I have received so much positive feedback from my trip report series "From Paris to the Riviera"... That series was by far the most popular/visited blog entry to date. First off I would like to thank everyone for the kind words and encouragements of this infant blog... Since the publication of this trip report series one of the most common follow up question was regarding my culinary experience throughout France (hence this blog entry… Sorry it took so long but in my defense we just had a baby)

French foods are world famous not only for its excellence but also in its diversity. Before we began on our journey through France my wife and I had vastly different intentions (my wife has a more conservative/picky palette whereas I am more adventurous)... All my wife wanted was France's legendary baked goods VS my constant pursuit of the weird-and-wonderfuls. 

So without further ados... I present "From Paris to the Riviera: Food Edition" filled with random thoughts and background stories. 

P.S. I am not affiliated, nor paid by any restaurants/products mentioned in this blog

A collection of black and white photos (some are HDR composites) from the past 6 months. Sometimes I find HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos look over-processed, but when done in black and white these photos become more natural-looking while retaining a large amount of detail.

VanDusen Botanical Garden is a very popular attraction amongst tourists, and in the 10 years I have called Vancouver my home I have never visited VanDusen... until now. (Well I am writing this post 3 months late as you can tell from the CHRISTMAS lights haha)

Starting around 2 weeks before Christmas and continuing for a couple weeks after Christmas, this annual tradition transforms VanDusen Botanical Garden into a dizzying explosion of lights.  In my humble opinion the Christmas lights @ VanDusen Garden is VASTLY superior when compared to the lights at Stanley Park & Capilano Suspension Bridge combined! (plus it is 3-4x less expensive VS Capilano).  We are definitely going to make VanDusen Christmas Lights an annual tradition for my household as well!

A word of advice... it gets extremely busy so parking might be a little bit of a problem.  

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

We kicked off our honeymoon in the romance capital of the world (Paris), spent a few days in the relaxing Provence countryside... the last portion of our honeymoon was by the Mediterranean Sea: Côte d'Azur aka the French Riviera.

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

We kicked off our honeymoon in the romance capital of the world (Paris), spent a few days in the relaxing Provence countryside... the last portion of our honeymoon was by the Mediterranean Sea: Côte d'Azur aka the French Riviera.

Due to the amount of pictures/words this entry is posted in 2 parts

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

We kicked off our honeymoon in the romance capital of the world (Paris), we then traveled to the middle of France and found ourselves immersed in a completely different atmosphere...

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

Paris has long been considered the romance capital of the world... so what better place to kick off our honeymoon?

Due to the amount of pictures/words this entry is posted in 2 parts

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

Paris has long been considered the romance capital of the world... so what better place to kick off our honeymoon?

Due to the amount of pictures/words this entry is posted in 2 parts

Introduction:

Two years after getting married my wife and I finally found time to go on a proper honeymoon! The decision to choose France as our honeymoon destination came naturally as France offered everything we would appreciate in an adventure: Legendary cuisine, excellent variety of photographic opportunities, and of course being the romance capital of the world (I know it’s a cliché, but why not go for the gold?).

On our 16-day adventure we wanted to spend at least a week in Paris since this was our first time visiting France, and spend the rest of our time “sampling” different parts of France at a relatively leisure pace (we wanted to smell the roses too!). Cote d’Azur (French Riviera) emerged as an ideal second destination because it combined relaxation with an excellent public transport system. Upon departure our itinerary looked like this: Paris (7 days) -> Avignon area (2.5 days) -> Nice (5 days) -> return to Paris for our flight home (we did not have a daily itinerary because getting lost had led to many amazing surprises throughout our travels in the past).  Unlike our trip to China, my wife's semi-fluent French turned out to be an extremely important asset.

AND… For the first time ever instead of staying at hotels we rented private apartments for both Paris and Nice… as for Provence… we opted to let fate decide our fortunes.