We just got back for the best trip to France and I wanted to write every bit of it down!
Backstory: For Christmas we had the intention of surprising our girls on a trip. We decided that we were done with buying a bunch of crap that they didn’t care about 3 days later and instead we would do something different. In June I saw a great flight deal for round trip tickets to Paris for $450 round trip. Did you notice I said intention?…Dylan was reading a group text message on my mom’s phone and read about the trip. DANG IT!
So it wasn’t a surprise, and it made for a little bit of a lackluster Christmas morning, buuuut we are 100% doing this from now on, I’m just going to be way more stealthy about it.
Ok so let’s talk about France!!
Why France?
We’ve done very little international travel and zero with our kids, so for our first adventure I thought it would be a good idea to do something that we were semi-familiar with. Court and I went to Paris about 7 years ago (OMG we were so young and skinny in those pictures!) so we knew what the language barrier would be like, we knew that we could get around easily, and we felt comfortable taking our girls there. I think our next adventure will be somewhere totally new, but for the first one France seemed like a safe idea!
3 days in Normandy
I think because we had already experienced Paris, I had my heart set on visiting another part of France for part of the time. Oh my heck I am SO GLAD WE DID!! This part of our trip was the best!
I went back and forth trying to decided if we wanted to stay in the country or in a town. Trying to decide on a place to stay is one of my worst qualities. In every other portion of my life I can make quick and decisive decisions with no lamenting. But omg trying to decide on a place to stay is THE WORST. I have combed through every listing on VRBO and AirBNB. The plan was to stay in a cool barn conversion or house in the country. After finally pulling the trigger, the host let me know that the barn wasn’t available. Suck. Then it happened twice more! GAHHHH! So after my first 3 VRBO selections came back with a no, we decided maybe the country wasn’t meant to be, so we booked this fisherman’s house in a city called Honfleur.
We rented a car (from Europcar, pick up was very easy) and it was the best decision that we made the entire trip. We drove all over the western side of France and I don’t think we will ever travel another way again. It was perfect.
The reason we loved having a rental car is because we could go anywhere and explore. There were handfuls of tiny villages that we drove through, each more quaint than the last. A lot of the towns have these big signs off on the side of the road showing something noteworthy, so if we saw something interesting, we would put it into our map and go see it. Favorite part of the whole trip was driving around discovering things off the beaten path.
Here’s a run down of our main stops and a few thoughts about each!
Giverny
Home of Claude Monet. Incredible gardens, loads of people. Absolutely worth the stop!
Honfleur
Lots of recommendations for Honefleur, it was a very charming seaside town, but we didn’t love it as much as some of the other places. It would’ve been a great place to visit for the day, but I wouldn’t stay there again.
One of the reasons I decided to stay in Honfleur vs in the country was the convenience of having restaurants around. Unfortunately the fam was not a fan of french food, so we didn’t use them anyways. It would’ve been better to head to a grocery store, stay in the country, eat PB&J’s and save a ton of money.
Omaha Beach
YES x10000. Omaha Beach is one of the beaches that the United States landed on on D-Day. They’ve got a massive cemetery for all of the US soldiers that died in France in WW2, and an incredible memorial. We got there at 5:00 when they were retiring the flag and it was a very emotional and awesome thing to experience.
We also went down onto the beach and into some of the German bunkers. Definite must do!
Chateau de Fontaine-Henry
I was so bummed that this chateau wasn’t open for tours yet (they start after Easter so we missed it by a week!) This was a roadside sign discovery and has been in the same family for 800 years! Can you even imagine?!
Mont Saint Michel
We had some friends recommend Mont Saint Michel and I am SO GLAD we went. Holy cow, it was mind blowing!! There were a ton of people, but even so it was one of the coolest things that we saw. Definite must see!
Jumieges Abbey
My favorite stop of the entire trip was Jumieges Abbey. It was built in the 600’s and has seen everything from Viking attacks to the French Revolution. It was even dismantled and sold for building scrap, but in the late 1800’s was rescued and preserved. We were almost completely alone, and it felt like such a secret treasure. I absolutely loved it!!
Martainville Chateau
This was another roadside sign discovery that was worth the stop. The whole chateau has been converted into a museum and it was really cool to see furniture and clothing in their semi natural habitat. The one downside for me (this is going to sound annoying) the electronic guide was great, but the descriptions were so long. Like 30 minutes in each room. My girls were over it really quickly, though they liked walking around and seeing everything.
Staying in Paris a few years ago gave us a point of reference and we knew what we wanted to take the girls to see and what we wanted to skip. We stayed in an awesome VRBO (you can find it here) and were right by the Eiffel tower. The hosts were 5 star, definitely would stay there again!
Eiffel Tower
Of course yes. The girls loved it!
Catacombs
We loved the Catacombs last time and thought that the girls would love them too. We got caught behind a guided tour and I wish so badly that we could’ve joined in, so note to self, get more info on that!!
Notre Dame
We were in Normandy when the fire at Notre Dame broke out, so we missed a lot of the excitement, but when we made it into Paris we went to visit. That whole section of the island was blocked off, so we could only see it from the other side of the Seine river and there were SO MANY PEOPLE. Still worth it, and I’m pretty sure I saw Court tearing up, though he’ll never admit to it.
Invalides Museum
Court and I loved this military museum, the girls not so much. This was a highlight from our last trip.
Louve
We didn’t spend as much time as anyone wanted here, if we would’ve had another day we would’ve gone back. This was Ivie’s favorite stop, and I got some insop for the wood floors in Phase 2 of the Merc!
I love to travel, but man alive there is nothing like being home! Have any questions? Leave them in the comments below And have you ever travelled internationally with your kids? What is the best place you’ve been?
I’m heading to Paris in a couple weeks, so this post is perfect! We already have a VRBO in Paris, but I really want to visit Normandy. Do you think a day trip there would be enough to do it justice?
Julia – We did a trip to France/Switzerland for a month with our girls two years ago. It was wonderful on so many levels. There are many tours/buses that do day trips to Normandy area. Highly recommend renting a car in Paris and spending a day or two driving around the Normandy area. Check out Etretat and also – agree with Mandy – Omaha Beach (moving) and Mt St. Michel (we went here at dusk when all shops were closed and no tourists, so peaceful) are remarkable places. Best to you.
I think you can do it in a day, but I can’t say I recommend it at all. I lived in France and I recommend taking perhaps a bit more time (for anything) than you may think you’ll need. France is best appreciated slowly. I’d recommend a at least 2 days in Normandy. Bayeux is lovely. Honfleur is charming (but only for an hour or so – quite small). Omaha beach is incredible. I recommend finding a tour – they’ll drive you through and it’s quite well done.
Response from a Parisian : you can spend the day in Deauville/Trouville for instance. There is trains from Paris to Deauville and back. But it might be a little stressful. I therefore would advise you to take 2 days to enjoy this better. As a reference, it’s a common weekend gateway for Parisians 😉
We took our 20 year old twins on an African Safari. It was incredible! We all received a cultural education & came home with experiences that we will talk about the rest of our lives. I definently would add it to your bucket list.🐘🦁🦓🦒🦏🐏 The 50 hour flight was pretty adventurous too.
We have been a lot of places but our hands down absolute favorite place we’ve gone with our kids was the Dominican Republic. We went to Las Terrenas which is a resort town but not a busy one, in fact there were many days when we would be on the beach and would see no one else around. It was like having our own private island! There is a ton of outdoorsy stuff to do like ziplining the most gorgeous forest canopy, riding a donkey to an amazing waterfall and taking a boat tour of the national park. And that’s on top of swimming, snorkeling and laying on the beach that is a must do. I highly, highly recommend it!
Thank you!! This sounds like heaven!!
how did you do cell service in France?
ATT has an international plan that is $10/day!
Buy a SIM card at the airport! It’s the best way. USA cell providers will charge you an arm and a leg. Take it from someone that lived in Europe and travel extensively around the world.
All of your pictures are beautiful!! What camera did you use?
Just my iphone!
Love these photos! Did you guys leave Brem home? Stefanie from BrooklynLimestone.com was well traveled before kids, and takes her youngsters on great trips abroad now. My husband is hesitant with our preschoolers and I keep sending him her recent vacation links like – Look! they make London look easy! Look! They did South Korea no problem! Lots of inspiration there…
Your vacation looks awesome! I can totally relate to taking your kids to a place that is familiar I felt that way the first time we went to Europe as well. My husband and I have taken our kids to Europe twice and I have yet to go to a place that we don’t feel safe. Our favorite European city is Prague. It has beautiful architecture, good weather, fairly well priced, and easy to navigate. We spent three weeks with them in Italy going from Milan to Venice (we parked the car) to Rome and then to Sienna and Florence then Pisa and a small town called Noli about an hour west of Genoa with a rental car and hated driving there so if you go there I do not recommend driving it is very stressful. There was one area of Tuscany that wasn’t stressful to drive but I don’t remember the name. We didn’t have this stress while driving in Slovenia or Germany. I felt like driving in the Black Forest area of Germany and the eastern side of France was pretty easy going. We have also been to Salzburg, Austria, Oslo, Copenhagen, and Nuremberg. We didn’t do any driving there but enjoyed all of them. My husband and I went to Marrakech, Morocco and loved it there and would like to take our kids. Marrakech has a totally different atmosphere than what we are used to. There were times it felt overwhelming but its such a special place and the food and shopping is very good but I highly recommend researching before going there so you can understand what you’re in for when visiting. I would recommend all the places we’ve been but would warn that Oslo is EXPENSIVE.
How many days were you actually in France?