Choosing Travel

Our family is headed to Paris for the Olympics, and we could not be more excited.

(This is a photo from the Tokyo Olympics, and we are so excited to get to share this one with her!)

Tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. I am super lucky and excited to have an older sister that will be competing/running! Representing the USA.She has been to the Olympics before, but this time the whole family gets to go and enjoy it with her. Emily will be running the marathon on August 11th, so feel free to cheer loudly and send good wishes.

In just over two weeks, I will be on a plane to France to cheer her on, and then vacation :). I have been to northern France, and the south of France, but never to Paris. The Olympics are a huge event that can cause a city to be completely different than normal, so even if I had been before I believe a whole new level of research would be needed regardless. If anyone reading this has any Paris recommendation’s, please feel free to leave them in the comments!

Nice, on the other hand, I have been to before and have done plenty of looking into, to make sure we get to do what we want in the few days we get to spend there. Nice is known for being the central town in the French riviera and offering easy access to several other cities such as Monaco, Villa Frenche Sur Mer, Eze, and Cannes- all with their own unique perks. If you’re up for a walk you can even walk along the coastline to the nearby towns as well, some of which have some slightly sandier beaches if that is your thing. The beach in Nice is huge, has a large public, free access portion, has stunning views of the beautiful blue waters, but is rocky. If you have some sandals to wear and a padded towel to lay on you will be fine. We spent most of our time in the water last summer anyway (which I will say could be difficult to get out of at times, we will be bringing shoes to wear this time). This time we will also spend one of the days at a private beach club with beds, drinks, and food so that we can enjoy a little more time on the water. There are several right in the heart of nice that will all be absolutely fine, with prices ranging from 25 euros to 150, but we are going to walk down the promenade a bit to the Regence Plague by Radison Blu. The reasons being that we did not venture down the promenade much last summer, and this place has spectacular reviews on their food and hospitality. Most of the beach clubs will have a snacking menu and drinks that you can enjoy at your bed, and then will allow you to make a lunch reservation at their restaurant as well.

New Things I learned This Week

That if I want to do something in Paris this summer, during the Olympics, I should have already booked it, lol. It has been a crazy spring, as noticed by my lack of blog posts- like promised. That’s a goal for the summer. I have finally found time to look into what we will be doing in Paris while we are there, as well as our second destination- Nice. Although, we are intentionally keeping the schedule LIGHT in nice, to relax, we are still going to see some beautiful sites, eat amazing food, and rest on the beach. Kevin will have just finished 7 and a half months straight through of law school, and we are excited to lay in some beach beds and relax in the very blue water.

Things I Chose to Do This Week

Plan, plan, plan! It was so exciting to get to spend a good chunk of time this week planning and looking into what we will be doing. Planning travel within the center of Paris, well ahead of time, is going to be our strategy (we will see how well it actually plays out once we’re there). I have never been to an event even close to the size of the Olympics, but we are planning for LOTS of people, all walking the same direction as us, at all times. There are several accounts on social media that have been super helpful for understanding the best ways to move around Paris during the games. They have been closing off sidewalks to specific directions with fences, barricading others, and closing off access near the Seine. They have also put in designated pathways, and signs for people to use to navigate to and from specific events. Something that will help us a lot, is that they decided to move up a plan to extend one of the metro lines to the second airport in Paris, so it is now easily accessible by metro from the center of Paris. They have said prices will increase on all metro lines during the Olympics, so we will be trying to walk. This is also because we want to see as much of Paris as we can.

Some photos from our last trip to France: Old town Nice, the beach and the Promenade, the beach clubs, Colorful buildings EVERYWHERE, and the most amazing views of the French Riviera.

Unsolicited tip of the week

Look into all of the transportation methods in any city you are going to abroad, just because a town seems close does not mean it is easily accessible. This is especially true when mountains are involved. With that said, the French Riviera itself is extremely easy to navigate by train and some busses- but some towns are easier than others. Eze, for example, is a stunning town on top of the hill off of the French riviera and you cannot access it via the train. The train will take you to the bottom of the hill and leave you with quite a terrible climb up to the quaint village.

Next week I am going to talk about something I talk about too much; all my packing habits, and all the fun things I have learned heading into the Olympics (mostly related to track and field).

You can follow along during the trip at @choosingtravel for all the content, if you would like 🙂