The Journey to Paris

It was great to get over seas again, it had been four years since our trip to Ireland and it felt way past due. There is really something to getting so far away that you find yourself steeped in another way of life. And that's what this trip was all about, we only had two destinations for the three week period–an apartment rental in Paris (a perennial favorite) and one in Barcelona (a new experience for all of us).

Now a quirk of getting over seas this time was an initial trip up to Canada. Back in January of February (I can't remember which) I was looking for deals to get us over to Europe, and flying into Paris and out of Barcelona was looking like it was going to cost us in the neighborhood of $1600 a person. But Alex happened to check the Air Canada rates flying out of Vancouver and stumbled on the most amazing deal–$830, round trip out of Paris.

What that meant was first getting to Vancouver to catch our flight. But at about $120 round trip for the three of us on the train the savings were worth it. It also meant getting back to Paris from Barcelona at the end of the trip (roughly the same distance from Seattle to San Francisco), which added about $100 each to our high-speed train tickets (plus enduring the eight hour train ride)–yes, still worth it. The cost was an additional $420 all told, but we had saved almost $2400 on the airfare. Be sure to always check the flights out of Vancouver when going over seas!

So the first leg of our journey was a train ride to Vancouver. If you've never taken this ride I would highly recommend it, some of the photos below are the scenery along the way. We stayed over night on Vancouver and took a plane early the next morning. There was a brief layover in Toronto, but then it was on to Paris.

Along with the gorgeous scenery up to Vancouver, this post includes shots from our first couple days in Paris. We visited Sacre Couer up on Montmartre (which was pretty close to our apartment), went to the Louvre and Notre Dame, and spend hours just wandering to see what we could find. Enoy the photos!

oroboros on 9/10/2015 8:15:42 PM