So, what happens if you have only 8 hours?
When my sister and niece came to visit us in London, we got to find out!
One of the things that makes travel truly great is having someone to share it with. Even a solo trip is enriched by the cool people you meet along the way, especially when strangers become new friends. 99% of the time I travel with my husband, my partner in everything. Our first trip together came right after our graduation from college. We spent a month traveling around Europe, with hiking packs, hostels, the whole bit. We visited 7 cities in total, beginning in London and ending in Rome, with Paris, Bordeaux, Nice, Cinque Terre and Venice sandwiched in between. It was a dream and it created in us a constant need for travel that can never be satisfied. We have so many memories from that time that we recount often. Recently, we got to share some of that magic with someone very close to us.
This year my eldest niece turned 13 and as her birthday present, my sister brought her to visit us in London; the first European trip for both of them! At home, each time a niece or nephew celebrated a birthday, we’d take them on a “birthday date” as their present. A birthday date is a whole day of adventures around the city catered to the birthday kid’s interests, like when we took our history-obsessed (then) 12-year old niece to check out the Merchant’s House Museum in the East Village (home of a “wealthy merchant-class family” from 1835 to 1933). In keeping with this tradition, we decided to give our niece a European birthday date to remember. We wanted to share with her a hint of the experiences we’ve been having here and give her a taste of the travel bug. What 13-year old girl wouldn’t love to celebrate her birthday in Paris?!