Grandmother/Granddaughter Trip

Author: Susan Poirier
Date of Trip: June 2012

When my granddaughter was young, she would always ask me about my travel adventures and listen attentively when I talked. So I promised that when she turned 10 I would take her anywhere she wanted to go.

She turned 10 on 11/2/11 and we started planning. She picked London and Paris and we decided to go in June when school let out for the summer.

When looking for airfare, I discovered that Iceland Air had children’s rates (about 2/3 the price of an adult)and you can make a stopover in Iceland for no extra cost. So we added one night in Iceland so we could take a side trip to the Blue Lagoon where we both enjoyed the geo-thermal pool. Iceland Air is a great airline for children. They serve kids meals for free and before everyone else, and each seat has an entertainment system with lots of kid friendly movies and programs.

We arrived in London and checked into the St. Ermin’s Hotel which was beautiful. We enjoyed excellent service, it’s a great central location and has a fairly good restaurant. For the next 3 days we traipsed around London, viewing the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, we rode The London Eye, spent a day at The Tower of London, visited The London Aquarium, road the double decker busses and saw Matilda, The Musical in the theater district.

After 3 days in London, we checked out of our hotel and took the Eurostar to Paris which was an enjoyable 3 hour train trip. In Paris, we checked into the Lenox Montparnasse. This hotel was quite nice, but the room was small which is expected in Europe. In Paris we visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, took a boat ride on the Seine, and on the final day, we went to Disneyland Paris.

All in all it was an excellent trip and a great starter for a 10 year old girl. She learned that each country has a different currency, she spoke the French she learned, she became adept at looking up each country’s monetary exchange on the I-pad, she took lots of pictures, but most of all, she has acquired a love of travel and a yearning to travel more and learn about our world. My granddaughter and I have always been close, but the ability to spend 9 days with her alone and to show her these things was priceless!