The sisters’ France adventure continues. Part one, we discovered Paris, Versailles, and Beaune. Our tour continued throughout southern France.
Croissants were consumed daily on this trip.
Bonjour! Unfortunately, my French didn’t really improve as the trip went on. Fortunately, I have pretty good charade skills, I didn’t really run into any problems. Day Four:
Leaving Beaune, we stopped at Pont Du Gard, the largest remaining Roman aqueduct in France.
We only made a brief stop here. I would have spent all afternoon at Pont Du Gard if I could. There was kayaking and so many hiking trails to explore. We sat on the edge of the rocks soaking in the view while we ate lunch.
That afternoon we continued our journey on the bus traveling south. There was quite a bit of travel time that day, but the Harrington sisters are always prepared with books, sudoku puzzles, and travel boggle. The journey continued to Avignon, a town on the Rhode River that in the 14th century became the residence of the popes.
We explored the colorful shops that sell traditional products made in Provence, like cloth, honey, herbs, nougat candy, and lavender. The strong lavender aroma was trickling through the streets of Provence. I made a little pit stop for tiramisu gelato along the way.
That evening, we ended up at Aix-en-Provence. We were pretty tired from traveling majority of the day and hit the hay to be energized and ready to go for the next evening. Day Five:
Exploring Aix-en-Provence was one of my favorite days. We took a walking tour with our guide wandering through the small maze of streets. Our group stopped at a small cafe to enjoy cafe au lait with calissons (a traditional French confectionery). The little cookie tasted like marzipan with a coating of vanilla sugar on top.
There was an amazing market in the middle of it all. The herbs were amazing and you were able to create your own spice blend.
The biggest shallots I’ve ever seen.
That afternoon, we ventured to Arles.
Dana took the stage! It was amazing to see how everything was crafted from stone. Day Six:
That morning started with a visit to the hilltop town of St. Paul de Vance. There were quaint little art galleries and shops embedded right into the stones.
The afternoon was spent traveling through Nice, the “Queen of the Riviera”. I wish we could have stopped in Nice to explore for awhile. I was able to capture the crystal clear bright blue waters at one of our pit stops.
We got to our final destination, to the tiny country of Monaco. That evening we traveled to the top of the hill to see the palace and royal church of the Monaco town. Day Seven:
It was our last day and we wanted to soak up every last bit of our trip. That morning we took a leisurely stroll through the rose gardens. I honestly had no idea there were so many varieties of roses.
We dipped our toes in the Mediterranean. The water was so cold!
That evening we arrived at Eze where we visited the famous Fragonard perfume factory and created our own perfume! I had no idea the extensive training perfume creators go through. There are people called “noses” that have such a distinct sense of smell that only work 2 hours a day to create the perfect blend.
That evening we enjoyed a dinner with our tour group to say our goodbyes.
I had such an amazing time exploring France with my sisters. It was an experience I will never forget. I highly recommend Globus Tours if you are ever looking to have a scheduled travel excursion.
Part one of my Parisian adventure. The trip started in Paris, then traveled to Beaune. Stay tuned for the remaining posts recapping the rest of our travels throughout France.
Our trip started out buying a selfie stick at Newark Airport. Later to find out, none of us are skilled at using the selfie stick.
My two sisters and I set out on an eight-day adventure in France with Globus Tours. Globus takes care of your flight, all your travel arrangements, hotel accommodations, and a group tour guide throughout the trip. For those who do not travel abroad often (like myself), I found being on the tour made the trip so much more enjoyable. Everything was planned out. Plus, being on a tour, we never had to wait in lines and learned so many interesting things about each location from our tour guide. Day One: We all tried sleeping on our red eye flight to Paris because when we landed we wanted to take advantage exploring the city of Paris before we had to meet up with our tour group. First stop, Eiffel Tower!
Then to the Arc de Triomphe.
We were starving, so we made a pit stop to a cafe. There are so many cute cafes around every corner of Paris. Of course, the first thing we had to try was a crepe, but also wanted something a little more substantial after a long day of traveling. Throughout our trip, we had to try more crepes, you know .. to compare. My favorite was the nutella strawberry filled crepe. Our crepe tasting throughout our trip inspired me to make my own version. Check out my Crepes with Strawberry Lemon Ricotta Filling.
In the evening, we met everyone from our tour group and enjoyed a welcome dinner together. I got escargot as my appetizer. When in Rome Paris!
It was a quite lively dinner with live music serenading our table. After dinner, the group headed back to the Eiffel Tower, where we took the elevator to the second floor.
It stays a lot lighter in the evening because France still runs on Germany’s time zone from WWII. When it finally got dark around 10 pm, we sat in the grass and gazed at the Eiffel Tower all lit up. It was amazing! Each night the lights twinkle for a few minutes and everyone cheers! Day Two:
Day two started sightseeing with our tour guide visiting the Arc de Triomphe, Opera, Madeline, Louvre, Champs-Elysees, and Norte Dame Cathedral.
It was really interesting learning about all the artwork in the Louvre from our tour guide. I tried to get a picture of Mona Lisa, but the crowd was too much for me when another tourist pushed my head to try and cut in front of me. Yeah, that happened. Later headed up the hill to Montmartre to admire the art of the local artists.
Afterwards we headed up the hill to Montmartre to admire the art of the local artists.
My sister, Dana, ran into her colleague and her students (she is a high school teacher) when we were there. Her colleague was taking students on a tour in Paris. Such a small world!
The evening included ice cream and a cruise on the Seine River. Day Three:
The morning was spent at the Palace and Gardens of Versailles. First, touring the beautiful gardens.
The details of all the intricate paintings on the ceilings were amazing, all lined with gold.
I was told the best place to get macarons was Laduree, located in Versailles. They were perfect!
In the afternoon, we traveled to Burgundy and arrived in Beaune, the capital of the region, where we did a wine tasting at Marche aux Vins wine cellar.
Stay tuned to see the rest of our adventure to Pont du Gard, Avignon, Aix en Provence, Paul De Vence, and Monaco.
I had the most amazing opportunity to be part of the Chelan Fresh Cherry Tour this year. This post was sponsored by Chelan Fresh. My travel, accommodations and meals were all covered. I was not compensated by writing this post.
Sunday I went from NJ -> WA. I’ve never been to the west coast before and it’s safe to say, my first time here was a wonderful experience. I was invited to attend the Chelan Fresh Cherry Tour in Chelan, Washington.
Sunday was a long day of traveling. Of course, I had to pack some healthy travel snacks. It’s crazy the power of a simple hashtag (#tourchelancherries) is. I had tweeted the day before about my travel plans and excitement about this trip. As I was waiting at the Seattle airport during my layover, Lori, aka The Produce Mom messaged me to meet up before the next flight. That’s when more and more attendees came together as we all were waiting together for our flight to Wenatchee. Myself – Supermarket RD & Blogger Amber Bloom – Public Relations & Social Media representative at Produce for Kids (twitter & instagram) Amber Denmon – ShopRite Retail Registered Dietitian McKenzie Hall – Registered Dietitian and co-founder of Nourish RDs, a nutrition communications and consulting company Lindsey Kane – Healthy Eating Specialist and Registered Dietitian for Whole Foods Market, Philadelphia Metro Area Lori Taylor – The Produce Mom, advocate for the fresh produce industry Allison Kuhn – Kroger’s Corporate Dietitian Sylvia Melendez Klinger – Registered Dietitian and founder of Hispanic Food Communications A limo picked us up and we were whisked away to the beautiful Campbell’s Resort for the fun to begin. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together getting to know each other. It’s really great to learn more about others in the same industry. With the time difference and all travel that day, I hit the hay early that night. We had a lot on the agenda for the next day!
The next morning I woke up refreshed and sipped coffee while enjoying the gorgeous view from my balcony. I headed down to the Campbell’s Resort Bistro to meet the group. I was eyeing the the portobello Benedict with roasted red peppers, cherry tomato, spinach, mushrooms, poached eggs in a portobello mushroom cap with hollandaise sauce. I definitely have to recreate this again. After breakfast, we headed to Chelan Fruit Test Orchard Tour and had the pleasure of Harold Schell, Horticulturalist speak to us. He explained to us that it takes 3 years for an apple tree to produce apples. It’s amazing how advanced technology is and the irrigation system they had equipped in their orchards. The apple trees are watered once a week due to the dry climate using a drip irrigation which feed fertilizer and nutrients to the trees automatically. There is going to be a new apple of the market in the next couple of years – the Sugar Bee Apple. They are still in the process of testing and there is not currently enough to sell nationwide at this time. It’s a non-gmo “open cross” meaning the known mother seed comes from a honey crisp apple, but it is unknown of what the father seed is from bee cross pollinization. It’s rumored that it’s better than a honeycrisp, which I don’t even know how that is even possible! I did not get the chance to try one, but I am excited for a new apple to come into town.
.. And I made a new fur-friend named Annie! Next stop was at Gebber’s Farms Warehouse for a tour. At Gebber’s Farms Warehouse all cherries and picked, processed, and packaged all within the same day. They go through a vigorous process in order to be determined if they are to perfection to be packaged. So when any customer ever complains how expensive cherries are, it’s because of the detail and precision that goes into the process to ensure you are getting the best cherries. Peak cherry season is June – August.
Did you know? – After it rains a helicopter hovers over the cherry trees enough for the excess moisture will fall off the cherries, which help prevent the cherries flesh from splitting.
Cherries are sorted into different bags based on their size. There is a cherry sizer chart to determine what batch they belong to. This is done manually and mechanically. At one point during processing, each cherry has it’s photo taken at all angles and a computer software system can instantly detect any deformities and then it is determined if it will be kept or discarded for repurposing. Our group called it the #cherryselfie! Any cherries with abnormalities, not able to be packaged are used for cherry juice or dried cherries. No cherries go to waste! The warehouse tour was really fascinating! After the tour we headed over to the Stenne’s Family Homestead for lunch. Their family opened up their home to us for us to learn more about their family owned business in agriculture. Their family has passed on the family business from generation to generation and has significantly grown with their hard work and dedication. With only starting out with 25 acres of land to now 600 acres of land growing pears, apples, and cherries, I would say that is quite a success. It was so refreshing to hear them talk about how passionate they are about their family and business dynamic and how it works for them. They have now also ventured into organic farming. …. And their family can make an amazing berry crisp! After lunch, we stopped at a sushi restaurant, where they showed us how to make fruit sushi! Typical nori (seaweed) doesn’t really work with fruit sushi and their sweet and savory flavors tend to clash. Instead they used soy paper, with a very neutral taste to wrap the fruit sushi. The soy paper is naturally colored using spices. The turmeric soy paper has a vibrant yellow tone. Also, Rachelle and E.A. Weymuller, from Caramelize Life, were there giving up tips and tricks when presenting food, how to make it visually appealing. This was a great session that I will definitely use when food demoing at work.
E.A. had some really awesome photography tips and tricks. I recently purchased my first DSLR camera and still have now idea half the time what I am doing. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I am starting to get comfortable using it in a manual setting. That evening we dined at Vin du Lac Winery. We took a tour of the property while sipping on their many variety of wines. Everything on the menu that evening was locally sourced. The chef did an amazing job. Each part of the menu was paired with one of their wines. I was pretty full, and remember thinking “i’ll only have a few bites”. I have a weakness for apple crumble and enjoyed every. last. bite. #sorrynotsorry. The apples were so sweet and tender.
We had a discussion during the orchard tour that golden delicious apple crops are becoming less and less because they are not as popular anymore. I’ve never really used golden delicious apples in baking before, but everyone raved how amazing they were baked and didn’t get mealy like other high moisture apples tend to do. After a jam packed day, this was the perfect way to end the day. Then next morning, we went to Blueberry Hills for breakfast and blueberry picking. Kari Sorenson, spoke to us about their sustainability. They are open all year round and utilize every part of their crops.
Kari repurposes all the leaves from the trees or excess blueberries after season. She created a blueberry powder. Her blueberry powder is different than others on the market. She uses the whole blueberry keeping it’s antioxidant level high with also keeping it’s delicious blueberry taste. Other only use the skin which loses it’s flavor and also valuable nutrients. Kari also uses the blueberry leaves and created various tea varieties. You can visit her online shop here. We went blueberry picking after breakfast. I’ve never gone blueberry picking before and couldn’t believe how sweet and delicious they were right off the tree. A few clusters of the blueberries were huge, about the size of a quarter. I snacked on so many blueberries that morning, I felt like I was going to turn into Violet, like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The best stop was saved for last. We went to the cherry warehouse the day before, but this day we were directly to the cherry orchards where all those cherries were picked from. Did you know ? – You are supposed to pick the cherries from the stem, leaving the spur in tack on the tree. The spur needs to remain in order to let that tree grow cherries again for the next year. Picking cherries is a very delicate process and workers are trained how to pick properly. All these cherries are hand picked and I can’t believe how fast and skilled the Chelan Fresh workers were. Within a matter of minutes a bucket of cherries was filled, loaded into a larger bin and immediately shipped out from the orchard to cool before going to the warehouse to be processed and packaged that day. The workers were done for the day, carrying their ladders and equipment up the hill after a long morning of cherry picking, which meant our day at the cherry orchard was wrapping up too. I had mentioned during the trip how much I LOVE rainier cherries, which are yellow in color with a hint of pinkish red. We pulled over on the side of the road driving out of the orchard and Dan grabbed me a branch from the tree to snack on.
What a wonderful couple of days. Good food, good company, and the complete Chelan Fresh experience!
A big thank you to Mac Riggins, Marketing Director at Chelan Fresh, Kathryn Grady, manages Chelan Fresh Marketing, and Lorinda Oscarson for making this a remarkable experience that I will continue to share what I learned with others.
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