Au revoir Blogger, Bonjour Wordpress!

Exploring Carcassonne

I'm happy to announce that I've updated my site and have moved to https://ashleydaleyphotography.wordpress.com/home/! I'm so excited to share my new site with you and I think that it'll be a great change. 

I'll be posting new content from our last 3 weeks in the south of France there, so make sure to go check it out!

The site is better organized and a lot cleaner looking than this one. It will be easier to follow and find exactly what you're interested in. I still have a bit of work to do, but I think that overall, this will be a change for the better.

I'll continue to leave this blog as is for now, but at some point I may switch over to have it redirect to my new site. 

Thank you to everyone who has ever read a blog post or looked through photos here. I've always appreciated all of you and especially my photography clients and everyone who has been keeping up with our European adventures. 

Abiento,

Ashley 

Paris with Kids: Eiffel Tower, Art Museums, and Sacré-Cœur

We had family in town for a few weeks in June. It was so nice to see everyone and we actually got to see some more touristy things in the city that we hadn't made time to see before. 

Since we live close, we did these different activities over two days, but it could easily be condensed into one. 

We spent one day checking out the Eiffel Tower and then from there, we walked along the Seine River to Musee d'Orsay and Musee de l'Orangerie. 

We used http://www.parkingsdeparis.com/ to reserve parking in a garage near the Eiffel Tower and it was fantastic! It was way cheaper and prepaid and we knew exactly where we were going ahead of time.

Eiffel Tower
We've walked around the Eiffel Tower many times but had never made the trip up it before. My brother and I decided we would like to, so we stood in line and then walked up almost 700 steps to the second floor (there are also elevators, but the wait time is way longer and plus a little exercise is good, right?). The view was well worth all the stairs!

Buying our tickets ahead of time online would have definitely saved us some time, but it ended up being okay.

My brother on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower with the city of Paris behind him

While we were climbing hundreds of stairs, my husband and stepdad took our girls on the carousal out in front of the Eiffel Tower. They of course loved it. :) They had also wanted to take them over to the playground, but it was unfortunately closed due to the football tournament going on at the moment.

That view!

Musée d'Orsay

From the tower, we then headed along the river towards the art museums. We bought our tickets ahead of time online and were able to get a discount ticket for the two art museums, which was awesome.

On the way, we grabbed some quick sandwiches to go and then unfortunately got rained on quite a bit between the cafe and the museum. But as Audrey Hepburn once said, "That's when Paris smells it's sweetest". It wouldn't be a true trip to Paris without a bit of rain. ;)

My favorite Van Gogh at the museum

Our little girl was so excited to find Van Gogh's self portrait

The museum was fantastic. We had a great time seeing Van Gogh, Monet, and many others' beautiful art. Beforehand, we had showed our toddler different pictures of the art that we would see there so she could be looking for it when we walked around. We had already visited Monet's Gardens last summer, so we focused a bit more on Van Gogh. She was so excited to see his "swirly" art and even drew a few of her own "swirly" pictures beforehand.

These two did so great all day long.

Musée de l'Orangerie
This museum was located just across the river from d'Orsay so it was a short walk over. It does not allow strollers, but does have a spot where strollers can be checked. Our toddler fell asleep on the way over so instead, my husband and I just took turns in the museum while the other waited in the front room with our sleeping little one and stroller.

If you only have time to see one thing in l'Orangerie, go see Monet's giant canvases of water lilies. They're spectacular and breathtaking and you won't regret it. The museum has two circular rooms set up with his different canvases wrapped around the walls. I took our youngest in first and both her and I loved it. She loved walking up to the paintings and just pointing at all the colors before running over to the next canvas to see what she could find.

There are other famous art downstairs that's also definitely worth seeing too if you have the time, but Monet's water lilies were by far my favorite.

I love this picture so much

Sacré-Cœur

On a separate afternoon, we visited the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur. It's in a different part of Paris, so plan accordingly if you want to visit it.

We drove and did nearby street parking. Then we climbed a bunch of stairs until we got to the foot of the church.

The basilica is beautiful and has an incredible view of the city from it's steps. We enjoyed walking through the church and the surrounding area.

Both of our days in Paris were great. It was wonderful spending time with family and also exploring our beautiful city.

Checking out the view

Normandy: Étretat and Honfleur

Mother's Day is later in the month of May compared to the United States. Since my husband had school stuff going on during United States Mother's Day weekend and since we currently live in France, we decided to wait and celebrate Fetes des Meres during the weekend of the 29th.

Check out that fog! 

Our original plan was to drive 5 hours to Île de Ré and spend a long weekend on the beach there, but due to strikes and gasoline shortages, we decided to change our plans a bit and headed north to Normandy, a quick 2 hour drive from Paris.

We spent one day in Étretat and one day in Honfleur. We booked at what we thought was a great Bed and Breakfast (it said right on their site that children of all ages were welcome), only to have them cancel on us as we were driving to Normandy on Saturday due to us having young children and them not wanting us to bother the other guests. Thanks a lot, Apihome.

Luckily, Hotel Des Falaises in Étretat still had openings and was very welcoming to our small family. It was a great little hotel right in the center of the village and walking distance to the beach, cliffs, shops, and restaurants.

We ended up having a great weekend and I had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Pebble hunting

Étretat
Étretat is a small village in northern Normandy that is best known for it's breathtaking cliffs. Claude Monet actually painted several beautiful paintings here.

We spent our day mostly walking along the beach. Our girls loved playing with the pebbles and seeing what interesting looking rocks they could find. It was awesome seeing the ocean again and we were all pretty happy.

I love this picture of the three of them. 

What a view!

Our day started off foggy, but cleared up in the late afternoon. There were several great little playgrounds sprinkled throughout the town that the girls enjoyed playing on. A little bit later, we walked up the cliff that has a church on top (we took our stroller up the main road but there are also stairs one can climb as well) and then after dinner, we headed over to the other cliff (this time without the stroller which ended up being a good call) and hiked that one as well.

The views were spectacular and well worth carrying two small children most of the way. Both our little ones loved picking flowers along the way and pointing out all the seagulls.

Honfleur

Honfleur is south of Etretat and is known for it's historic port. It's another place where Monet would paint along with other artists as well. It also has France's largest church built out of wood.

This port was so picturesque! I loved all the buildings!

After a nice breakfast at our hotel, we checked out and then drove less than an hour to Honfleur. We started our day off by going straight to the beautiful carousel. The girls enjoyed riding it and we made plans to come back again before leaving.

Best dad ever.

We got lunch in the port and it was so good! There were many places to choose from, but we ended up getting seafood (shrimp, mussels with fries, and a cheese plate for Aaron and oysters, salmon with rice, and strawberries with whipped cream for me). London of course ate a little of everything and loved it and Adeline ate mostly bread and a banana (and rice and strawberries too!). 

It was a great Mother's Day lunch and not at all expensive. We ate outside where there was room for our stroller and the waiters were all very nice and attentive.

After lunch, we checked out St. Catherine's Church. Honfleur was a community of sailors and while the people knew how to build boats, they were unsure how to build a church. So they fashioned the church after a boat and ended up with a uniquely beautiful chapel.

The inside of the church.

We explored the town a bit next, but there wasn't too much more to see. Once we went past the port, it was more residential. We did find a nice a chocolate shop though and the girls got me a few chocolates for Mother's Day.

We ended our day with another ride on the carousel and then hopped in the car and headed home.

Etretat and Honfleur were a great quick weekend getaway for us. We loved that it wasn't too long of a drive either way and that there were fun things for the girls in both towns. It was a wonderful way to spend Mother's Day and I'm so happy to be a mother to these two little girls. 

Springtime in Paris

Springtime in Paris is just lovely! It seems like every week we see a new type of flower.

A month ago we visited Parc de Sceaux in Paris and saw the cherry blossoms. It was gorgeous! We found a nice spot to sit and hang out and our girls loved running around. Our toddler would pick up flowers off the ground and hand them out to people around us. So cute.

These two are just too cute

Looking up at the blossoms

All around where we live there are a ton of rapeseed fields. We went for a walk back in May when the flowers were blooming and enjoyed all the pretty yellow flowers.

Back when we had blue skies and sunshine

Even though we've had non-stop rain lately, Spring has definitely been my favorite time here so far!

An Afternoon in Ghent

On our way home from the Netherlands, we stopped in Ghent for a quick visit. Ghent is a beautiful city in Belgium and we were excited to add it to the list of places we've visited in the country.

I love the buildings!

 We started off by visiting the office of tourism where they gave us a map that showed us the major sights and a walk that would take us by each one.

Such a pretty view

We enjoyed walking through the city and admiring the beautiful architecture. The river running through the city is very scenic and was very pleasant to walk along.

We stopped for lunch at Quick, Belgium's version of McDonald's... Unfortunately, it also tasted about the same as McDonald's. But, it was a quick meal and allowed us time to continue our afternoon in Ghent.

 We were excited to visit the Gravensteen castle that we had seen on our drive in, but first we wanted to grab a waffle. As we were buying our treat, we could hear a man selling triangular candy called "Noses of Ghent". He handed us a sample and we decided to buy a few to bring home with us.

 Our last stop was the castle. Originally built in 918 for the Count of Flanders. It was a pretty neat castle on the outside with lots of space to run around for the kids.

The inside had a collection of knights and swords, but also had a room full of torture chamber items that the girls and I did not enter. 

We were able to climb to the top of the castle and get a wonderful view of the city! 

 Overall, it was a nice break in our drive from the Netherlands back to our home in France.

We enjoyed the prettiest sunset driving from Ghent back to Paris!