Sebastian put together a wonderful first time...
France
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Aug 23 - Sep 1, 2024
Sebastian put together a wonderful first time visit to France! I really liked the neighborhood of our hotel in Paris, where it was easy to walk to nice eating and shopping places and it felt safe and clean. Our tour guide Sabine was kind, patient, and knowledgeable on our guided fashion/shopping experience. Harry, who was our guide for Palace of Versailles, was knowledgeable and had a good sense of humor. The hotel was nice with good food. In Marseille, my favorite was the guided walking tour, a self walking tour the local African/French markets, and our gourmet restaurant meal. Ezekial was our walking tour guide and was so patient with my mom and Susan as they needed to end the walking tour early; he helped them get a ride back to the hotel. The hotel in Marseille was my favorite with the decor, food, and lovely kitchen and home-style way of serving breakfast. Nice was great as well and we enjoyed our full day tour to Monte Carlo, Eze, and Monaco with our guide (unfortunately I did not record his name in my notes; he lives very close to the hotel we stayed in in Nice). He shared a lot of knowledge with us and drove safely. The hotel in Nice was not quyite as nice as the ones in Paris and Marseille but everyone was friendly and the location was very close to attractions in the Old Town and shopping, which we all enjoyed. We did have a few small challenges knowing when to get off of the trains to Nice and Marseille as the announcements were difficult to understand (we are not fluent in French) and finding elevators/escalators for painful arthritic knees in metro stations was tricky. The boat ride in Marseille for the Calanques National Park was a bit rougher and more wet than we anticipated. I think we all thought the boat would be larger and a smooth laid back ride, but the sea cliffs were lovely. All in all, I really enjoyed the trip and would love to visit all of these areas again and many more in France in the near future. Thank you!
Activity Reviews
So fun and pretty to experience. We were able to go around 8:30 pm which was great timing to catch the Eiffel Tower light up around 8:45-9pm. I kind of wish we could have arrived a day or 2 earlier before doing this as we were very sleepy during the tour since it was our first day in Paris.
I loved going into French based fragrance and jewelry stores where we made some purchases. I'm not sure I learned any specifics of French fashion which I kind of though I would but I liked our guide Sabine and how she was told us about the area and the unique shops. She was able to arrange an chocolate demonstration and tasting for us which was very cool.
