France were considered “wine country”, my friend laughed and replied, “France is wine country.”
No matter which region we choose, I think we’ll do just fine.
