Valence and Fête de la Musique

After Lyon, my next stop was an hour train ride away: Valence. I was staying in a country house about 20 min outside of Valence with some old family friends. Although I absolutely loved spending time in the countryside, surrounded by farms and mountains, spending time in the city of Valence was pretty cool too. It was a really unique travel experience because Valence isn’t a huge, major city, like Lyon or Paris, or a quaint, little village that draws hoards of tourists. It was an average sized, real French town.

My second night in the region was June 21. The first day of summer isn’t usually a big deal for me, but France celebrates the holiday with the nation-wide Fête de la Musique (direct translation: music festival).

Un Séjour à Lyon

“Séjour” is one of those beautiful French words that doesn’t really have a direct translation to English. Google Translate comes up with “stay” and “visit” as its possible English counterparts. So, for all of you non-French speakers, “Un Séjour à Lyon” roughly translates to: “A Stay in Lyon”, or “A Visit to Lyon”. But to me, “séjour” connotes more than just a simple visit or stay somewhere. To me, there’s something almost magical about a “séjour”…

I was only in Lyon for about 24 hours; that’s why I find “séjour” to be more appropriate than “trip” or “vacation”. I stayed with a family friend who had been studying at the university in Lyon. The first night, we wandered around the city before taking the Funicular up the large hill to reach the upper half of the city.

The Medieval Town of Zons

After almost a month in Europe, I am now home! About halfway through my trip, I realized that blogging while I was traveling was slowing me down a little bit, and it was hard to find time (and wifi connection) to put together posts. But now that I’m home, I’m planning on sorting through photos of my trip and working on posts for the next few weeks! I think it will actually be a good way to reflect and reminisce on my trip, starting where I left off: Germany!

On my last day in Germany, we took a drive to the small medieval town of Zons. It was one of the few medieval towns in the region to survive WWII (I’m sensing a theme of “famous places that survived WWII” as I’m writing about my time in Europe). It was a very, very tourist-y town, but beautiful nonetheless.

Just Outside of Cologne…

During my time in Germany, I stayed in the suburbs of Cologne. You would think the suburbs would be extremely boring. But in the case of German suburbs, nope. On the outskirts of the town there was a beautiful large field and a forest. With land like this, you would think this small town was an hour or so outside of the city, in the countryside, but in fact, it bordered Cologne. It was crazy that there was so much countryside just outside of the city. 

Out and About in Cologne, Germany

I have spent the past week in a small suburb of Cologne, Germany. Cologne is a very unique city. Apparently it was one of the only large German cities that wasn’t completely destroyed in WWII, so a lot of old architecture remains, especially in the Old Town. However, despite the old buildings, Cologne is a very modern, progressive city. In fact, it is one of Germany’s most eco-friendly and LGBT-friendly cities.

Cologne’s most famous sight is the Cologne Cathedral. It is a beautiful cathedral with intricate designs covering its exterior, and stained-glass windows and a sky-high chapel on the inside. I climbed up the 509 steps to reach the lookout point high up in the cathedral that gives you a sprawling view of all of Cologne.

A Night in Metz, France

The city of Luxembourg, although the largest city in the country of Luxembourg, is quite small compared to other state capitols such as Rome or Paris. A day and a half was quite enough time to see the big sights and do a little wandering, so the second night, we drove down to Metz, a city in North-Eastern France, only a 45 minute drive from Luxembourg.

The Many Layers of Luxembourg

Saying a city has layers could be taken to mean many different things. Take Luxembourg for example. You could say its culture has layers since the people of the city speak French, German, Luxembourgish and even Portuguese. Or you could say that its landscape has layers since the neighborhoods of Luxembourg blend seamlessly from a commercial business district with shops and bustling traffic to a quieter centre ville (city center) with cobblestone roads and an energetic restaurant scene, and finally to the vielle ville (old town), a quiet residential area with stunning old buildings and churches.

A Glimpse of Luxembourg

Yesterday I made it to Luxembourg around noon. I spent most of the afternoon wandering the streets and taking photos, I even stopped in to get an ice cream. The city completely blew me away with its beautiful architecture, parks and trees, and especially the bridge overlooking the “vielle ville” (old town) situated in a valley covered in forests that sits lower than the town.

My little exploration yesterday was 100% unplanned, I had no map or guide with me, but I found some incredible sights. Sometimes spontaneity is best.

If You Can’t Travel to Paris … Read About It!

In a few days, I will be catching a flight to … Luxembourg City! Now why on earth would I fly into this small, overlooked city-state when flying into a nearby major city like Paris or Frankfurt would be a cheaper alternative? Because Paris is going downhill. Kind of. I had originally booked a direct ticket to Paris, but after news that ISIS was issuing more threats towards the West during Ramadan (I was going to be in Paris during Ramadan), my already-worried mom freaked out, I freaked out, and we decided that Paris was not the place to be when ISIS was issuing a major threat to the West. So, we booked a flight for me straight from Paris to Luxembourg City to avoid all the Paris madness.

5 Language Learning Apps to Use Before Travelling Abroad

One challenge facing those wishing to travel abroad today is the undeniable fact that English is not spoken all over the world. Having a basic controls of a country’s native language is a skill that can prove to be invaluable when visiting another country. We are lucky enough to live in age where countless resources are available to us at the touch of a hand, even recourses for learning new languages. There are so many language learning apps out there it can be overwhelming to figure out which ones would work best for you. I want to share with you some of the best ones I’ve found. But first, a little bit of my language background.