Mom and Daughter Europe Trip.
At the end of 2017 Garrett gifted me some money, he told me I could use it for anything I wanted. A few options ran through my mind, but I had one I really wanted to do. I wanted to take my mom to Europe. Yes, my husband is amazing and I am so so thankfully, he made this happen for us. My mom is my best friend. I FaceTime her everyday. Sure we had our intense couple years when I was a teenager, but as soon as I went to college, we got closer than ever. My mom has always dreamed of traveling to Europe. I started to look at some flights and ended up using Google Flights to track a few different date options. I finally let my mom know and she was so excited. I told her the best option was to go in 10 days, she was a bit overwhelmed, but she was ready!
We decided to go to Europe for one week at the end of January and visit London, Rome, and Paris. It was going to be cold, but that wasn’t going to stop us. I’ve found London is usually the cheapest European city to fly into from LAX. We used Norwegian Air. I’ve loved this airline for traveling overseas. Norwegian has direct flights, great service, comfortable seats, great food, and great movies.
As soon as my mom and I got to LAX, I started to get nervous because I was pretty much in charge of this trip. I had never traveled overseas without Garrett. I wanted to make sure we stayed safe and that my mom felt safe the entire time. Thankfully, Garrett and I had been to London and Paris on our honeymoon so I still remembered my way around the cities a bit. I stayed calm and I soon as I got on the plane I felt much better.
Okay, let’s start off with London! We got in around 2pm and we took the train into the city. My mom was like a little kid in a candy shop, she was all giddy. It was the best. Garrett and I use Hotel Tonight for all our hotel needs so I went ahead and used that for our mom and daughter trip. We stayed at Arbor City Hotel in Whitechapel. There was a few cafes walking distance and our hotel had a restaurant. It was perfect. Since we had already bought the day pass for the train, we decided to take the train/subway/tube (whatever you want to call it) to the Tower of London. It was only a couple stops away. We explored a little bit on the city, we went on the London Eye. My mom was terrified, but she made it! haha We realized Big Ben was under construction and all scaffolded. I was super bummed, but I forgave London and we were able to move forward. We did tons of walking, but when we needed travel longer distances we used Uber. That night we had tickets to Phantom of the Opera. It was an incredible play! We were exhausted after a long travel day, but what a way to start off our trip.
The next day, my mom had planned a full day bus tour that would take us to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford. All I can is wow! My mama used Viator to book several tours throughout this trip and they were all AMAZING! Because of the time of year our tour bus was pretty empty, which made it so nice! My mom and I each had our own row! The bus took us to Windsor Castle first. Ugh, I loved it. I had never been to a castle before and it was so much more than I could have expected! This was where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were getting married a few months later. Next up was Stonehenge. Honestly, I had no idea this place existed, but I am so glad it was part of our tour. It was beautiful and so crazy that these random rocks were in the middle of nowhere for thousands of years!
Our last stop for the day was Oxford. I always imagined Oxford to be a university like in the U.S. I thought it would be a beautiful entrance with a big campus. It wasn’t like that at all. It’s actually a smaller town with 38 colleges all placed throughout the city. It’s beautiful. Our tour guide was able to show us tons of spots where some Harry Potter scenes were filmed. My mom and I are big Harry Potter fans, her cats name is Dobby. Needless to say we had a great day! The charter bus was awesome and being able to rest between spots was perfect.
Our last day in London we walked about 10 miles! We explored St. Paul’s Cathedral, Millennium Bridge, Kensington Palace and Gardens. We got to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We continued our walk to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben. We took a city cruise boat ride from the London Eye to the Tower of London. We explored everything inside the Tower of London. My mom needed to see the crown jewels. My dad had seen them many years ago and told her she couldn’t miss that. We walked across Tower Bridge and then all the way back to our hotel. Our feet definitely hurt, but we didn’t mind. Now it was time to pack up and get ready to head to Rome!
We had a short two hour flight to Rome. I had scheduled a car from the hotel we were staying at to pick us up at the airport. I hadn’t been to Rome and wasn’t sure how Uber was going to work there. Our hotel ended up being more of an apartment, it was so cute! Our first day we bought double decker bus passes for the day. We made our way around all the stops. We saw the Venetian Plaza, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps. At the end of the day we had dinner right in front of the Pantheon. We couldn’t be in Italy and not have some gelato so dessert after dinner it was! It was a Lizzie McGuire Movie dream come true.
We only had one more day in Rome and two tours planned. We had a early start for our guided tour of the colosseum. Our hotel staff was the sweetest. They packed us breakfast because our tour started before we would be able to have something to eat. We figured out where our meeting spot was and walked there as the sun was rising. The colosseum is so iconic and I was stoked to get to see it! Our tour included all levels of the colosseum. The underground (where all the wild beasts were kept), the stage (where all the shows, fights, and killings happened), and the stands (where all the audience sat). The tour also included the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Our tour guide was incredible! She was so sweet, her english was amazing, and she had so much knowledge about the history of all three places. We grabbed some quick lunch after our tour and then headed to The Vatican for our second tour of the day. Each of these tours was about 4 hours so we had a super full day!
While walking to the Vatican, I received an email saying that our hotel reservation in Paris had been cancelled. We were no longer able to stay there because of crazy flooding of the Seine River. My mom got worried, but I ended up finding another hotel. We used an Ibis Styles hotel (highly recommend, if not doing Hotel Tonight). This hotel was walking distance from the Eiffel Tower. We were fine and ready for our Paris part of our trip tomorrow, but first we had one more tour in Rome!
We were pretty beat by the time the Vatican tour started, but we pushed through. My mom and I are not Catholic so I wasn’t sure how we would like the tour, but it’s much more a museum than anything. We were so excited to see the Sistine Chapel and the beautiful paintings all over the room by Michelangelo. Although it was a super long day, we had the best time! Now it was time to head to bed and pack for our early flight to PARIS!
I saved the best for last. My mom has always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. She threw me a Paris themed 18th birthday/graduation party as a promise to her mama before she passed away. This was super special and I was so excited I was taking her to Paris. We had an early flight and when we landed in Paris it was sprinkling. I am not a fan of rain, but my mom loves it so this was perfect. Once we got to our hotel we got settled and headed out to see the Eiffel Tower! She was speechless. I mean I don’t blame her, it’s so dreamy. My mom was dying to go into the tower, so we got tickets to the 2nd level. Unfortunately the very top was closed due to the season. It was pouring rain and my mom was the happiest I have ever seen her! After the Eiffel Tower we headed to the Louvre Museum. I actually didn’t get to go inside the Louvre on my honeymoon. The only day we had available to check it out was Christmas Day and it was closed. I am not a huge museum person, but I wanted to see the Mona Lisa. Beautiful! This museum is ginormous! You could spend days in that place!
Right in front of our hotel there was two beautiful Parisian cafes. This is where we would had breakfast and dinner everyday. We loved it. We were so spoiled. Our last full day in Paris we were total tourists. We got passes for the double decker buses and made all the stops including Norte Dame, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Opera House of Paris. We got off and walked around at each of these.
One of the stops was near a cafe I wanted to check out called Angelina. It’s a cafe/restaurant known for their rich thick hot chocolate and amazing pastries. My mom and I had lunch there. You have to try this place if you’re in Paris. It was amazing!
Another stop was the Opera House of Paris. Our bus ended up stopping there for quite a bit of time. We didn’t know much about the Opera house. But the play we watched at the beginning of our trip takes place (Phantom of the Opera) . We decided to hop off the bus and go check it out. The tickets to get in are pretty cheap. Oh my gosh! I have never seen a more beautiful building. The staircases, the chandeliers, the art, the design, it was incredible.
The next day was our flight home. We got up early, had breakfast, and decided we had enough time to go see the Eiffel Tower one more time before heading to the airport. We wanted to take some more pictures (as if we didn’t already have enough). We walked as fast as we could and had plenty of time to get back for our car ride to the airport.
During this trip there were so many giggles, happy tears, and laughs until our bellies hurt. We had the most amazing time and I will forever treasure this trip with my mama.
