French countryside, maybe?

I'm a sucker for a castle in the countryside.

I’ve never really be fascinated with France.  Haven’t had the desire to go to Paris like so many do, I’ve always been more interested in Italy, Ireland.  PFMan and I had a wonderful first trip to Italy in Spring 2009, then we took Gavin & Addy to Ireland in March of this year. We could of course go back to either again and again only touching on places we’d like to see and spend more time in.  I do so desire to get back to Italy!  As a family, we have a goal to go abroad once a year, so we’ve been trying to plan the trip for 2012 and we’re having trouble.  The issues, money, time and all of agreeing where to go.

We did a little Family Poll last night to help us decide, everyone had Italy and France listed in the top 3.  Addy is crazed with the desire to visit Paris. She’s eight and badly wants to see the Eiffel Tower.  Gavin is really more interested in going to Venice, Paris 2nd, PFMan would love either, and I, of course, would love to go back to Italy but suddenly I’m interested in the French Countryside with a short jaunt to Paris, and stopping in Bruges, Belgium if at all possible.  Here lies the other dilemma, time. We only have two weeks.

First, let’s back up and explain why suddenly I’m even more interested in giving up my beloved Italy trip for France, the country I’ve not been to excited about visiting.  Not to say that I don’t want to go to France, there have just been other countries that have been higher in priority.  My family background is Italian/German so these naturally interest me more, I’ve never been good at pronouncing words in French so this really intimidates me, I’ve heard they don’t like Americans…. Ok, so back to my new found desire to see France? Well it all has to do with pictures.  Yep.  I’m motivated by stunning images of the French Countryside.  Being a photographer myself, it’s no leap for me to be inspired by beautiful photography and I recently hit the mother load.  You see, I love travel photography, I love food photography so when I stumbled upon this blog post by Cannelle et Vanille about her trip to Southwest France to teach a food styling and photography workshop, I was sold.  Not just because I must be involved with a workshop like this in the future, but my goodness, just look at these pictures!  The setting, it’s storybook and the food, hello!  I want to spend DAYS toodling around here.  Then I started clicking on the blog posts of the other ladies who attended this workshop and saw this!  Here’s the link to the cottage on VRBO.  Oh yes, we are!!  At least we hope to.  The plan is to head there in late March.  The weather will be cold, but the crowds will be sparse and it will also be more affordable.  So here I am somehow being magically swayed into ditching my beloved Italy for two weeks in France, yep, and stopping in Paris of course.  Time to spruce up my French.

Peace.

Filed Under: Life LOVE, Travel, Travel LOVE

Tanya

Hello:-) This is where I'm supposed to share with you a little about myself. Ok, here it goes. Born in NY, moved to Florida when I was 4 and grew up just north of Orlando in Altamonte Springs. I met my husband in 1994, knowing without question we were meant to be together forever, we got hitched in late 1996. We had a short jaunt in Las Vegas, NV, with his radio career and we conceived our first baby. This prompted us to return to Florida, landing in St. Petersburg. We've been back in FL for over 10 years now, kids are 10 & 8. My life can be summed up with family, traveling, life science, photography & fur kids. We currently have eight cats and two dogs and live on over 7 acres in Bradenton, a dream! I've combined my lifelong passion of photography & animals into turned them into my dream job in 2008, it's been wonderful & I Love every minute of it. I have a wonderfully supportive husband and two amazing kiddos and we're having a crazy good time together on this journey of ours! Cool beans.