Its been 15 years - now two friends take Europe.

Rachel Jewett

Nov 11, 2021

8 min read

What an adventure. I don’t even know where to start. One of my best-friends from Indiana flew to Paris to see me and together we traveled to four countries in six days. It was a classic case of good moments and unfortunate ones but over all the trip was a success.

Let’s start at the beginning:

PARIS:

It was so cool to show one of my persons around my new city. It made Paris feel more like home to have someone to show it off to. I took Madi to the classic Parisian spots and together we did some of my favorite things.

Places we ate and drank:

Le Nemours: this is the café where "The Tourist" opening scene was filmed and set in 2010 situated between the famous La Comédie Francais theater and Musée du Louvre. Here I had my first Croque Monsieur (a ham sandwich but the cheese is melted on the outside) and caught up with a best friend.

Café de Petit Cluny: Highly recommend this cute place in the 6th arr. We shared puff pastry and tiramisu desserts. I swear I drank the best apérol spritz so far in France at this café.

La Cantina di Luca: The majority of our food I am realizing was sweets and drinks. At this little Italian eatery in the 8th arr. we split a Nutella pizza and red fruit mojitos (delicious)

Au Petit Creux de Montmartre: A quick stop here after a lovely walk and viewing the inside of Sacre Coeur we enjoyed an Apérol Spritz and some mulled wine.

Our Adventures:

A climb to the top of the Arc De Triomphe was a new experience for us both. France's tomb of the unknown solider is located at the Arc - there is a map inside of all the countries that have tombs like this and what year they where created - it was beautiful and interesting to see all the countries who took the initiative to dedicate a sacred space to the soldiers who fought and will never come home. Also the view from the top of the Arc is well worth it. So cool to see all of Paris and the streets below fan out.

I think my favorite part about our Paris portion of the trip were our evening picnics at the Eiffel tower. There is nothing like grabbing a bottle of red wine, some deli meet, cheese, and a fresh baguette and chatting the night away with a view of a lit up Eiffel Tower.

A true passenger train and then a connection into a more basic train took us on our journey to Belgium!

BELGIUM:

After getting a little turned around getting off the train and metro, we enjoyed a short afternoon in Brussels. The square and Grand Palace, treated us so well, we were able to try “traditional” Belgian food (at a tourist trap - but hey I loved it) of beef stew and meatballs with tomato sauce and Belgian beer of course. I had a delicious cherry beer since I am still not a huge fan of this type of alcohol. We also enjoy street waffles topped with speculoos (which tastes like melted graham crackers) and one with kiwi, while sitting on our suitcases in the sun. Though Brussels was nice, our favorite part of Belgium was this little town called Brugge. We fell in love.

First off, our Airbnb host was amazing - the space was a great welcome and as a tour guide for Brugge she laid out the town map and ideal spots to visit for when we arrived. The town itself is out of a story book with old buildings, cute stone homes, old moat gates, and so much chocolate.

Places we ate and drank:

Ribs n' beer: This small town had FOUR rib places which was kind of funny to me. We settled at this cute restaurant where it is amazing we got a table without a reservation (you should make reservations regardless of the day or hour in this little town). The ribs perfectly fell of the bone and the gin and tonic went along nicely.

Het Hof Van Rembrandt: Not ready to settle down for the night, we walked the town in dark to find a place to sit and enjoy an Irish coffee and amaretto hot coco.

Omio Latino: Our main day in Brugge had a lot of walking and exploring, we happened upon an adorable terrace with heat lamps and blankets where we shared a cheese pizza and again some Belgian beer.

Place de Brugge: Late night waffle dessert was a must. This sit down restaurant had a decadent speculoos waffle and of course a hot coco with whisky to go with.

Our Adventures:

I highly recommend doing a chocolate workshop when you visit. We spent two hours of our day learning how to temper chocolate and made two types of treats with our chocolate. It was delicious and fun! Then so cool to walk around the town seeing the traditional chocolates and being able to say "hey I just made that!" The chocolates made it back to Paris...then I ate them all in two or three days.

We realized we were only an hour away from the North Sea and wanted to live our Frozen dreams so the next day we hopped on a train to Blankenberg. It was very rainy and cold, but we did it.

AMSTERDAM:

Our Airbnb host is a lovely guy. He is charismatic and loves his city and hosting, but we basically slept in a closet and one night literally had Thai food on our beds while he partied with some friends in the living room for his birthday. So that was just an interesting environment to exist in.

Places we ate:

PANCAKES Amsterdam: I suggest splitting a sweat and a savory crepe and enjoying whatever seasonal drink they have - the pumpkin spice drink I had was delicious.

Yum Yum: After a long day we craved some warm food and a movie night. I had yummy Pad Thai and we watched a classic Halloween movie with some canned cocktails from the night shop (seriously why doesn't America have an entire aisle of canned 2-5euro cocktails?!)

Tapi 'n bowls: This cute little Brazilian eatery introduced me to the deliciousness that is a tapioca flatbread. *Also the chai latte was good

Our Adventures:

When traveling in the fall in the northern part of Europe you are meant to expect chilly weather and rain, but the way we experienced Amsterdam felt dreary and dark. A ray of sunshine was definitely pancakes at PANCAKES Amsterdam that warmed us up and make our tummies happy. Visiting the Anne Frank house was a unique experience. I did not realize how big the annex was. As a kid I always pictured them squished into a teeny hidden room, but it was a full blown hidden apartment. Probably made it even harder to be quiet. I appreciated that the museum highlighted that Anne wasn’t the only one to die, not only in her family but in the war and occupation in general. There are so many other “Annes". So many other families who stories don't get museums. The canal boat tour we took was a great escape from the cold and a good way to see the city. We learned little facts like how people are charged based on the width of the buildings so that is why everything look so squished. ALSO so many just look like they are falling out of place, and they are.

Excited to get on a plane and journey even farther north, our next stop was Denmark.

COPENHAGEN:

The moment we stepped into the city everything felt better. We loved it. Copenhagen was our Halloween destination and we spent the evening at Tivoli gardens. You know in the third Halloween town movie “Return to Hallowentown” how they have a Halloween carnival at the Highschool and make a haunted house? That carnival is the exact vibe of Tivoli. It was decorated for fall and Halloween. It was the perfect balance of cozy and spooky. We had Glogg (mulled wine) and boozy hot coco and delicious churros doused in ice cream and chocolate.

The morning brought a great walk through town. We started with coffee and pastries from Lagkagehuset and walked through a beautiful fall park. The autumn colors were in full bloom? full fall? whatever the proper term, they were gorgeous. We made our way to the Hans Christian Anderson "Little Mermaid" statue, posed like a mermaid, and then continued down into town. You can hit all the monuments and palaces in a day walking through the area. We decided that afternoon “hey why not catch the train 30min to Sweden?” So that’s what we did. There is a giant bridge from Copenhagen to Malmö, so we ventured to our fourth country. Dinner in Malmö was the best food we’d had (and by far the most expensive).

Places we ate:

Tivoli: mulled wine with raisins and almonds, baileys with hot coco, and churros covered in chocolate (not chocolate syrup but straight up melted chocolates) and ice cream.

Lagkagehuset: I had some sort of filled croissant here and I honestly have no idea what it was. I also ordered a chai latte and the barista asked what flavor and I stood there very confused because at home chai is the flavor of the latte, so I said vanilla and let me tell you, what I as given did not taste like any vanilla chai latte I had ever had before - I do not recommend that order! But the pastry was yummy.

A stand: I have no idea what it was called but there was a hotdog stand by the famous church with the "sand castle tower" where Madi and I had traditional Denmark street dogs. One was goat meat and rosemary with "traditional toppings" served like an American hotdog and the second was a regular dog but with mashed potatoes, beats, and toppings all served on a little plate.

Zalt: Time for afternoon drinks we ordered an elderberry sour and dark and stormy!

Mello Yellow: Situated on the corner of the food square in Malmo this cozy place with a beautiful outdoor seating area complete with heat lamps and blankets caught our eye. We enjoyed our Char: Baked and filled with lemon & dill butter. Served with mashed potatoes, buttered beets, baby spinach and grilled lemon and Corn chicken: Served with sage butter-fried gnocchi, herbal aioli, colorful carrots and grilled lemon. Alongside some signature drinks, the Blackberry cobbler and Snow ball sugar fluff (very sweet with a little sour, tasted like drinking candy with some cotton candy on the side of the glass).

Our trip ended with a very early wake up call and a trip to the airport. We said goodbye before Madi headed through American customs and I headed to my train and metro to make it home.

Things I learned:

- This was my first big girl trip. I hadn’t realized it before. But how cool to travel with out a school group, church group, or my family. - If you have a budget make sure you understand how strict it is. I knew I ”couldn’t spend a lot” but I didn’t tell myself an exact number of what that meant. Also set realistic expectations. When looking back at my expenses and understanding it all in hindsight, I actually did pretty well for a 9 day trip with 5 countries, I just didn't set myself up for that budget or outlook before the trip. - When traveling with a friend just pay together and keep track of it and split it all at the end. It should even split well if you go back and forth, then one person will just owe the difference. - Take so many pictures but also enjoy the moment.

~Be You