Day 2: Europe, Carcassonne, France

We woke up to the gorgeous view of the castle

and went downstairs for a quaint little breakfast of delicious croissants and chocolate.

We then decided to tour the castle city walls and ended up taking a 2 hour hike, exploring the ins and outs of the entire "old castle" part of the city. 

The views were breathtaking.  I has to keep pinching myself.  I felt like I had gone back centuries I time.

The castle was surrounded by vineyards.  Southern France is beautiful.

 

 After a few hours of exploring and guided tours we stopped for lunch at a cute little café.

We the headed past s few more amazing castle views to a delicious chocolate shop.  So I married someone who shares my sweet tooth!

We were pretty tired after a full day of walking so we went back to the B&B to freshen up, eat some chocolates before heading out to our next excursion: the nature trail on the outskirts of the city.

We crossed the bridge and walked through the new part of the city for a mile or so and came to the river.

It was so beautiful, we ended up in a residential area and started imagining of what it would be like to live in a city like this.  We had fun picking out our favorite cottages and dreaming of renovation projects.

Before we knew it, it was dark out and we quickly made our way back to the well-lit part of town.  What an amazing day. 

 

Day 1: Europe, Girona, Spain

We had the opportunity to go to a wedding in Spain just recently and I must say it is a GORGEOUS country. 

The wedding was to take place in Barcelona, mid-trip, so we spent a few days North of Barcelona- in the cities of Girona, Spain and Carcassonne, France.  The architecture was breath-taking!

Once arriving to Spain at 9am we rented a car and drove to our first city to spend the day exploring.  We didn't really know anything about the city prior to going and we so excited to explore. We ended up in some pretty amazing places.

 Les torres del passeig de la Muralla.  I felt like I went back in time walking the stone passageways on the outskirts of the city. 

After an 11 hour flight, we were surprisingly energetic and ambitious (perhaps the fact that we were in Spain helped with the excitement, haha). After a day of touring, we checked into our bed and breakfast in Carcassone.

 

We were more than pleased with the window view!  We then headed out to dinner in the castle city.  And of-course.....

We HAD to get dessert!  It is impossible to not get ice-cream and chocolate crepes with every meal in France :-) A perfect end to the first day!  (more of the trip coming up...)

Question:
Have you been to Spain?  Where and what did you go, do, see?

This was my first time to Spain, specifically we were in the region of Catalonia.  The culture was beautiful and traditional.  Catalonians try the best they can to hold on to their Catalonian roots in everything they do, including language.  We learned really fast that to speak Spanish ("Castilian") was not as welcomed.  Also my first time in Southern France.