After an amazing experience in Chamonix last year, Andy and I were extremely excited to head back to the French Alps for our first ski trip of this season. I ultimately decided on Megève based on its reputation as a gastronomy hotspot, and the sophisticated little village certainly lived up to the hype.
The older I get, the more and more excited I get about Christmas decorations and the holiday season in general. I try to buy at least one ornament on each trip we take, but my absolute favorite places to find new holiday decorations are the Christmas markets that pop up across Europe each season. We had to cancel our 2021 Christmas market trips due to the Omicron variant breakout, so I was more than ready to finally head to Basel to experience its legendary Christmas market scene.
One of the downsides of living abroad is that we have inevitably had to miss lots of big moments for our friends and family back home, including several weddings that we would have normally attended. On the flip side, it is much easier for us to go to destination weddings in places like the French Riveria, which is how we ended up spending the first weekend in July in the Côte d'Azur celebrating the wedding of one of my favorite colleagues. It truly couldn't have been a more idyllic experience.
After several fun-but-exhausting weekends in a row spent hosting friends and family in London, we were excited to get back on the road (in the air?) with a quick trip to Berlin. Andy hadn't been to Germany before and I had only been to Munich, so we were both really looking forward to finally exploring such a legendary city. Everything about our weekend getaway in Berlin was honestly perfect, and I'm already looking forward to planning our next German adventure.
My new year's resolution for 2022 was to visit 10 new countries this year, which meant that we needed to get a little more creative with our weekend trips. With this in mind, we booked a quick trip to Luxembourg City, the elegant capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Although Andy was skeptical about heading to yet another place we hardly knew anything about, we had an absolutely lovely weekend in one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe.
One of the most exciting parts about moving to London is getting first-time visitors and at the end of March, I finally got to experience my mom's first trip to Europe. We spent a few days in London and Paris before making our way to the real reason we were in France -- the Burgundy wine region. We stayed in Beaune, which is about 25 miles south of Dijon along the famous Route de Grande Crus, and it couldn't have been lovelier.
We spent the last weekend of January in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, which is a resort area at the base of Mont Blanc (the highest peak in the Alps) in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France and just across the borders of Switzerland and Italy. Despite Chamonix being a pretty challenging ski area for a second-time skier like me, we had an absolutely fantastic trip.
For Andy's 30th birthday, we met one of his childhood best friends in Amsterdam for a fantastic three-day weekend of celebrations. Despite The Netherlands suddenly announcing a partial lockdown (basically just bars/restaurants shutting down at 8 PM) the week before our trip, we still had so much fun celebrating Andy's birthday and exploring a new city with an old friend.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love champagne. When I started thinking about my 30th birthday, celebrating in the Champagne region of France seemed about as perfect (and on-brand) as it could get. We spent a fabulous three-day weekend touring the champagne houses, eating fantastic French food, and drinking as much top-notch bubby as we could handle.
As cliché as it sounds, I think Paris will always be my favorite city in the world. I've been 7 or 8 times over the past few years and there's something special about the energy and culture that keeps me coming back. Paris travel guides are a dime a dozen and I am certainly not an expert, but I've compiled a list of some of my personal favorite restaurants, attractions, and shops for anyone who might be interested. Bon voyage!
Lindsey in London 