Our final destination on our European vacation was Barcelona, Spain. It took us 7 hours to drive from Nice, France to Barcelona but we all survived. It was also nice to have a really cool hotel room waiting for us…after we found it. The only down side to our hotel was that it was off a main road and Barcelona vs. Madrid in the Champion League was happening during our stay so we didn’t get much sleep.

Barcelona has some really crazy cool buildings. Antoni Gaudi was the architect for many of the Dr.Suess looking buildings.

La Sagrada Familia ... still 30 years away from being completely finish

Casa Batlló aka. House of Bones

This was how we saw Barcelona. With really only one day there and with kids, this was the best option

After 2 weeks in Europe, this is what the Farley boys looked like!

We had a wonderful time seeing another part of the world and being together with family. And luckily we didn’t kill each other or get into any accidents.

More photos of Barcelona

Last summer we watched a movie where someone from the UK swaps homes with someone from the states. So, Matt looked at different sites on the internet where people swap homes for a vacation. He found that people who have amazing homes in Europe want to swap with people in the states. Well, that started him thinking that we need to go to Europe before Mason turns 2 so we don’t have to pay airfare for him…or at lease not a full fare. And thus began our 2 week vacation/road trip in Europe. We didn’t actually swap homes with people, but chose to stay at hotels, Bed & Breakfast and a friend’s apartment.

Matt took care of all the planning and booking and just EVERYTHING which was so nice. We also had my single brother and Matt’s single sister join us. 4 adults and 2 kids together for 2 weeks…good thing we love each other!

Our schedule for Europe

These cities are in Spain, France, Switzerland & Italy. Roughly about 2,000 miles of driving that Matt had to do since none of us wanted to drive a manual car in Europe where the roads are more narrow and there are roundabouts that are tricky to get the hang of.

Our driving route for 2 weeks

My job was to pack our suitcase. The cars in Europe are smaller and they don’t really understand trunk space. So, we knew that we had to fit everything for 4 people in 1 suitcase. I faced the challenge and passed with flying colors!

Everything for 4 people for 2 weeks

There was lots of driving and lots of walking. We didn’t bring a stroller because we knew there would be space issues in the car. Plus we had 4 adults to carry the not quite 2 year old Mason. I think that I could beat most people in an arm wrestling contest after holding that 30 pound boy most of the trip. By the end of the trip Mason was asking to ride on our “head” and of course Kalani wanted a ride too.

How we walked around the cities

It was a fun vacation and I saw things that I never dreamed that I would be able to see. Now to blog about all the cities/countries that we visited!

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