Finally had a chance to process my very first visit to Europe and now I’m excited to share a bit about it with you all. For those who follow along on Instagram and watch my Instagram stories, you may have seen all of our videos documenting our visit to Barcelona, Spain, France, Rome, Italy, Andorra and our 40 mile walk on the Camino de Santiago. Yes, I said it, we hiked for 3 days straight clocking in a whopping 40 miles from Pamplona, Spain to Logrono, Spain.

So, why were we in Europe? Good question! I worked as a communications specialist for a graduate program in my former position and I was a part of their study abroad planning committee. I was tasked with collecting marketing content that could be used to market the course. When COVID hit, our trip was put on hold until 2022, but by that time I had transitioned to a new position at the university I work at. I was asked to finish up this project and was given the invitation to go to Europe to document the trip for marketing. I’m so grateful to work in the university setting. It has taken me places I never thought I’d ever see. Education has taken me places I never thought in my wildest dreams I could ever see. It’s amazing! I always knew I’d be in education, and for a long time I thought it would be as a teacher, but that plan fell through and I’m grateful for that. I’ll be sharing more about what I actually do in the education world in another post, but for now, without further ado, I present to you pics from our 3 countries tour.

Yup, Charles booked us a 3 country tour and yup, we visited 3 countries in one day! We got a chance to bop around Spain, France and Andorra with our tour guide Rod. Rod was amazing and took us to a few tiny towns in France for some yummy food and we got our passports stamped in the cold mountains of Andorra. It was a full day of fun meeting some really cool solo travelers and hanging out with the locals. Keep scrolling for pics….

So, after a fun time in France, we headed up the mountain to Andorra to get our passports stamped and freeze our tushies off in the mountains. Yes it was SOOOOO cold, but so worth it to see the beautiful mountain views and snap a few pics. Is this view not amazing ya’ll? I never in a million years would have wanted to visit a cold place for vacation, but here I was, freezing cold, but so happy. Look ya’ll, I left Massachusetts for a reason. The cold winters weren’t fun and having to shovel my way out of the snow to walk to school sucked. Thinking about those cold days as a kiddo makes me shiver on the inside, LOL. In fact, I vowed to myself that I’d never use my vacation time to travel somewhere cold and here I was in France on the mountain doing the exact opposite, LOL. Let me tell you, THE VIEW WAS WORTH IT! I take back everything I said about cold vacation destinations. Ha ha. I visit these mountains any day for this amazing view! Keep scrolling…..

So, that’s all I got from our 3 countries tour. I hope you enjoyed the images. This was a definitely a trip for the books. I’ll be back one day. Who knows, maybe I’ll ski. I’ve never done that before. There is a first for everything right.

Stay tuned for another post on my time in Spain and the amazing helicopter ride we took for a birds eye view of Barcelona!

Till next time.

Sincerely,

Deidra Marie