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 

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!

Easter at Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte

One of the best-kept secrets in France is the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. I've already expressed how much I enjoy visiting the château in a previous post, but it really is an unforgettable experience. 

For our second visit to the château, we participated in their Easter festivities, namely a huge scavenger hunt through the gardens that led us "around the world" to see how different countries celebrate the holiday.

There were giant blue Easter eggs all around the grounds. London loved them and kept asking me to take pictures of her next to them.

This time we didn't go inside the château, but they had different artists come and decorate giant Easter eggs that looked very beautiful online. There was even an opportunity to win a giant chocolate squirrel!

The chocolate squirrel was 1 meter tall! 

The Easter event took place for a few days around the holiday and the château had everything well-organized. When we bought our tickets, we got a little booklet with the different clues and little facts that would lead us from place to place in the gardens. It was a great thing for London to look at while we walked around.

We met up with a family from Aaron's MBA program and had a wonderful time hanging out with them!

The Yamada family

At each stop, a different country would be highlighted and there would either be an activity for the kids to participate in, live music for us to enjoy, or fun information about the county.

Some of the specific ones that I remember were having the kids roll an egg down the hill (for Germany and the U.K.), catching an egg out of the water with a net (for Quebec), and listening to some wonderful music from Ukraine. Ukraine even had a neat little booth set up where we could buy little decorated eggs and also had a pretty tree all decorated for the holiday.

Such a pretty little tree (decorated from the Ukraine group)

Catching Easter eggs (Quebec)

It was a very nice walk around the grounds and the weather was fantastic! Eventually the scavenger hunt had us loop back around and led us towards the back entrance of the château. We made our last stop where we were rewarded with a bag of Belgian chocolates, one for each person in the group.

It was yet another wonderful day at Château Vaux-le-Vicomte. We ate lunch again at the restaurant here and everything tasted great (again) and the servers were very nice - they brought out a booster seat for London without us ever having to ask or search for one.

We also loved hanging out with our friends! It was so much fun spending the day together and hopefully we can get together again soon!

For more information, check out:
http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/

And to see more beautiful photos of this château, check out their Instagram page!

Garden in le domaine de Marie-Antoinette - Château de Versailles

One of my new favorite places these days is the gardens in le domaine de Marie-Antoinette in Château de Versailles. We've been lucky enough to have visited the grounds a couple of times now.

 All of the gardens of Versailles are beautiful. We've been several times and it is always enjoyable to walk around with our children.

The last couple of times though, we've made it a point to visit the Hamlet area of Marie Antoinette's domaine and have loved it.

Walking out of the Queen's château, you first see the English Garden with the Temple of Love. It was built in 1778 entirely out of marble. Marie Antoinette could see it from her room in the Petit Trianon.

 We continued walking past this in order to find the actual Hamlet and farm. I was excited for London and Adeline to see all the animals and was interested in seeing how Marie Antoinette's little village was laid out.

 We saw a few other interesting things along the way: the Rock, the Belvedere, a cute little bridge crossing the stream- all part of the English Garden.

 After a 10 minute walk or so, we came to the Hamlet.

I've always been curious to learn more about Marie Antoinette and now that we live in France and so close to Versailles, I am especially interested in learning more about her.

 The Hamlet was constructed between 1783 and 1787. Marie Antoinette was enchanted by the idea of rustic peasant life and would come here to escape the court of Versailles. No one could enter without her permission.

The village included eleven houses spread around the lake and also a working farm.

This tower was the departure point for boat rides or fishing outings.

 It's a very charming little village and we've enjoyed walking through it on both occasions.

Probably our favorite part though, is the farm.

Walking up to the farm, there is a small vineyard and beautiful little wildflowers. I actually took London's birthday pictures here. It's such a beautiful little area!

The first animals we saw were the chicken and rabbits. Both the girls loved peeking through the fence at them!

 There was also a bunch of goats and sheeps in the field. Of course we had to stop and watch them for awhile too.

 In another area there were different large birds (geese, ducks, etc.). I had to remind our girls not to put their fingers through the fence, but we continued to enjoy seeing all of the animals.

 Unfortunately, after the Revolution, the Hamlet was left in disrepair and wasn't restored until very recently. I'm so glad it has been restored! It was a great place to visit and not very crowded. It's located near the back of Versailles and is a bit of a walk from the actual palace. Luckily, there is parking closer to the Petit Trianon if you only want to visit that area.

We've enjoyed our visits to le domaine de Marie Antoinette and will definitely be visiting again soon!

For more information, please check out:
http://en.chateauversailles.fr/marie-antoinettes-estate