When in Rome...
We had booked our round-trip flight into/out of Rome, so it was time to head back to The Eternal City. A great city to visit, and next time we will stay longer. You could easily spend one or two weeks here, exploring all the different neighborhoods and ancient sites. For us, we planned to use these...
It’s All Greek to Me
From Dubrovnik we headed to Athens, meeting our son Charlie and his girlfriend Audrey, to spend a few weeks exploring the Greek islands. But first a couple of nights in Athens to take in some of the sights. We took the “Hop-on Hop-off” bus around town, Which gave us a chance to see a lot, in a short...
Island Time in Croatia
We arrived in the city of Split after a long day coming from Zagreb. The next few weeks of this journey would take us through Split, Korcula and Dubrovnik, but first, while we were in Split, we would take a day trip along with our friends Connie and Paul, and the Ninomiya family who happened to be t...
Waterfalls
This will be a short post (I promise), but there are several pictures (and a couple of videos), so I thought I would do this one separately. We took a private transfer by van from Zagreb to Split, with a couple stops along the way. Our guide Marco was great, and was full of information about every p...
Zagreb & Slovenia
We arrived in the Capital of Croatia - Zagreb, to beautiful weather - about 90 F - which was quite welcomed to help dry out our soggy Irish clothes! About a 30 degree difference from Dublin, so took a little getting used to, but it was awesome. The city of Zagreb is like many European cities of fair...
From Cliffs to Ships
We took the bus from Galway to the small village of Doolin, spend our first couple of nights in a nice B&B called Sheedy’s Doolin. The town is really broken into a couple of districts, just a few blocks apart. And by districts, I mean one has two pubs and the other has one. Other than that there are...
The Wild Atlantic Way
From Kinsale we took a car and driver to our B&B just outside the town of Killarney. A beautiful location, just inside the Killarney National Park, and an easy walk across the street into the park. We were greeted by a few of the locals (a fox in the yard, and deer in the field), and by our hosts at...
Irish Eye’s are Smiling
Now if you think it seems a wee bit like most of the pictures and videos have much to do with beer and whiskey in this post - you’d be absolutely right! Welcome to Ireland! Being from the Pacific Northwest, and having been in Italy, Spain, Morocco and Portugal prior to this stop - this felt like com...
Bull “Stuff” in Spain
OK - so I was really looking forward to this - Pamplona - “The Running of the Bulls”! But after being there I will say it was interesting to see, but maybe it has been “over-hyped” through videos, and TV clips. Anyway, we had to get to Pamplona first... We went from Porto to León Spain by car - a be...
Porto & the Douro Valley
Once we arrived in Porto, we took a bit of a break and got settled into our hotel - a Sheraton, using points (so we say “free”), and with a Club Lounge where we could eat breakfast in the mornings and appetizers and WINE in the evenings (saved hundreds!!). The next morning we took a long walk to fin...
Evora & Coimbra
After Lisbon, we decided to spend a couple of nights in Evora on our way to Porto. And it was a great choice! We drove from Lisbon south first, past the “Christ the King” on the other side of the river - beautiful statue (monument?), inspired of course by “Christ the Redeemer” in Rio. From here we c...
Beautiful Lisbon
After an easy 90 minute flight from Marrakech, we arrived in Lisbon. The airport was very close to the city - about a 6 Euro taxi ride to our hotel. And our hotel (Sheraton Lisbon) was an easy walk to wherever we wanted to go, or an even easier taxi ride. We walked toward the main part of the old ci...
Final Few Days in Morocco
From Fez, we drive to Rabat but with a few stops along the way. After passing another huge reservoir and seeing some beautiful countryside we make a brief visit to the ancient city of Volubilis. The ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis date back to the mid 2nd century. A very far outlying Roman city, it...
Hitting the Road to Fez
We left Merzouga headed for Fez - about a 7 hour drive. This would be one of the most interesting trips for us - seeing a little bit of everything along the way. From the desert we went into the Mid-Atlas mountains passing through the incredible Ziz valley. Millions upon millions of palm trees along...
The Sahara (kind of)
I only say “kind of” because this is really considered part of the “Pre-Sahara”. The actual Sahara lies quite a ways further south, but this will do for us (and for many tourists). And as for our camels - ours are “Dromedary” or one-hump camels. The “two-humpers” are called “Bactrian” camels. The Er...
Headed to the Desert
We left Marrakech on Tuesday morning with our driver Rachid, and would pass over the High Atlas Mountains on our way to the Dades Valley and the valley of Roses. The scenery on this drive was incredible - I never imagined how diverse Morocco would be. Anywhere there is water (and there is way more t...
Charmed in Marrakech
Looks like we’ll need to do several posts from Morocco, as just in the first few days we have collected so many photo’s and experiences. This place is amazing! We are in Marrakech now, but headed out tomorrow for the next week around the country to various places, and then back here for a couple mor...
Some R&R in Southern Spain
We took the train from Madrid to Malaga, Spain - about 2 and a half hours - and the another hour by car from Malaga to our hotel near Estepona. The Marriott Playa Andaluza was a treat for us, and would be our longest stay (10 nights) of this trip, so we planned to take advantage of the opportunity t...
Three Nights in Madrid
After spending a few days in Barcelona we headed to Madrid, taking the train. Our hotel in Madrid was only a block or two from the station, so we were able to just walk to it with no problem. After checking in, we decided to go for a walk and try to find a certain market. Using Google maps is great,...
Three Nights in Barcelona
We arrived in Barcelona after a nice flight from Milan, with beautiful views of the coastline, all the way from Marseille France to Barcelona. The cruise season is just getting under way and several were lined up at the pier. Late afternoon by the time we got settled, but we wanted to get some walki...
Quick Stop in Milan
Since we were flying from Milan to Barcelona, we decided to stay a couple nights to do at least a little exploring. And as the weather did not cooperate, we were glad it was just a short visit. We stayed very close to the center of the old city - within about a 15 minute walk to the Duomo and severa...
Hiking around Lezzeno
We decided to do a little walking/hiking around Lezzeno, so using our All Trails app, we found the Strada Regia trail. This is the ancient road connecting Como to Bellagio, and on the western shores of the lake all the way into Switzerland and was used by the Romans for trade, and by it’s armies. To...
Beautiful Lake Como
We arrived in Lezzeno, Italy after a 2 1/2 hour train from Florence, changing in Milan to a local train to the city of Como on the southern end of the lake, and then about 40 minutes on the windy road up to Lezzeno. This town is on the peninsula that goes between the two legs of the lake, and is jus...
A Sandwich break in Florence
OK - so we added a brief couple of days in Florence on our way to Lake Como. Not really necessary, but I had to have a sandwich! All’antico Vinaio has consistently been rated as the #1 place for sandwiches “in the World”, and we stopped in a few years ago to see what all the hype was about. And yes,...
Pici Night at Cretaiole
Final post from Pienza, but had to do this one all on it’s own. “Pici Night” is always Thursday night at the farm. Isabella gives a class on how to make the local pasta. It is great fun, and everyone enjoys listening to and watching Isa show how it’s done. I will just put a few pictures in this post...
Hiking Around Pienza
We stayed a week at Cretaiole, and since we had been here a few times before we really had no need to visit all the hill towns this time (plus, since we are on the road for so long, no need to buy cases of wine to ship home). So our plan was to take several hikes from the farm to just enjoy the coun...
On to Tuscany
After leaving our home in Ravello, we took another harrowing ride to Salerno - only about a 40 minute drive, but very narrow and windy roads (many times just one lane it seemed). But again, let the professionals handle the driving on the Amalfi Coast! Safely to Salerno, we picked up our rental car,...
Home Base in Ravello
After an “eyes shut” drive from Sorrento to our new location on the Amalfi Coast, we finally arrived and could take a deep breath. OK - it wasn’t that bad, but for sure - use the professional transfers that the hotel can arrange. Our driver was excellent, and very nice as well. You have to understan...
Adventures on the Amalfi coast
From Sorrento we took about an all day boat trip to visit Amalfi and Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Beautiful way to see things - from the water and just strolling through a couple of the main towns in the region. The most harrowing part of the journey is simply getting to and from the marina. The st...
Sorrento, Italy
LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN !! We arrived in Sorrento after a 3 hour drive from the Rome airport, so a bit tired but much to see here. Famous for it’s Lemons and of course Limoncello, it is a very happy place. We happened to be here during a National Holiday and resulting 3-4 day weekend, so many Italia...