Au Revior!

The next day we woke up in Barcelona, flew to Paris, and spent one final evening in Paris before heading back to Chicago the next morning.  It has been a great adventure of new places, new experiences and new friends :) Thank you, Paris, for such a wonderful time and I hope to see you again soon!

Paseo en Moto

For our last full day in Barcelona, Eric rented us a scooter!  Driving myself around crazy European cities freaks me out, but Eric is a great driver and I am happy to hop on the back :)

With the scooter we were able to squeeze a lot into one day.  First we made our way to La Boqueria, a huge open air market off of the main strip of La Rambla.

This market was AMAZING. It had every type of fruit, vegetable, legume, seafood, or meat you could ever imagine.  I wish we had something like this in Chicago.

When we left the market we headed back to the beach for a few more hours of sun and some lunch and sangria :)

Before dinner we visited La Sagrada Familia, a famous basilica with a unique design by Antoni Gaudi, who died before it was completed.  Though construction began in 1882, it continues today with hopes for completion by 2026. 

We climbed up one of the towers for a great view of Barcelona from above.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called Pla, a little restaurant in the Gothic Quarter recommended by my cousin Adam and his wife Lauren who recently honeymooned in Barcelona.  A cab dropped us off nearby and we walked down an adorable little alley to find it. The food was absolutely amazing.  The beef carpaccio, lamb, and pork were so delicious I was convinced to go back to eating meat. 

La Playa de Barceloneta

On our first full day in Barcelona, we decided to head to the Barceloneta Beach.  It was a hot day and the beach was filled with people and vendors walking around with Mojitos :)

On our walk back from the beach we stumbled upon an adorable ice cream shop called "Eyescream and Friends" which had characters for each of their flavors and put candy eyes on each serving of ice cream.  Needless to say, I was thrilled :)

For dinner we went to a restaurant called CDLC which was in a clubby area of Barcelona near the northern end of Barceloneta.  The restaurant had a really fun ambiance and we were seated in a perfect spot next to the beach to do some people watching as we ate. 

Barcelona!

After my driving lesson I got back in the passenger seat and we headed off for the last leg of our road trip to Barcelona.  But we couldn't leave France without one final baguette :)

After another full day of driving we got to Barcelona just in time for dinner.  Per the advice of our hotel concierge, we walked down to a restaurant called Catalana where we had a delicious meal of traditional Spanish tapas. 

Apprendre à Conduire

On Tuesday, before we got on the road to Barcelona, Eric decided it was a good time and place to give me my first lesson on driving a manual car :) There were many stalls and lurches forward, but I started to get the hang of it in the end. We took a few videos. Eric showed me how to get into first gear and start driving the car.  Then he stood back and recorded me doing it by myself.  Attempt 1:

Sooo. That did not go so well.  Attempt 2:

Yay I drove! It was a quality lesson of stopping and going. (Thanks for all your patience E) We'll save all those other gears and the whole reversing thing to learn in Eric's car when we get back to Chicago ;)

Rhône Méridional

Our southern Rhone day was one of my favorite days of the entire trip! When we woke up we were thrilled to see a beautiful view of a vineyard from our room's terrace :)

We walked downstairs to a lovely spread of bread, cheeses, jams, and freshly squeezed juices for breakfast.

Just as we were finishing breakfast, our wine tour guide for the day, Paul, arrived.  Paul was very friendly and knowledgeable about the area.  As we drove off to the first winery, he started the day by explaining the French wine classification system. While in the US and most other countries, wines are classified by the type of grape in the wine (Cabernet, Chardonnay, etc), wines in France are classified by terroir, or growing region (Bordeaux, Burgundy, etc).  Terrior is designated most generally by region, then more specifically by appellation, and most specifically by village.  Quite often the most famous and most highly regarded wines are made of grapes from a single village.  French wines are strictly regulated through the appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) system.  The most demanding level of distinction, referred to as Cru, is given to 16 villages in the Rhone valley, and we would be visiting three of those villages. 

As we drove along through the valley, the scenery was breathtaking.  Hills and vineyards and tiny villages spanned our view in both directions. 

Our first tasting was at a biodynamic winery called Domaine Chaume-Arnaud in the Vinsobres AOC.  Unlike in areas like Napa, the French take a much more casual approach to wine tasting.  Instead of a formal tasting room, we were shown into a barn where the wine is produced.  We stood around an old wine barrel which we used as our table as we tasted a number of delicious wines.  The southern Rhone is known for its fruity, full bodied reds which are made from blends of various of grapes including Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Cinsaut. We tried a number of reds as well as one white and one rosé at each winery. 

After the first winery, we stopped for lunch in a cute little village nearby. 

After lunch, Paul picked us up again and we went to a vineyard called Domaine Beau Mistral in the Rasteau AOC. Sandarine Brun, one of the winemakers there, gave us a wonderful tour of the wine production area and walked us through the wine making process from start to finish. 

We were really thrilled with the prices of the wines.  We purchased a few bottles at each vineyard for around 10 euro each! 

For our last tasting we visited a tasting room for the wines of Domaine Baumalric, in the Baumes de Venise AOC.  We had some wonderful reds as well as a delicious Muscat that was named as best of the vintage in 2012. 

This completed our wonderful tour with Paul.  If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend booking a tour with him through rhonewinetours.com

After the tour and a quick nap, Eric and I decided to head into Vaison-la-Romaine, the village where we were staying, for dinner.  We found a cute little restaurant and were able to order a bottle of wine we had tasted earlier that day.  The waitstaff at the restaurant was very friendly (we were surprised that even in this small village everyone spoke English), and we made friends with a dog that was hanging out inside. :)

Lyon

On Sunday Eric and I got in our rental car and made our way out of Paris, heading south toward Barcelona! We struggled a bit getting out of town because they were blocking off roads for the arrival of the Tour de France later that evening.  But with a little help from the hotel and the police allowing us around a few barriers we made it out of Paris and were on the road to our first stop - Lyon.

In the early evening we made it to Lyon, where we were greeted with this beautiful view of a castle on a hill.  

We walked around for a bit until we stumbled upon this adorable square and decided to stop here for a Lyonnaise dinner. 

Apparently, Lyonnaise food, like a lot of French food, is made with a lot of butter.  I ordered vegetable lasagna which turned out to be a bowl of butter sauce with a hint of noodle :)

The best part was our delicious desserts!

After dinner we walked amongst the restaurants and bars looking for a place that had wifi so we could download the necessary maps for the next part of our journey. It turned out to be a bit of a struggle, but we eventually found wifi and downloaded directions to our next destination, a small village called Vaison-la-Romaine, and headed off on our way south through the Rhone Valley. We drove past dark, through a series of tiny roads until we reached our little bed and breakfast for the evening.