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Trip Report I planned a trip to Brussels and all I got was a Holiday in Paris: My 1st Trip Report

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Alrighty, I have been back for 5 days and am attempting my 1st trip report. Thanks to everyone who answered my posts pre-plan, though as you will see, I am not much of a planner.

Warning: long-winded and includes tons of extraneous info

First up, some preliminary background about us for perspective. The husband and I are in are early-mid 30s, from NYC, travel to Europe @ 3 times a year and do it all, for the most part on FF miles (coach works for us). We like to eat, drink, walk around, bars/cafes, hmmm, that is about it. He goes to museums, I sit in cafe--I know, the horror of it! I hate lines and crowds and the whole stop and go movement at tourist attractions/museums and try to avoid.

He works in web publishing, I am recovering from the fashion industry and do events and fundraising for a non-profit. With my event schedule, my travel time-options are limited to x-mas-new years (December), late May, and July-August. This is our December trip.

Part 1: Planning the Destination

Upon returning from Portugal in June, I immediately started looking for our next destination. I will admit that the Portugal trip was not entirely relaxing -- 3 weeks of me driving (I drive stick, the husband does not), the hills and cobblestones aggravated my mild MS, and somehow both of us picked up some sort of bug that had my GI tract screwed up for months. The goal this time was simplicity. To be fair, the wine was amazing and it was beautiful and I quite liked Porto.

After plugging in random cities to see what the FF miles would get us for free, we settled on Brussels. Neither of had been to Belgium, we had heard good things about Belgium, The food/drink was a selling point as was the not-so-cold temps which had me nix Berlin/Central & Eastern Europe for December.

I booked him with his delta miles and me with one pass on a Continental flight to Brussels leaving on December 25, returning on January 8.

Then I decided--hmmm, that is a long time in Brussels, where else should we go? So, I did what I normally do, I consult my friend wikipedia and search smoking bans. Yes, we smoke. We enjoy smoking indoors. We wanted to go someplace that was liberal with smoking while there are still such places. France! The ban was set for January 1, 2008. Let's go to France again before the ban goes into effect! I nixed Lille, no more full on cobblestones again! Yes, they are charming, no they are not too fun walking in 4" heels on day after day and I just had 3 weeks of it. I chose instead the unlikely, Paris. Three hours driving--that was doable.

You see, I have never been that enamored with Paris. I know, I am the only one. French countryside--love it! Southern France, Rhone region, Burgundy--check, check and check. They are great! I just could never get into Paris. So I decided to give it another go.

We decided to rent an apartment in Paris. We have never done the apt rental before (only upstate house rental)and frankly, will never stay in a hotel again unless necessary. After looking at tons of apts on vrbo.com, the one I liked best was #28993. It had an elevator and a balcony and is in the 3rd. Perfect.

Thanks fishee and some others who stayed there, which I unexpectedly found reviews on here. I'm kinda new around here and with all the apts, didn't even think that I'd find reviews of any of them.

Next up tickets, trains, assorted moments of doh!

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