Happy Weekend everyone (and my Mom)! So, we got back from France a while ago…but things have been busy over here in Brooklyn. My sister had the cutest little baby! We also went to Denver! I got a new job! Juliette’s hair got curlier and larger (i.e. I somehow spend more time unsuccessfully trying to get a brush through her hair)!
More on France though, because anyone with a two-year old who isn’t Kim Kardashian doesn’t get to France too often.

How did we get decide we should take this dream vacay? My mom wife (and also the mom in our usually-a-dream nanny share, pictured above w/rosè) Steph, used to live in France and her parents have a house there and we figured out buying three discount tickets to Nice, France was cheaper than a weekend house at the beach. Voilà!

We had ten days of co-parenting and a van that fit four adults, two carseats, two strollers, and a doxie. If you have a two-year-old who is anything like mine (um won’t sit still unless maybe she’s eating ice cream) then a Euro trip with museums and restaurants we couldn’t eat at really wouldn’t work. I highly recommend, should you be looking into a blowout family trip, the South of France because there you just go to the beach and eat full-fat ice cream. We went to beach clubs in St Tropez, Cannes, and Frèjus.  The “deal’ with the beach clubs are that you get a beach chair and access to all the club amenities like showers, bathrooms, wine…it’s really nice and each chair is around 25-30 Euros for the entire day. We found hitting up the local shops in the morning (while the kids were “fresh”) and then hit the beach clubs + their fab restaurants around lunchtime worked best. We spent nights at home putting the kids to bed and then “doing” cheese/wine, and did a few day trips to places like a kids zoo and walking around lil’ towns.

Some other highlights:

• the first pics above are from a giant gorge called Gorges Du Verdon which is basically a huge lake in the middle of the mountains where people come to rent paddle boats and cliff dive – this wasn’t the most toddler-friendly but I’m glad we went, it was stunning!
• near the gorge was the most adorable little Beauty and the Beast-esque town, Tourour, which was stunning and a good stop for sandwiches and lavender souvenirs, pics of this place are above with Juliette and her friend playing in a fountain 🙂
• shopping in St Tropez was as fabulous as it was expensive, but to get a taste of couture try the Christian Dior cafe, Dior Des Lices
• there’s a French grocery store chain, Monoprix, that has the most ridiculously cute kids clothes that are really well-priced BONUS: the clothes are all basically French-themed
• the South of France is in the rosè region, so we drank um, a lot, of it and some of the wineries are happy to have tourists come in for tastings and others not so much. We went for a quick tasting and walked around the absurdly gorgeous vineyard ground at Château Sainte Rosaline and even brought home of their delish wine
• the #1 beach club we went to was in Cannes, Le Plage du Festival, which would be a ‘can’t miss’ when we get back there someday!

Leave any questions below and please go someday if you can!

xx

Hollyn

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