Friends, I’m really excited about today’s post! I’ve been reminiscing about our big European adventure lately — what a whirlwind trip! We loved our time abroad last summer and there are so many parts of it that I don’t want to forget!
When people think of traveling abroad, or traveling to Europe, they tend to envision the hustle and bustle of crazy big cities. They think of the sheer numbers of people milling about, or the constant noise or excitement that often wraps itself around trips through the London Underground or a Paris airport or museum…
Bjorn, Signe, Steve, and I certainly had our share of intensely busy city experiences in Europe last summer — crowded rides on the Underground, lines in the Charles de Gaulle Airport, exploring The British Museum with hundreds of other tourists, and goodness, we even accidentally experienced a riot under the Eiffel Tower!
But there’s another side to European travel that shouldn’t be overlooked: the nature side of it. The fields, the rural villages, the forests.
With the focus on World War I battlefields and memorial sites on this trip, the latter half of our trip (after time spent in London and in Paris) involved a rental car and a whole lot of road-tripping through the French and Belgian countryside! (And that part of the trip was AMAZING too.)
Have you ever road-tripped abroad? It’s a somewhat stressful but mostly super exciting entity in itself!
RELATED READING: Catch up on ALL our Europe posts here!
Verdun, the site of a major battle in France in WWI, is surrounded by fields and forests and countless small villages that we drove through (with all of their crazy roundabouts and signs). Needless to say, we came across some pretty gorgeous rural scenes.
After Verdun, we did go up through parts of Belgium including Waterloo and Ypres (although I’ll save those photos for another post). But later we reentered France again and spent time in Albert (near The Somme battlefields) and then near Compiegne.
My Favorite Rural + Nature Shots From Verdun, France:
My Favorite Rural + Nature Shots From Albert, France:
^^ I can practically feel the joy and excitement radiating off of Bjorn here!! He was so happy to be finding WWI artifacts in a field in the middle of nowhere, France! A dream come true for him. ^^
^^ A quiet country cemetery ^^
^^ road-tripping in rural France, complete with French pop music! ^^
My Favorite Rural + Nature Shots From Compiegne, France:
RELATED READING: Our entire 2-Week Europe Trip Itinerary
It’s true that much of my Europe memories will involve the sights and sounds of the big cities, but my Europe 2016 memories also include quiet nights driving past sleepy rural villages, standing on top of windswept hills full of wildflowers, and lonely country roads hugging a wheat field. It’s all worth remembering, isn’t it? 🙂
Have you been abroad in a more rural setting before?
Good for you that you didn’t just hit the big cities!
I moved from NYC to a village near Carcassonne, in the south of France. That was over a decade ago, and while I’m still a city girl at heart, I love the way time has stood still, with traditions and above all the great French lifestyle, still respected in the countryside.
My favorite parts of our trip to Europe were our train rides through the country. We spent some time in more rural areas in Slovenia and it was my favorite part of the trip!