Girona, Spain & Lyon, France

Last fall, before we left for the first leg of our trip to Central America, we literally had nothing planned for our time in Europe. We had a lot of ideas, but hadn't made any firm plans. One day, feeling a little stress for the unknown, we decided that we just needed to commit to a few things, and those things would "anchor" the rest of our plans as they developed, so we started looking for specific things in various places that might be time-sensitive and that we would want to reserve so far in advance. By the time we left for Costa Rica, we had three solid commitments in Europe, and the first two were coming up around the corner. We knew we wanted to see a play, preferably a Shakespeare production in London, so we started there and stumbled across a production of Much Ado About Nothing with Tom Hiddleston, the actor who played Loki in the Marvel movies. We all love Marvel and we loved Hiddleston as Loki, plus the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, so we secured tickets and had our first anchor. Our second anchor was made in trying to find something fun for the kids to look forward to, and we had just taken Miles to his first concert (Green Day) last fall, so we asked Carter if he had a band he'd like to see and we started looking for tour dates. After striking out a bit, we found that 21 Pilots were going to be on tour in Europe. They were sold out in Amsterdam, but we found tickets available (and WAY cheaper) in Prague and locked them in, just about a week after our Shakespeare tickets in London. Of course, this was all before we knew about the car, so we had some creative travelling to figure out. 

We left Barcelona and spent two nights in Girona, Spain. Girona had been on my list for a while, and I'm so happy we got to visit. Despite very little time there, we saw some really cool parts of the city, all an easy walk from our lodging. The red bridge in the pictures was the last thing Eiffel built before the Eiffel Tower (did you know Eiffel also built the skeleton of the Statue of Liberty?), and crosses the Onyar river, which is lined with colorful buildings and homes that are the postcard-version of Girona. The Girona Cathedral, built in the 1400s, is prominently featured in Game of Thrones, as are many other parts of town (and places in Valencia, Granada, and Morocco, for that matter - seems like everywhere we've been, we're being told that parts of Game of Thrones had been filmed). The muralla Girona is a 3km remnant of a midievil wall that surrounded the city, mostly built at the same time as the cathedral, but the foundation layer of the wall was built by the Romans in the 1st Century, BC. Again, too little time and too much to see, but we packed a lot in during our one day here.

Next, we had about a 6 hour drive to Lyon, France, where we would spend one night and then fly out the next evening to London. Lyon was SO COOL! Similar to Girona, we were able to see a lot in the short time we were there. After arriving, we checked in to our hostel and Nicole and Miles rented Lime scooters and I rented a gravel bike to explore the city a little (Carter took the opportunity to have some alone time). We primarily explored the boardwalk/ waterfront of the Rhone river and made our way to the 19th century Parc de la Tete d'Or, a massive city park with lakes, museums and throngs of people out running, riding, and enjoying the pleasant evening. More than pretty much anywhere we had been yet, Lyon was incredibly bike/ scooter/ alternative transportation friendly. Add to this that the spring weather was gorgeous, trees and flowers were blooming, and it seemed like the entire city was out enjoying it all. 

The next morning, I work up early and went for my second bike ride of the trip. I followed the Rhone north through the Parc de la Tete d'Or and into and around the even larger Grand Parc Miribel Jonage, which was like a seemingly endless nature preserve. The entire three hours I was out pedaling, I had a huge smile on my face; it was just so beautiful, it felt great to ride, and I was regularly coming across locals on paths and trails who were on their morning commutes to work, dropping off kids to school (there were so many cargo bikes!), or on their own recreational adventures. 

I returned my rental to the bike shop, met up with the family for a late breakfast, and went for another walk along the river all before we headed off to the airport to head to London. Though we were only in Lyon for about 24 hours, it was one of my favorite cities in Europe so far, and I would love to return for much longer some day.