Day Tripping

As our trip approaches, we are now in super-planning mode.  On the schedule for this week–day trips.  It seems these need to be booked in advance, too.  I had some issues with our London day trip, which is actually turning out for the best…but more on that later.  Because right now all I can think about is our day out of Paris trip that we just booked.

I.  Am.  So.  Excited.

But allow me to preface this with an explanation.  We are cheap.  And we hate bus trips.  I thought these two things could not live happily together until I found out how insanely expensive bus trips are.   In case you were wondering, bus trips are insanely expensive.  I did some comps before I booked about-to-be-named Paris day trip, and here are the numbers…a day trip from Paris to the Loire Valley is $182 per person.  PER PERSON.  To Mont Saint Michel–$204.  The Champagne region–$212.  A rental car for a day in a country where I can’t read the street signs–$194–and then I’d have to drive in said country.  These are all real numbers, people.  And do you know what ended up costing about 50% less than any of those options?  An overnight trip to Amsterdam.

Yep.  The Husband is getting his wish–his number one choice of places to visit whilst in Europe.  For far fewer euros than a trip that would require endless hours on a bus, only occasionally punctuated with wine and/or castles, we’re spending 36 hours in Amsterdam.  A crazy early 3 hour high-speed train ride out of Gare du Nord puts us at Amsterdam’s Centraal Station by 9:30 am, where we will remain until 8pm the following day.  The train tickets and hotel–which, by the way, was crazy cheap, well located, and got excellent reviews–were all booked as of a few hours ago.  The husband was actually dancing at one point, singing a little song in which all the words were ‘Amsterdam’.–not an easy feat with a word that long!