A FRIEND’S WEDDING AND CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF MARRIAGE
Kylee here! Last September Lance and I took a 3-week trip to France. Our friends were getting married there and it was our 10-year anniversary so it was the perfect excuse to travel! I’ve been meaning to document it for ages, so here I am, finally getting at least part 1 of this special trip documented! I’ll document the food in a whole separate post to keep things organized.
The wedding was taking place in Toulon, a port city near Marseille, so we decided we would fly into Nice and spend a couple weeks exploring the French Riviera, then take a train to Paris and fly home from there.
As far as research goes, we spent the months before watching travel vlogs on Youtube every night. Seeing other couples take the trip gave us so much insight and inspiration for where to visit!
Despite all our research, we both struggle with decision paralysis so it took us ages to decide where to stay and whether or not to get a car. We finally decided to book an Airbnb (it was a beautiful villa that we got for a great deal!) for a couple weeks near Saint Tropez and get a car to take day trips. Lance was a master at emailing all these amazing villas, letting them know we were coming for our anniversary and asking if they would give us last minute deals. We were so surprised how many were willing to cut pricing, sometimes as much as half! It was worth being bold and asking. We weren’t certain when exactly we would want to leave the south to head to Paris so we held off on any bookings beyond that.
But alas, despite finally making a decision and getting something set in stone, our plans were thwarted the day before when the owner of the Airbnb emailed us to let us know that the hot water heater had broken. Two weeks with cold showers sounded awful so we cancelled, which caused me to panic a little because heading into a foreign country without a plan is my worst nightmare. Lance assured me it would be fine and that now we could be free to take our travel plans day by day, booking one or two nights at a time and then deciding what felt right next. Again, not my thing, but I decided to embrace it. During the trip we used Expedia to determine availability and book hotels on the go!
How do dogs always know?! Whenever the suitcases come out these two get visibly worried and do their best to block us from packing. So heartbreaking every time! But we weren’t worried, they were in safe hands with my sister Courtney coming to stay and had some play dates planned with their cousins, Jack and Lily.
PACKING TIPS
We brought two carry on suitcases and two backpacks for 3 weeks. It wasn’t easy, but we are so glad we didn’t bring any more than that. It was unclear what the weather situation would be…if it was warm the whole time then packing light would have been a lot easier, but we had to bring some layers, especially for Paris. Plus, we had a wedding to go so needed a couple specialty pieces. I tried to being lots of neutrals that could easily mix and match!
I bought an Away suitcase (the bigger carry on) and loved it. It had a phone charger, which was super handy on the go, and a great lifetime warranty (something broke on it and it and they replaced the whole case for me so easily!).
Packing cubes are lifesavers! I bought these ones and they really helped to compartmentalize everything and keep things organized. I highly recommend them!
AU REVOIR, SEATTLE!
Instagram husband starting off strong with his photo documenting. We left early to take a direct flight to Nice.
Our first glimpse of the South of France! Stunning already.
When our Airbnb cancelled, we delayed renting a car and went ahead and found something near Nice to stay for two nights so that we could get our bearings. We found this charming hotel in Saint Paul de Vence that was an easy bus ride from the airport. We were SO grateful that we didn’t have a car at this point. You can bring one and park here, but the roads are so narrow and crowded with people and it would have been an absolute nightmare to try to drive up to the hotel. It was quite a walk from the bus to the hotel down the cobblestone streets, but much better than driving.
The hotel lobby. What a lovely welcome! We were smitten with the charm this place and so excited to start exploring!
We stayed here for two nights. In hindsight, while this is a picturesque location, it really would have served us better as a day trip from Nice. The town itself is very small and could be easily seen in a couple hours, so two nights was a bit overkill.
We didn’t know much about Saint Paul de Vence and without the original accommodations cancelling, we may never have seen it (which is honestly the story of the trip, I am SO grateful that we got to hop around so much!). Turns out this is probably one of the MOST magical places I have ever visited. It’s one of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera, complete with cobblestone streets, art galleries, majestic fountains, and incredible views. It ticked every box of my Provencal dreams.
SUCH an Instagram shot. Can’t believe I didn’t even gram it ;)
We explored every narrow corridor.
I almost certainly took more photos here than any other place we visited. There wasn’t a single turn we made without gasping at how quaint it all was.
Every inch of this place was unreal. The doors, the shutters, the windows, all of it! Queue a million photos of every cute door and window I saw…
That’s Saint Paul de Vence in the distance. We hiked up and out of the town into the local neighborhood and stumbled upon this gorgeous view!
Never met a cactus I didn’t like.
We made friends with a local cat living in this cemetery. It was all fun and games until IT BIT ME and I remembered that I don’t even like cats.
Saint Paul de Vence was the perfect intro to France. The morning after our second night, we headed back to the airport in Nice to pick up our rental car before heading to our next destination.
We picked up the car and thought we would stick around Nice to eat, but we somehow drove into the City Center and it was a total disaster. One way streets, narrow roads, people blocking the road, and dead ends…we thought we had made a fatal mistake in getting a car! The driving situation was quite stressful. Lance wasn’t having it and as soon as we got out of the maze of the city center, he just wanted to get out of there. So, we decided to check out Cannes!
A QUICK STOP IN CANNES
Once we were out on the highway, the driving wasn’t such a big deal (other than the constant toll booths). We learned our lesson: never drive into city centers! The old roads aren’t made for cars.
We had high expectations for Cannes, known for hosting the annual Cannes Film Festival, but in reality it didn’t impress us all that much. Perhaps we just didn’t visit the right spots!
We checked out the beach and film festival location and stopped for falafel at Dr. Falafels (more on food in a future post). Then it was off to La Seyne-sur-Mer, which is just east of Toulon where the wedding we were attending was happening tomorrow!
WEDDING TIME!
The next day we got ready and headed to our friends’ wedding!
The perfect ceremony and celebration of love for two wonderful friends. It was a joyous occasion, despite not understanding most of the French :)
The reception was so picturesque and took place at Residence du Cap Brun.
We met these two in college and were so happy we could be a part of their special day!
The wedding reception gave us an opportunity to speak with some locals to get the inside scoop on what we should explore and where we should go next. The beauty of not having plans!
Unbeknownst to us, French weddings are an all night affair. We had just recovered from jet lag and figured we would be snuggled into our beds at a reasonable time and ready to get up and check out of our hotel the next morning, but as the hours went by we realized that wouldn’t be the case. Some of our fellow American friends hadn’t realized this either and had planned to Uber back to their hotel 30 minutes away and realized that it was now too late for them to acquire any transportation. At around 2 or 3 AM, we decided to be the first to leave and drove them home, then back to our hotel. It was basically morning by the time we got back to the hotel.
LA SEYNE-SUR-MER
The hotel we had booked was in La Seyne-sur-Mer and we were supposed to check out the morning after the wedding, but we were completely exhausted and hadn’t booked any accommodations elsewhere, so we decided we weren’t ready to leave and extended our stay a night. We hadn’t realized it was in such a cute little beach town when we booked it and we figured we could leisurely explore that afternoon and plot our next move.
We loved the hotel! It was fully restored historic hotel with beautiful views of the Mediterranean and a private beach. Isn’t this little restaurant area cute? Top tip: rather than pay for parking, we opted to park on the street and it was really easy to find parking!
We spent the day exploring the town and hanging on Plage des Sablettes, which was a beautiful white sand beach with beautiful clear water.
At this point we started to feel like so much time had gone by already and there was still so much more we wanted to see! So we looked over the notes we had taken with suggestions from our new French friends and planned our next move.
Next stop, Aix-en-Provence! To be continued….
For more photos from my trip, see my Instagram story highlights or search my trip hashtag #kyleeinfrance!
