Take a Vacation

[BigPiney]

I am sad.

it comes with the cancel culture we are seeing everywhere.

[Bo Diddley]

I think your wife will be happier with the less wear and tear.

[Pelado]

I am sad.

So am I.

[Pelado]

I think your wife will be happier with the less wear and tear.

As if that matters!

I felt like we were short-changing Paris with the prior itinerary. The first day would have been eaten up with driving back from Mont Saint Michel and then we were flying to Florence early the morning after the third night. So it was only going to be a little over two days in Paris.

This way we'll see Normandy, the Loire Valley, and Paris.

[bluegoose]

3 nights in Amboise
4-5 nights in Paris
Fly home from CDG via Zurich to Chicago (then Southwest through Denver back to Boise)

Re: Amboise and the Loire Valley, We loved our 4 days in that town. I think I mentioned before, that we took a high speed TGV train from Paris to Tours, where we rented a car. Its a short 25 minute or so drive to Amboise from there. Chateau Amboise is really cool and worth a self-guided tour. There is also the Chateau Clos-Luce near there, which was DaVinci's long time home. Plenty of nice restaurants there that were fairly affordable, some of which may need a reservation in the summer. My 21 year old son actually treated himself to a Michelin starred restaurant there that he said was really good.

Chateau Chenonceau is maybe a 20 minute drive south of town that is well worth the drive and the self-guided tour. It's a beautiful castle built right over the Loire, with some nice gardens. This was my wife's favorite castle.

The best gardens in the region are at Chateau de Villandry. We wandered around the gardens for several hours there and loved it.

Chaumont sur Loire, Chambord, and Cheverny also look like cool Chateaus that we didn't have time for.

If we had just a little more time there, Blois looks like a really cool town with a beautiful chateau. The Chateau dUsse is about an hour away from Amboise and is apparently the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty castle.

We also found some really cool small towns out in the country side that were very "Instagrammable", with quaint city centers and robust flower boxes spilling over in front of every home window sill. Chendigny and Savonnieres. Would be worth a little drive or walk through if you're in the area. Not a lot to do there, aside from just looking around.

[bluegoose]

As if that matters!

I felt like we were short-changing Paris with the prior itinerary. The first day would have been eaten up with driving back from Mont Saint Michel and then we were flying to Florence early the morning after the third night. So it was only going to be a little over two days in Paris.

This way we'll see Normandy, the Loire Valley, and Paris.

This sounds like an amazing itinerary.

We did AirBnB our first time in Paris. Yes, the apartments are small, but we spent so little time there it didn't really matter. I would look more into the location rather than the size of the place.

In Amboise we found an amazing Airbnb right in the shadow of the Amboise castle walls. We loved it. 2 minute walk to town center, had a washer and dryer, and was one of the few places we found that had air conditioning, which was nice since it was a heat wave while we were there. Let me know if you want me to send the link to the place.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I had to cancel my Alaska trip.

[Pelado]

This sounds like an amazing itinerary.

We did AirBnB our first time in Paris. Yes, the apartments are small, but we spent so little time there it didn't really matter. I would look more into the location rather than the size of the place.

In Amboise we found an amazing Airbnb right in the shadow of the Amboise castle walls. We loved it. 2 minute walk to town center, had a washer and dryer, and was one of the few places we found that had air conditioning, which was nice since it was a heat wave while we were there. Let me know if you want me to send the link to the place.

We've already booked an Airbnb in Amboise, so we should be good there.

I had to cancel my Alaska trip.

Sorry, Dude.

[BigFatMeanie]

Spent the past four days in Sydney. Here are some of my thoughts about the things we did:

Government House - Excellent. They’re only open on fridays but the tours are free (have to show photo ID) and informative. It wasn’t as awesome as my tour of the Houses of Parliament in London but it was still dang good.

Hyde Park Barracks - Excellent. The audio tour is fascinating. Only costs 12AUD. The stories of the convicts and refugees from the Irish potato famine and others were riveting.

National Maritime Museum - Very good although a bit pricey for a museum. Guided tour of a Dutch merchant ship from the 1600s (replica) that “discovered” Australia and named it New Holland, of the Endeavor from 1700s (also a replica) that mapped the east coast of Australia, of a submarine that was just decommissioned in 1999 and of a relatively modern frigate(?). The replica ships and the submarine were cool but the aircraft carrier in San Diego was cooler than the frigate.

Royal Botanic Gardens - Good if you like gardens, parks, walking, etc. which we do. Kew Gardens are more impressive but this is still good.

Rocks Discovery Museum and The Big Dig archeology site in The Rocks - good. A pretty small museum but still interesting with stories of the people that lived in rough parts of Sydney. Sailors, hookers, soldiers, convicts - fascinating. Had some good short documentaries as well, including one on the construction of Sydney Harbor Bridge. We did our own self-guided walking tour of the Rocks area instead of the paid guided tour and I’m glad we did because we could spend as long as we liked on stuff and skip stuff we didn’t care about (I really don’t care about the oldest pub in Sydney).

Taronga Zoo - meh. My wife wanted to go because she watches their zoo show on TV all the time but a zoo is a zoo and they have more koalas in San Diego than they do in Sydney. The gibbons were great - swinging around and hanging upside down, and the gorillas were great as well - very active and playful while we were there; but zoos are generally a waste of time because the animals just sit there and sleep all day. My wife says she enjoyed it but she was the one that wanted to go there in the first place. At least I didn’t fork out the small fortune that Bo will to go to Disneyland Japan to appease his wife.

Manly - meh. A beach/touristy town which didn’t hold many attractions for me although the bikini-clad ladies walking around everywhere including the grocery store were nice to look at.

Q Station - meh. The history was interesting but it’s an awful lot of walking and it was hotter than the blazes when we were there so we burned out pretty quickly. I think this would have been more enjoyable first thing in the morning when we were fresh rather than in the heat of the afternoon.

Sydney Museum (or Museum of Sydney) - crap. Don’t waste your time. Not much of a museum - more of a social justice community center. They did have the self-guided walking tour of the Rocks that we used but we got that online before we left the US. Just skip the actual “museum”.

We skipped the Sydney Opera House tour but snapped lots of photos of the place from the ferries and McQuarry point. We also skipped the Sydney harbor bridge climb because I am afraid of heights and even if I wasn't I wouldn’t pay the price they wanted for that. We skipped the art museums because they mainly have either contemporary art or aboriginal art, both of which are less interesting to me. We skipped the beaches because neither of us were really that interested in getting wet and sandy and sunburned. I guess I’m getting old.

It’s off to Cairns tomorrow where we will get wet and sandy but hopefully not sunburned or stung by a jellyfish on the Great Barrier Reef. I got a prescription snorkel mask for the occasion and I also bought a cheap chinese waterproof camera to use on the reef so we’ll see how well they work out.

[Moliere]

I am sad.

Italy deserves its own vacation (I’m typing this while on a train to venice)

[Moliere]

This sounds like an amazing itinerary.

We did AirBnB our first time in Paris. Yes, the apartments are small, but we spent so little time there it didn't really matter. I would look more into the location rather than the size of the place.

Yep, location is most important. You can find larger places but you’ll want to be by a metro stop and I also prefer to be on the ground floor or first floor. The elevators in France suck and climbing stairs sucks.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2144295...2-BA833EF7F5EF

I stayed here on my trip last June. It’s was the perfect place for us with two bedrooms and two bathrooms and right across from the Tuileries gardens.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Sounds great, BFM. Australia is awesome.

how are the prices there these days?

[Bo Diddley]

At least I didn’t fork out the small fortune that Bo will to go to Disneyland Japan to appease his wife.

Nice write up. I'll tuck this away for later. We're hoping to get there someday. The missus wants to see the Irwin's zoo, but I think that's in the middle of nowhere.

Looks like we may be going to Japan over spring break next year with Bo Jr and his wife. He served his mission there. They too are all in on spending a day in Tokyo Disney. And they only want to be gone 10 days. I usually like to spend a full two weeks.

[BigPiney]

Has anyone done a day trip up to Brussels from Paris? The TGV is 1h11, so the thought is to get up there by 9 or so, spend the day and either stay one night or just head back at 21:00 or so.

Thoughts?

We are trying to plan the trip with the kids and my mom.

[Pelado]

Yep, location is most important. You can find larger places but you’ll want to be by a metro stop and I also prefer to be on the ground floor or first floor. The elevators in France suck and climbing stairs sucks.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2144295...2-BA833EF7F5EF

I stayed here on my trip last June. It’s was the perfect place for us with two bedrooms and two bathrooms and right across from the Tuileries gardens.

That is a great location and a nice-looking place. It's a lot bigger than we'll need and about double the price range of what I was initially considering. That particular property is already booked for the time that we'll be in Paris, though. I have - begrudgingly - increased the price range I'm willing to consider. But with the increase in price, I've been looking primarily at booking something through the Chase travel portal so that I can use points and reduce the total out-of-pocket cost.