The travel adventure novel by French author Jules Verne (1873), Around the World in Eighty Days, tells the story of the unflappable Phileas Fogg’s trip, accompanied by his emotional valet, Passepartout, to win a bet. In our version, it was Steve and me though we only traveled 15,489 of the 24,901 miles it would take to completely circumnavigate the globe. What a Voyage Extraordinaire it was.

This Grand Tour had been in the works since December of 2022. That's the date we booked our transatlantic cruise to Spain. Sixteen months gave us plenty of time to construct an itinerary like none we had yet done. It also allowed us to motivate our younger son and his family to visit us in Spain, along with convincing two different sets of friends to connect with us in France. The logistical orchestration was pretty impressive, if I say so myself. Over the 80 days, we traveled on 1 cruise ship, sped through the countryside on 2 high speed trains, endured 4 different flights (of various lengths), and rented cars on 6 different occasions. We spent 3 nights in hotels while most of our living was in an Airbnb (we stayed in 7 different ones). In addition, our travels found us on city buses, regional trains, Ubers, and even a river ferry. That said, walking was our primary mode of transport. I would aptly use the adjective DIVERSE (which implies both distinctness and marked contrast) to describe this trip.

Briefly (I write with a wink), after embarking on our repositioning cruise, in Florida, we spent ten days at sea before our four ports of call in Spain. We've been on this sailing before so we knew the cities well enough to just explore on our own. New discoveries were made in each port and when we left the ship in Barcelona, we both agreed that the 14 days at sea was a huge success.

After an amazing high speed train experience on the Alta Velocidad Española, we spent our first night on land in a city new to us- Seville. The following day, we gathered our little family of travelers and headed south to begin a 3 1/2 week long explore of Spain as grandparents traveling in a foreign land with a 2 and 4 year old, along with their parents, thankfully. We had no idea what to expect with these kiddos. We were blown away at how adaptable they were. There were no complaints, only delights, even on the several days we walked 5+ miles in the heat. The little one got a lift every now and then but was still a trooper.

We stayed a week in three varied towns and used the stability of an apartment as our homebase. We explored the southern beach town of Marbella where we even connected with 'the cousins' who had recently relocated nearby. Next was Granada with its fantastic Alhambra, beautiful city parks, and such walkability. Our final family togetherness was in Seville where we spent 10 days being enthusiastic tourists, honing our appreciation of the history, food, and people of España. What memories were made by all and I took enough photos, those children will never forget their first trip abroad.

We all knew the adventure with the family had to end and what eased my sad grandma heart was the fact that when we dropped them back at the Seville airport, Steve and I boarded a plane to Paris. Side note: I love Paris. In addition to all the sidewalk cafes, exceptional museums, and monuments that make one swoon, it was here we met up with our friends, Annie and Bob. Interestingly this was our second time meeting them in Paris. The first was in 2000. We all had some reconnecting to do with the City of Light. While we were only there for a few days, Paris was the gateway French city for our ultimate extravagance... a month long stay in Avignon, with Annie and Bob joining for the first week of it.

The South of France is magical and there is no way to recapture all that happened there during our sojourn. Many people asked us "Why Avignon?" We really didn't have an answer before arriving but we certainly did after we departed. It is a walled city full of history, museums, culture, opera, culinary treasures, and idyllic memory making opportunities. There really is no way to sum up this 1/12th of a Year in Provence (a nod to Peter Mayle's hit 1989 book A Year in Provence). It was here, too, that other dear friends of ours, Ian and Eileen, visited us from the UK. Friends really do make life that much more delicious. The last two weeks of our month in Avignon was just us two. We now felt like locals and we really did the tourism board proud.