The moments you remember the most might surprise you

We took our youngest daughter and her best friend on a trip to celebrate their graduating high school with honors. The ladies decided they wanted to experience London, Paris and Rome. As we built our itinerary, we made sure to hit all of the famous tourist spots. When we look back on our trip now, the things we saw aren’t really the things we reminisce about. This taught us a valuable lesson – when it comes to travel, the moments you remember the most might surprise you! Join us as we share the highlights of our European World tour and the lessons this trip taught us.

London – 2 days / 2 nights

The big, touristy things we planned

The London moments we remember most

• The walk back to the hotel at night after seeing The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theater
• The ordeal we had trying to get to Covent Garden for tea
• Having a beer in a pub together

Paris – 2 days / 2 nights

The big, touristy things we planned

(If you’d like some insider tips on seeing the Mona Lisa up close and personal, like we did, check out our post on doing a museum like a BOSS.)

The Paris moments we remember most

• How EARLY we had to get up to catch the train from London to Paris
• Eating pizza and olives at a cafe when we got into town
• Drinking champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower
• Eating crepes outside La Rotunde
• Watching the World Cup and laughing about eggs

Rome – 2 days / 2 nights

The big, touristy things we planned

The Rome moments we remember most

• Laughing at the café down the street from our hotel
• Having gelato…so much gelato!
• Walking for hours in the evening, taking in the sites
• Saying “When in Rome” EVERYTIME we had a glass of wine
• The vile taste of amaro

The three big lessons we learned

The trip was amazing but the pace was a bit too much for our young travelers. By the time we got to Rome, we built in down time in the afternoon to rest or nap. As an added bonus, the afternoon rest periods made each day seem like two days! This was probably the result of being more energized for each part of the day.

Seeing things and taking pictures is WONDERFUL but the memories are made in the moments “in-between” where you laugh together, eat together and explore. Learning this principle caused us to setup our itineraries differently. We may plan one activity each day but the rest of the time is open for exploring together and seeing what catches our eyes along the way.

And lastly…finding a public restroom in a foreign country is not necessarily an easy feat. In Rome and in Paris, we had emergency “death marches” where we walked far and quickly to avoid an unfortunate international incident. Lesson learned…never pass up an opportunity to use an available bathroom.

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