Today we spent our last morning in Annecy and had a nice breakfast at our hotel. We walked around Lake Annecy and took our final swim before leaving.

Next, we drove about 90 minutes where we stopped in a couple towns on Lake Geneva. One was an old medieval town that we quickly walked around and the other was a town on lake Geneva called Thonons-les-Bains. We took a funicular down to the lake and walked along the boardwalk. There were lots of boats and things here and there to see. Surprisingly the lake was quite choppy. There were waves splashing up to the boardwalk! Finally we drove to the city of Geneva. We stayed in Geneva a few years ago for the same reason as this trip (early morning flight the next morning at Geneva airport). We actually ate at the same restaurant we did last time. We ran out of steam to find a new place and liked it enough to go back. All they serve basically is chicken and salad but we enjoyed it. Now we are at the hotel getting some sleep before tomorrow’s flight.

Sad to be leaving:((

This morning, we headed to the bike shop where we got some coffee and bread as well as our bikes of course. There is a bike loop that goes around the entire lake Annecy that we were prepared to ride. It was about 28 miles. Unfortunately, the beginning part was a very long steep hill on the main road. We had to walk our bikes up most of that part but so did majority of the other people biking here as well. But there also are a lot of bikers here in Annecy who look like very serious bikers. Once we got up the hill we got to a separated bike path and it was all down hill or flat. It was a beautiful ride next to the lake which looked really blue today because it was a sunny day. We stopped for lunch next to the path about half way through and then continued back to the bike shop. Then, we drove back to our hotel where we got our bathing suits on and walked down to the lake. We swam and relaxed outside on the hotel couches. Fun fact: it stays light here for a really long time. Today the sun set at 8:45! We ate dinner outside in Annecy. The setting was nice but it wasn’t one of our better meals.

Story time: parking is difficult in Annecy so when we arrived there for dinner we couldn’t find a spot and had to drive around for a little bit. We finally found someone who looked like they were leaving because they were packing up by their car. When we asked him if he was leaving he told us yes but he’d be 10 minutes. He was a magician packing up his cart with all his magic gadgets😂. After dinner when we got back to our car, we found out someone had parked their car in the next spot VERY CLOSE to us. It took us 20 dramatic minutes to pull out and make sure we wouldn’t hit the car next to us. So much fun.

Goodnight and more tomorrow!

Hello! Exciting news! For today’s debrief of the day we have a guest writer… CHARLOTTE. Enjoy what she has to say below:

After retuning our bikes successfully, we started our journey by car to Annecy. Georgia quickly dosed off and Charlotte soon caught on, furthermore, the 2.5 hour ride went by quite fast. However, towards the end of the trip when we had to pass through a toll, dadam’s credit card got caught in the machine and dadam started freaking out. Luckily, the card shortly made its way out. 

Once we arrived in Annecy, the city looked a little ugly and were were all tired so we quickly found a restaurant. The restaurant was quite strange as it was Italian, but they served taco-like dishes. We ended up ordering too much and Georgia almost threw up because she didn’t feel good.

Our hotel in Menthon-Saint-Bernard is very nice, (5 star rated), however the one major flaw is their poor air conditioning. 

**note from Georgia: Our hotel is in Menthon-Saint-Bernard which is one of the several towns around Lake Annecy. Tomorrow, we will ride our bikes around the lake.**

Ok, back to Charlotte: The next morning, we woke up, had some breakfast in town, grabbed some coffee, and looked at the bikes we were planning on renting the next day. Afterwards, we went to Annecy and walked around, sitting down at a lunch place that had a rude man as a waiter. After lunch, we kept on walking and had ice cream that served Oreo as one of their flavors (Charlotte was very happy since Europe doesn’t serve Oreo as an ice cream flavor normally.) Dadam attempted at hosting a walking tour but failed. Annecy looks a little like Venice. It has a canal through it and has cute old buildings. After seeing the beautiful, old, but crowded Annecy, we went back to the hotel, got our bathing suits on, and went swimming in the lake. Dadam wore his new bathing suit! (This is very exciting because he has not purchased a bathing suite since like the time we were born.) We also swam in the hotel’s indoor pool, and then went to our room to get ready for dinner. 

We went to a lovely restaurant for dinner. The waiters there were really nice and we had the best gazpacho ever.

Yesterday, we had a wonderful day in Beaune. We rented electric bikes and got to ride through the vineyards and villages around Beaune. The bike path took us from village to village and in between the villages were just fields of vineyards. Also, our electric bikes were really helpful and fun to have. They work just like a normal bike but every time you pedal they move for you. The path was nicely marked with green bike signs through the villages, giving us a great tour of the wine country. To top off our beautiful bike trip, we got to stop for lunch in one of the villages we passed through at a restaurant called Le MontraChet. (A Michelin star restaurant) It’s a really expensive restaurant for dinner but for lunch they have a price fixed menu. The food was incredible and the service was amazing. All in all a delicious and special meal. After lunch we headed back through the vineyards back to the bike rental store. This bike trip was definitely a highlight of our trip so far.

Hello! Sorry that this post took so long! I haven’t been able to get WiFi. I’ll try to remember what has happened these last couple of days!

On Saturday morning, we took our long awaited trip to the Eiffel Tower. We climbed up 700 stairs to get to the second floor. You can get all the way to the tippy top by taking an elevator up but we didn’t feel the need for that because you can get a good view from the second floor. One person only made it up to the first floor, have fun guessing who:)

For our last stop in Paris, we started at the Arc De Triomphe and walked down Champs-Elysees. We stopped in some stores, including the famous department store, Galeries Lafayette.

After we said our final goodbyes to our hotel and Paris, we got into our rental car and headed to our next stop, Vézelay which was about a 3 hour drive. But don’t fear, we broke up our trip with a stop at a Château called Vaux-le-Vicomte. We weren’t planning on staying too long, but we got carried away it was so beautiful. First, we took an AMAZING audio tour through the inside of the castle. Who knew an audio tour could be so high-tech? It had 3D audio and the whole tour was a story told by characters from the castle’s time. Each room was the next part of the story with informational tidbits woven in. Besides from the actual Chateau, the place had beautiful gardens and fountains. We got to take a golf cart all around the place which was lots of fun.

We arrived in Vézelay at dinner time and dropped of our stuff at our airbnb. It was very pretty with a huge garden in the backyard, but not the most luxurious place. The village of Vézelay was a walled medieval town, built up on a hill. Today, it is very quiet but still a nice place to visit. In the morning, we walked around the small village (really one street up the hill, and one street down). We walked into a really old church on the top of the hill and they were actually in the middle of a service! Still there were a few tourists walking around during the mass.

After lunch in Vézelay, we got back on the road and took a 2 hour drive to Beaune. Now we are definitely in “wine country”. We are staying above a wine bar, in a really spacious apartment! Beaune is much bigger than Vézelay and in the heart of Burgundy. We had signed up to be toured around by a “greeter”, someone who lives in Beaune and volunteers to give a tour. After a little mix up, we found out our greeter was going to give us a tour in a small village 5 minutes away where he lived. Our guide was originally from the U.K. and moved to Burgundy to retire. He said he had always loved France. He took us around his tiny village surrounded by wine vineyards. He said everyone who lives there either owns a vineyard or is retired. It’s a small village where he knows everyone and plays organ in the local church. He’s even a representative in their village level government. 160 people live in this particular village, but there are many little villages just like this one throughout Burgundy.

Lastly, we had dinner at what might have been our favorite place yet. Super nice atmosphere with DELICIOUS food. We tried escargot for the first time! We’ve also had a hard time communicating with some people here because not a lot of people speak English, whereas in Paris there were more English speaking people. Ok, more tomorrow! Au revoir!

Unfortunately, our lucky vacation weather streak came to an end today. We woke up pretty late because it was pouring all morning and then we headed to an area called Montmartre, via the Metro. It wasn’t a particularly nice part of Paris but we had to get to the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur. The church is built really high up so you can get a nice view of Paris from the top of the stairs. It was rainy and cloudy so the view wasn’t amazing but it was still cool.

Next destination was the Louvre! We went on a 90 minute tour which hit all the major pieces in the museum. The museum is MASSIVE and we would have never been able to narrow down our visit without a tour guide. The Mona Lisa wing was under construction so they have the painting relocated to another part of the museum. After the tour we had to make a special trip there. You wouldn’t believe how long a line could be to see one single painting. I think we were on line for an hour!! When we finally got the Mona Lisa they have crazy guards pushing everyone away so they can move the long line along. It was a mob scene.

After the Louvre, we walked down through the Tuileries Gardens to the Arc de Triomphe. Definitely a quintessential walk through Paris.

Then on to dinner and gelato of course. Eiffel Tower is tomorrow! Bonsoir!

P.S. a giant macaron from last night’s dinner:)

Hello! It’s been very busy here in Paris! Yesterday we woke up from our rather long naps, and got our first glimpses of the city of Paris.

After we had a bite to eat, we headed to the Seine River where we took a huge boat down the river and saw all the major sights in Paris. It was definitely a big tourist trap but it was nice to ride down the river and see more of the city.

Then, more walking around and off to dinner we went. There are so so many restaurants in Paris. Every street you walk down has tons of food, but we’ve learned it’s hard to go wrong as they have so much high quality food (unlike the states!)

Now on to today, we woke up to go on a walking tour of Paris. We had an AWESOME guide who was very passionate about being a tour guide and can be used to ask questions to throughout our whole time in Paris (we have his number). In fact, 10 minutes after he left us, we lost our bearings and had to text him asking the address of our lunch destination!

After the tour we ate some crepes and headed to an area that had some nice shopping. We did a lot of walking today so now we are back at the hotel relaxing before dinner.

We captured some very Paris-like photos. Flowers by the windows, cafes, etc. Some scenes here look straight out of a movie:)

See you soon!

Greetings and welcome back to TrulyGeorgeous! I hope you are excited to follow along on our trip to France. Today we left our house at about 4 and headed to EWR. We had a nice plane and flight with the exception of several babies crying. Many boring hours later we arrived in PARIS. We are all sleepy and jet lagged so sleeping for a little bit now. More soon!!