As the researcher and planner of the group I suddenly had a new and exciting task! I set out to plan the ultimate girls vacation with the following goals:
Shan - " All I want to see is more than one country, the city, the countryside, the beach and feel immersed in the culture, the rest is up to you!" Geesh, that was a hefty statement, but I was sure I was up to the challenge.
Shan and I thought a week in Tuscany and a week in Provence (my big desire) would be a great trip! I got online and looked for tickets using FF miles on United into Milan, but I needed to call United to make that happen. You'll soon realize that I have become completely dependent on the Internet and HATE when I can't do things via that avenue, so started my first bout of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
While searching I realized we could go round trip into Paris using our FF miles and book it on the internet, so it became. I saw an itinerary on about.com for a trip along the mediterranean from Barcelona to Rome and that became morph #2 (or 3 I've lost track). The girls were excited and we couldn't keep our plans to ourselves, hence the reason for morph #3...
MH wasn't too excited about us being in Italy and Spain as he had been informed by Sandy that we were going to Paris. You'll learn more along the way, but Sandy sort of has this way about her of telling only so much as to not "get in trouble". See, she knew MH didn't want to go to Paris so he wouldn't mind if she went with us to Paris. She also knew if MH knew more than that, he would maybe be jealous, hence she told him we were going to Paris - totally the truth!
So, Spain was out but I was holding on to Italy to meet Shan's 2 country expectations... until I got on the web and once again - ADD. I'm not sure how it happened, but pretty soon we were only going to be in France. But, I appeased Shan that we would be close to many borders (Germany, Switzerland, Italy) as we progressed around the country "doing France", it would be easy enough to pop across and see another country! I laid out an itinerary that was something like - fly into Paris, spend a couple days, train to Nice, pick up car, drive through, staying someplace different every night, Western Provence, Burgundy, Cotes du Rhone, Alsace, and Champagne, then back to Paris. Whew!
Luckily I found viamichelin and Trip Advisor forums - I had this perception (as I think most Americans do), that France wasn't that big and all those places were really close to each other! I was soon educated by some friendly TA regulars and the trip took another turn...
We picked 4-5 base city/villages - Paris, Nice, Arles, Beaune and Reims - and dropped Alsace and the Alps areas altogether. Shan wasn't too happy again - she wanted to see the mountains - but luckily she still loved us and we convinced her this was better for us to be "immersed in the culture". I started booking hotels at all these locations and was down to only needing a place in Reims when someone mentioned apartments - here I go again...
I quickly found an apartment in Paris and we decided to go with it, but then Shan thought we might be "spoiled" by all the room and disappointed in our tiny hotel rooms the rest of the trip - she realizes now she should have kept this thought to herself - but off I went finding apartments in our other locations. Only, in Provence almost everything is a Sa-Sa week long rental, how could we do that? Well, if we dropped Burgundy and Champagne and added a day to either Paris or Nice and were content to spend a week in western provence it would all work out...
Trust me that by now there was bribery involved and Sandy and Shan dreaded the "we could' words with which I chose to start my conversations, but they agreed and finally 7 months after we booked our flights we had a final itinerary - nailed down with deposits! 5 nights in Paris, take the TGV to Nice, 3 nights in Nice, rent a car, 7 nights in Bonnieux, TGV back to Paris for the last night. I think I should see a doctor, I'm sure this is a disease...
