The End is Just the Beginning

Some Final Thoughts 

 

It's really hard for us to believe that a six month trip visiting incredible places around the world is already behind us.  We are feeling all sorts of emotions but bittersweet is really the only word we can use to define it at the moment.  While we have enjoyed visiting family and catching up with friends, we are really missing the intense time together in our own little bubble.  We are definitely going through a little withdrawal and easing back into a "normal" routine has proved a little more challenging than expected.

We have been back for about three weeks and in between trips to Ocean City, Bucks County, North Carolina, and Phoenix we have managed to move into a new apartment in NYC, Wes has received a few job offers, and Christine will be back in rehearsal in just a few short weeks.

Many people have already asked what our favorite destination was and that is an impossible question to answer.  We enjoyed every place for different reasons and the experiences each location gave us.  A few top choices in each region are...

Waya Island, Yasawa Islands, Fiji
Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand
Fox Glacier, South Island, New Zealand
Hong Island, Krabi, Thailand
Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey
Santorini, Greece
Granada, Andalusia, Spain
Paris, France
Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
Sukosan & Lake Plitvice, Croatia
Greve in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy
Conca dei Marini, Amalfi Coast, Italy

We've been thinking about what we would discuss in the last post for some time and instead of recapping all of our amazing experiences, we decided to give a quick rundown and some stats that sound pretty crazy.

Days- 185
Hours- 4,400

Cities-51
Flights-24
Trains-9
Buses-18
Ferries-13
Rental cars-3
Quad ATV's-1
Bikes-2

Total miles traveled-49,481
Pictures taken-11,231 (no, we will not subject anyone to a comprehensive slide show)

A few things we've learned from our travels...

Socks with sandals is common worldwide.

Deodorant is optional everywhere, more so in India and France.

Someone will always want to be in line in front of you.

Ice in drinks is a rarity.

Personal space is not a concern in a lot of other cultures.

The more you want to visit an attraction, ruin, church, etc., the more scaffolding it will have on it.

This was truly the trip of a lifetime and an experience we will never forget.  We hope to continue our travels throughout the years and we invite any of you to join us along the way!  Thanks for following along on our journey!

Love,
Wes and Christine

"You'll regret the things you didn't do far more than the things you did."

Italy - Take Two

Amalfi Coast

We had a long travel day to get there but we finally made it to yet another paradise.  The Amalfi Coast was absolutely stunning and the apartment we rented for the week was the perfect ending to an amazing trip.  We stayed in Conca Dei Marini, a small mountainside town between Amalfi and Positano.  We wanted something a bit more remote and not on the tourist trail, which is EXACTLY what we found. "Sunflower House" as it was called, had a beautiful kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, the always exciting washing machine, oh, and a balcony twice the size of the apartment!  Can you guess where we spent most of the week?  We enjoyed day trips to Ravello, Amalfi, and Positano but spent most of the time at our apartment enjoying the last few days, reminiscing, and just soaking in the view 1000 feet above the ocean.

Beautiful patio with stunning view!

Italian kitchen

No wonder the lemoncello here is SO GOOD!

A wonderful rainy afternoon.

Positano

We also celebrated Wes's 35th birthday here!  Tripadvisor had recommended a local restaurant down on the water in Conca dei Marini, so we gave it a try for Wes's birthday.  Being that Conca is built on a mountainside, and a STEEP one at that, we spent the good part of an hour walking down stairs to reach the restaurant.  We thought we had a couple of options for a quicker return by bus, but by the time we finished, the last bus was long gone. So up we went, climbing the equivalent of the Empire State Building, after a fairly large meal!  We were really no worse for the wear and needed the exercise but definitely didn't run back the next night!

We spent a few hours soaking in some sun and swimming in the beautiful Mediterranean at Amalfi and Positano's beaches.  Since we had the great kitchen and patio, our best meals were of our own making from local tomatoes, cucumber, basil, mozzarella, brie, prosciutto, salami, peaches, cherries, grapes, and pasta of course.  We did find a great local restaurant with wonderful pizzas and some of the best squid we've had.

Rocky beach

Amalfi beach

Positano beach

YUMMY!

While we were on the beach in Positano, we were admiring the large yachts in the bay, some of which are the world's largest!  One yacht, the Rising Sun, was by far the largest and we kept wondering who's it was or who may be on board.  As we were boarding a ferry back to Amalfi, the tender for the yacht pulled up to the pier and picked up who else but Oprah Winfrey and Gail King, along with a couple of friends.  That is some serious traveling in style.

We spent our last full day before Rome having a wonderful breakfast and lunch on the patio, packing a little, doing one final load of laundry, playing cards, sipping limoncello, and shedding a tear or two while talking about experiences good, bad, and scary, and our imminent return to the "real world."  After a great dinner at our favorite local restaurant Le Bonta' del Capo, which wasn't TOO far down the mountain, we packed up and prepped to get on road (and water and rails) for Rome.

Rome

Our travel from Conca dei Marini to Rome is a perfect example of a typical travel day for us over the last six months.  After breakfast and checking out of the apartment, we boarded a local bus to Amalfi, to catch a ferry to Salerno, to catch a train to Rome, to walk to our B&B.  The Nicolas Inn was the perfect end to our trip.  Cute, clean, and perfectly located in the heart of Rome.

Rome was....HOT!  We spent most of our time trying to find shade but we did enjoy a trip to the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica.  We also wandered around the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.  We enjoyed our last tastes of gelato, pasta, and pizza...diets here we come!

Roman Forum

More Roman Forum

View of Colosseum from near our hotel

Summer festival along the River Tiber

Saint Peter's Basilica

Saint Peter's Square

Piazza Venezia

The Pantheon

After our coin toss into the Trevi Fountain!

From Rome we caught a flight...home.  One final post wrapping it all up to come shortly!

Hrvatska (Croatia)!

Zdravo!

Our overnight ferry docked in the port of Zadar, Croatia at 7:00am and we disembarked feeling a bit groggy but much better than previous overnight travels.  We had learned from earlier experiences and booked a private cabin this time, which was worth every penny!  We arrived to a beautiful, cool morning and hopped into a taxi to Sukosan, a small beach town 10km South of Zadar.

Sunset on the harbor in Sukosan

Sukosan

We never would have found Sukosan if it weren't for us meeting up with Alison and Almir, our good friends from home and the reason we had left Italy for Croatia in the first place.  They had set up the lodging for us as the property is run by Almir’s family from the area.  The Lacic family owns a summer home with small efficiency apartments for vacationers and they were kind enough to give us a room at a great price.  Mirko and Beba were so incredibly warm and hospitable and even though we were not able to communicate with them very well, they were some of the sweetest people we've met.  We were by ourselves with them for the first day and the only communication exchanged was the common enjoyment of food and drinks.  Our 8:00am arrival into their home included cured hams and sausages, local cheeses, fruits from their yard, strong coffee, stronger schnapps, and homemade Maraschino cordials!  Now that’s a welcome!  After all that, we intended to turn in for a nap but ended up on a beautiful walk around the town.  Alison and Almir arrived the next afternoon and being that Almir speaks Croatian and Bosnian, things got a lot easier for sure!  We had a great time and it was so nice to spend some time with another couple in such a wonderful setting, a rarity for us.  And in even bigger news, Ali and Al got engaged while we were there!  We are so happy for them and know they have a great future ahead of them.  Congrats you two!

Alison & Almir, the happy couple!

One highlight of our time in Croatia was a visit to Plitvice Lakes National Park, about a two hour drive up into the mountains.  There lakes are comprised of travertine terraces at different elevations, with hundreds of waterfalls big and small connecting each of them.  The park’s beautiful scenery is accessed by trails and elevated wooden paths around the lakes and over the crystal clear streams and waterfalls.  Plitvice was yet another incredible corner of the world that we are so happy to have experienced!

View of one of the walkways over the water from the canyon rim

We're getting rained on harder by the second but trying to get a good pic!

No, this is not photo shopped.  The streams are running through the trees, and the water is THAT blue!

Waterfalls coming out of the side of the lake above.

We climbed into a cavern in the side of the canyon wall for a good view!

Almir caught a good snapshot of how we walk around the world together.

We joined Ali, Al, and more of Al’s family in Zadar one evening for dinner and to watch a stunning sunset over the Adriatic sea.  The spot we chose to watch was quite popular because of the terrace with a “sea organ” built into it.  The sea organ is a series of chambers of different lengths, like a pipe organ, but played by sea water pushing and pulling air in and out of holes in the side of the terrace sea wall.  The sounds it creates are ethereal and a little spooky at the same time, but very, very cool any way you hear it.  Unfortunately, as it only appears as holes in the sidewalk from above, its not very photogenic!

Sunset from the Sea Organ Terrace in Zadar, while the ocean played its own concert.

We enjoyed breakfast every morning in Sukosan on the balcony of Al's aunt's room as she had the best view of the ocean.  We had breads and other goodies from the local Pekara (bakery), cheese, meats, Nutella, homemade Palacinke (small crepes made from scratch), and coffee.  It was the perfect setting with great company!  One night we had dinner at a local restaurant run by friends of the family and had the best black cuttlefish ink risotto we have ever had.  Don't knock it until you try it, its amazing!  After paying the bill, the host of the restaurant offered us all a small taste of local pear brandy and we ended up having a great chat with the restaurant’s Australian bartender, after he noticed us speaking English.  It has been really interesting along the way, hearing people’s stories from all over the world, and how they end up living where they do.

Not a bad breakfast view for the week

We enjoyed time at the local beach, and late afternoons at the beach bar and restaurant over a glass of wine or a coffee while sharing stories with our friends.  The beach is much more rocky than we were used to but the color of the water and the clarity was just incredible.  Once you got out deep enough where you could float a little and weren’t being poked in the feet by rocks, it was perfect!

Spending the morning on Ugljan waiting for Al's uncle to grill the fish caught just yards from us!

One morning we took a quick ferry out to the island of Ugljan.  We spent the afternoon with some of Al's relatives, enjoyed swimming in beautiful water and a delicious fresh fish lunch that they caught themselves and grilled for us, then enjoyed another sunset on the ferry back to Zadar.  We had yet another great meal from our hosts back in Sukosan one evening called peka.  It consisted of a huge pot filled with different cuts of lamb and pork, potatoes, and carrots, cooked for hours over coals in the outdoor oven.  I'm not sure what we enjoyed more....the smell of it cooking on the fire or actually eating it.  Both were pretty incredible.  There is a great article on Honest Cooking describing its ingredients and history here.  Give it a quick read.

Almir's cousins cleaning fish for lunch

"Peka" almost ready to open up and eat!

The peka opened up, fresh tomatoes, and a pitcher of something similar to lemonade with mint and lavender!

After saying bittersweet goodbyes to Alison, Almir, and our hosts, we boarded an eight hour bus southbound from Zadar to Dubrovnik.  The last hour was somewhat terrifying while the bus driver took curves like we were in a sports car, on the edge of a cliff, with frequent oncoming traffic, in the pitch black.  Whew, glad we made it to the hotel in one piece!

Dubrovnik

The owner of the small pension we had booked was kind enough to pick us up at the bus station and drive us up to the apartment.  When we settled into our room and walked out on our balcony, we knew that we had made the right decision to spend a few more days exploring what Croatia was all about.  Our view looked out over Old Dubrovnik and its walls, Lokrum Island in the bay, and the expansive ocean beyond.  It was quite a sight and only got better in the morning.  Since we had made the decision to continue our Croatian visit fairly quickly, we weren't quite sure what Dubrovnik had to offer but we had work to do for the remaining days of our trip so we decided to go get some food, walk the old city for a bit, and spend the rest of the day on the balcony being productive.  We proceeded to walk down 411 stairs, which we quickly remembered we would have to walk back up to get to the pension.  Luckily we found a short cut and avoided some of the stairs on the way back.

View of the old walled city from our balcony

Our apartment was FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN STEPS from the old city...

We spent some time at two different beaches and enjoyed them both.  The water was chilly but refreshing and perfectly clear.  We had one of our best unexpected days just walking the Old Town, Wes getting a haircut, enjoying cappuccinos while listening to a jazz band, hitting the beach until the sunset, eating a fabulous dinner, more coffee, and finally a stroll home and an amazing view from our balcony.  We have realized that just enjoying the surroundings and experiencing a city like a local, is for us, the better way to get a feel for a city than running to the tourism driven attractions.  And we know we keep saying this, and the list is getting very long, but Croatia is now definitely up there on our favorites list!

We walked up to this cafe as the pianist was playing the first notes of New York, New York.

Wes has a fascination with old municipal drinking fountains, and the water was COLD!

The Stradun, main street, at night.

We bid Croatia farewell, took a short flight to Rome, a train from the airport, a train to Naples, another train to Salerno, a bus to Amalfi, and a taxi to arrive in the cliff side village of Conca dei Marini!  Updates soon...

Italy...Take One - Where is “our Italy”?!

Ciao!

We have placed some big expectations on our visit to Italy.  Some have rung true, some have been better than we ever thought, and some have missed the mark a bit but mostly because we were naively unrealistic about the volume of tourists here in the summer.  Please don’t read that as negative because we are still having a wonderful time!  We just have to remember to travel to destinations that WE want to go to, not where everyone else wants to go.  We are currently just across the Adriatic sea from the East coast of Italy on the coast of Croatia taking a little beach break with friends before we return to the second half of our Italian experience.

Venice

Our train to Venice arrived in the evening and we caught the last ferry out to our hotel.  As we booked the room close to our arrival date, we didn’t find a reasonably priced hotel in Venice itself but we did find a cute little B&B on the island of Murano, a ten minute ferry ride from the center of town.  This was the BEST thing that happened to us the whole time we were in Venice.  When we arrived in Murano the streets were almost deserted except for one restaurant with a few couples enjoying a very quiet and peaceful dinner by the canal.  After checking in, we joined the “crowd” and enjoyed our first Italian meal of Caprese salad, homemade pasta with local clams, and a bottle of prosecco.  It was a delicious meal and a perfect night after a long travel day.

An exhibit by one of Murano's famous glass artists.

The next morning we grabbed a ferry back to the city center.  Venice was an adorable city for just getting lost exploring the back alleys and nooks and crannies of neighborhoods, but when we got the heart of the city it was packed with tourists.  This made simply walking down the streets difficult and turned us off so we caught a ferry and enjoyed a ride around the canals while exploring Venice from the water.  We did manage to visit the “must see” spots of Piazzetta San Marco and Ponte Di Rialto but the quieter neighborhoods were our favorite!

We could barely walk side by side in some places!

One of the many small canals.

Grand Canal or "Main Street Venice"

Gondola traffic jam.  Not so romantic, eh?

We also spent an afternoon taking a ferry to Burano which is famous for it’s colorful houses and delicate lace making.  It was a very small town but we enjoyed seeing the locals live their quiet, remote lives.  We had another quiet dinner near our hotel in Murano and packed up for our quick train to Florence.  We enjoyed Venice but left still wondering where the Italy was that has been in our minds for so long.

Leaning bell tower of Murano...who needs Pisa's crowds?

Florence

By the time we reached Florence we were tired of “sightseeing” per se and must admit that we weren’t in the right frame of mind to truly explore the city and enjoy what it had to offer, nor did we really do the city justice through the lens.  We wandered around visiting the city’s highlight areas for a few hours and didn’t fall in love like we had expected.  That being said, we had the best gelato since arriving in Italy and some delicious pasta and wine!  Both of our pasta dishes were firsts for us with one having sautéed zucchini flower and the other having cinghiale (wild boar).  Both were wonderful!  And in case you were ever considering it, pistachio and hazelnut gelato do make a perfect lunch!  We did enjoy our short time in Florence but again left wondering where the Italy was that we had been daydreaming about. 

The Duomo was much more impressive from the outside than inside.

The River Arno and Ponte Vecchio beyond.

Greve in Chianti!

We were ready for something with a slower pace in a more rural setting.  As luck would have it, we picked Greve in Chianti, smack in the middle of the Tuscan countryside and only a forty-five minute bus ride south of Florence.  This location was the Italian postcard perfection that we had been looking for!  We booked a room in a small B&B on a hilltop at the edge of town and as a bonus we gained a set of Italian grandparents for a few days!  After getting settled into our room, we took a stroll through the town and picked out a few restaurants for our stay, visited some great shops with local products in the town square, then spent the afternoon back at the B&B sitting in lounge chairs overlooking the Tuscan countryside.  While relaxing, we were almost hit in the head with falling plums, which we promptly ate, then continued to eat for the remainder of our stay.  After discovering the plum trees over our head, we walked the gardens and found pear trees, apricot trees, tomatoes, green peppers, grapes, olives, herbs, all of which seem to comprise your everyday Mediterranean back yard. 

View from behind our room.

We spent some wonderful time on the back patio and in the yard.

View from the front patio.  The hill was good for walking off big meals!

Lunch of fresh mozzarella, pecorino, salami, rosemary toast, cherries, and wine of course!

This plum almost hit Wes on the head, so it paid the ultimate price!

Greve's main square, which is actually a triangle...

We've seen A LOT of hanging hams, but not many with tails still attached.  We're not fans.

Our hosts, Paulo and Ana, were so warm and welcoming and made us feel as if we were staying with long lost Italian family.  The only other guests were an older couple from Lyon, France that have stayed with them for several years.  One evening after dinner, we were relaxing in the yard after sunset and decided it was time to turn in for the night.  On our way inside, we crossed the patio where our hosts and their other guests were finishing dinner and were invited (firmly told) to sit down for dessert with them.  We had a wonderful and quite humorous end to the day while eating tiramisu and sipping homemade lemoncello, all while trying to have a conversation with a couple that spoke Italian and just a little French, a couple that spoke only French, and us who spoke neither! 

There is an enormous opinion in the online travel community that you MUST have a car to “do Tuscany”.  While a car would certainly be valuable if you wanted many quick visits in several places, seeing the countryside on foot and getting to know one town intimately was an amazing experience.  We took a beautiful walk through vineyards and olive groves to Montefioralle, a medieval village just outside Greve.  We found a perfect bench and just passed some time soaking up the view and reminiscing on the experiences of the last few months.  We also followed a ten kilometer loop trail through the rolling countryside.  Following that trail proved a little bit challenging but we managed to not get too lost! 

The village of Montefioralle.

Vineyard above Greve.

Starting our 10k walk, marked "easy" on the local guidebook.

It's only easy if you can follow the trail!  We wandered in the hills for a bit before we found this and continued!

We hopped on a local bus to Panzano, another charming Tuscan hilltop town.  Panzano is home to Dario Cecchini and his Antica Macelleria (butcher shop) and world famous restaurant Solociccia.  If you’re a fan of Anthony Bourdain you’ve probably seen this guy on No Reservations.  We were intending on trying to eat dinner a Solociccia but discovered that his Macelleria has a restaurant upstairs with a wonderful lunch.  It was one of the best meals we’ve ever had, even if a little protein heavy!  We knew we were in the right place to eat when you enter the front door of the butcher shop and a server pours you a glass of local red wine and offers you bread, salami, lardo on toast, and then walks you through a secret door in the back of the kitchen that leads to the restaurant upstairs!  The other meals back in Greve may not have had the cache that this lunch had but were definitely wonderful in their own right. 

We found “our Italy” in Greve in Chianti!  We are not suggesting that we did not enjoy Venice or Florence, but Greve was what we had been looking for in every way.  We will have a chance to find even more of “our Italy” in just a few days after we return from Croatia’s Dalmatian coast!