Narbonne, France and Pepieux, France

I get quite a few questions about how/why we travel with a toddler, I wish I could have just videoed Jamie getting us to Narbonne and use it as the answer! He is amazing. On the front end I do alot of research on location, timing and packing...but nobody can execute like Jamie. We flew into Barcelona and figured the cheapest way to get to southern France was to take the train to Narbonne and then drive to Pepieux. This means that Jamie carried our suitcase, carseat, carryon while I pushed Hadley in the stroller with the portacrib (a super light bjorn one) and he navigated the metro to the train, got us on the train, navigated the train changes and then when we arrived in Narbonne and the car rental "at" the station was 3 blocks away, didn't even break a sweat and hauled everything down the street...and you better believe when they wanted to charge us more than we had agreed that we left with the original price. He then navigated us safely to the house - switching sides of the road again and on little roads with new rules. Everyone seriously needs a Jamie when traveling.

She has gotten to be quite the pro herself.

Jamie's older brother owns a house in Pepieux, France, a tiny town in the south. He shares it with a few other families and this year they were assigned September, since he has kids in school and knew we were close, he generously offered to let us use it. It was perfect, it was so nice to be in a home away from home in a sleepy little town with bakeries down the street, sunshine and a interesting sights. They had been the year before and had suggestions on the best bakeries and sights that would be interesting/kid friendly.

Local Bakery, frequented 2-3 times a day

We needed fresh bread...

...and our daily dose of pastries.

Picture leaving the town, it didn't even have a stoplight! Just a few houses in the heart of wine country. There was a little corner store, a pharmacy and bakery and that was about it!

Picture while driving, beautiful. It reminded me of Napa and the whole area with the hills reminded us of California.

The next day we woke up late (well I did, Jamie got up with Hadley) ate pastries and headed to the beach back near Narbonne. It was off season so pretty quiet but still warm and the water was cool but not too bad. Hadley was in heaven!!

She LOVES the water and kept begging one of us to take her out into the ocean, she would stay in until she had blue lips and started shivering and we made her warm up.