A Week Away

I been wanting to travel around the north of France for a while now as I've never been anywhere north of Paris, unless you count catching the Eurostar to London.

So my plan was to visit Chantilly, Giverny, Mont St Michel etc. The plan was to go away for F's birthday so he had final say on where we were going. He wanted to head west and south. So much for my idea...

So... First stop Chartres. This is an easy day trip from Paris and it's been on my to do list for some time. Chartres has a huge cathedral, worth visiting if you like religious monuments. Cute city, stayed for lunch, next...

Heading west Le Mans is next. Nothing to see there. Up next, Angers. We only stopped here because I was bloody tired and it was late. Of course, all hotels in the city were fully booked except the most expensive one. No choice but to stay there. Angers actually has a few sites worth visiting including an amazing 13th century fortress. 

Tuesday was F's 40th birthday and we continued west to Nantes. Nantes is on of you typical middle sized French cities. Nice for a quick stroll, a few sites, and not much else.

La Rochelle is a small port city on the coast. I'd read that it was really pretty but I wouldn't know as it poured with rain the entire time I was there and I couldn't see anything.

Tried to get a hotel but everything was fully booked except the biggest dive in the city which was no doubt bug infested. I still have nightmares from the bug infested hell hole I stayed in at Republique 2 years ago, so that was out. We had a nice seafood dinner and then continued to the next town where we slept in a nice clean Ibis hotel.

I've been to Bordeaux a couple of times and while I've always liked it, I wanted to see something new so we headed to Toulouse. Toulouse looked exactly like Bordeaux except everything is in red brick. I would have loved to have spent some time there but all hotels were fully booked, except, of course, the 5 star super expensive Sofitel.

No one told me you have to book ahead when travelling in summer!

Has anyone ever been to Andorra? No, I didn't think so. I have! It's a PITA to get to, takes hours through the Pyrenees and then once you get there you see a pretty little village/city with happy looking, quiet, Spanish speaking people.

Thankfully Spain is only 15mins or so from Andorra. We headed to Barcelona and managed to stumble upon the same hotel we stayed at last time. Was it fully booked? No! We got the last room. Lucky at last.

So, 3 nights in Barcelona eating loads and loads of tapas, drinking unbelievable quantities of cheap Spanish wine, and shopping, shopping, shopping, and I was happy.

What I learnt from this quick trip:

1. Andorrans speak Spanish.
2. I'm a city girl and visiting small country towns is bloody boring.
3. Patate Bravas is the BEST TAPAS EVER.