Venice, Italy

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Venice, Italy

Samantha and I arrived in Venice at mid day and it was HOT.  Luckily, the airbnb we had booked was only a short walk from the train station, though it did take us a little while to find it as the entrance was tucked between some shops and a restaurant.  It was a small flat but it had air conditioning so it was perfect.  We only had 3 nights in Venice and wanted to make sure we made the most of it.  We had some things on the agenda that we knew for sure we wanted to do, like spending some time exploring St. Mark's and taking a gondola ride, but otherwise we just wanted to explore and take in the city.

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Metz, France and Milan, Italy

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Metz, France and Milan, Italy

After leaving the Netherlands, Samantha and I were feeling like we wanted to slow down a little bit and have some down time. We also only had to return our rental car back in Milan, so we figured we'd head south and spend some time in the small French town of Metz. On our way we stopped at a third trappist monastery, Orval Abbey, for a couple beers and some trappist cheese.

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

As we made the rainy drive across the countryside from Bruges to Amsterdam I got more and more excited. We booked an especially nice hotel in downtown Amsterdam for our first wedding anniversary, and I was looking forward to a little luxury! 

A minor anxiety attack crept up on me as we entered Amsterdam. Roads were blocked off and people were EVERYWHERE.

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Bruges, Belgium

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Bruges, Belgium

We had a great time in Brussels, drinking all the beer and eating way too much chocolate.  We got on the road, headed west towards Bruges.  I have been before, right after graduating from high school in 2007.  Fortunately, not very much about the city has changed.  It is a beautiful old city, protected by UNESCO, full of canals, cobble-stoned streets and medieval buildings.  We didn’t have the best weather, but fortunately we managed to stay mostly dry.

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Eltz Castle and Brussels, Belgium

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Eltz Castle and Brussels, Belgium

After Prague, we decided it was time to satisfy Charles' desire for beer from Belgium, so we hopped back in our rental car and headed west across Germany. Along the way, we stopped at Eltz Castle, which was recommended to us by my mother, Barb, as one of her favorite sites in Germany.

We stopped for a single night to break up the drive in a tiny town near the castle called Macken. The town was so small we struggled to find dinner that night, but when we did we had another taste of traditional German schnitzel in a restaurant where everyone knew each other, except for us.

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Prague, Czech Republic

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Prague, Czech Republic

We arrived in Prague after a four-hour bus ride, since we weren't allowed to take our trusty rental car into the Czech Republic. Even though it was overcast and gray when we arrived, the "City of a Hundred Spires" immediately charmed us with window displays of its famous crystal and creepy marionettes. The sugary scent of trdelník--a spiral-shaped pastry stuffed with cream and fruit or chocolate--floated on the air, and bars with cheap, delicious beer seemed to beckon to us.

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Neuschwanstein Castle and Munich - Germany

/ Neuschwanstein /
Neuschwanstein Castle and Munich - Germany

We drove north out of Switzerland to Schwangau, Germany and stayed just one night to check out Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. These two incredible castles are at the southern tip of The Romantic Road. More on that in a minute!

If one of these castles looks familiar to you, that's because Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle was designed after this model.

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The Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Capri, and Sicily

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The Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Capri, and Sicily

The first day Chuck fired up our crappy rental car to drive up the Amalfi coast. It felt much like the Cinque Terre—steep, rocky cliffsides tumbling down into the crisp, clear sea below. Lemon, olive, and grape crops clung to the walls on terraces and hung over the roads. The houses stack up the sides of the coast in any place that seems even slightly horizontal (and many places that are not) with roads crammed in between them barely big enough for a single car to pass.

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Rome, Italy

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Rome, Italy

After Florence, Sam and I drove the couple hours south to Rome.  It rained our last night in Florence which meant that it had finally cooled down a little bit.  We booked and Airbnb geared towards "lovers" which we thought was strange at first, but made perfect sense when we arrived.  Everything was red and almost everything had a heart on it.  The bed had satin sheets and a satin bed spread.  It was weird.  But the location was incredible and it had an enormous patio furnished with a big table for dinners.  We were a short walk, about five minutes, from Vatican City, and maybe 30 minutes to central Rome.  

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Florence, Italy

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Florence, Italy

We left our little villa in rural Italy and steeled ourselves for hordes of tourists in Florence. Our AirBNB was across the Ponte Vecchio bridge and past the Pitti Palace, which made for some picturesque walks each day. The weather was incredibly hot, and we were grateful to have a washing machine and two air conditioners in our apartment.

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Pula & Rovinj, Croatia to Verona, Italy

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Pula & Rovinj, Croatia to Verona, Italy

One of the first items on our agenda once we got to Rovinj (pronounced "row-VIN") was to relax and have a beach day. We drove down to a national park called Kamenjak, pausing at a supermarket and a roadside fruit stand to buy cherries and sandwich fixings. Instead of butter, we bought a jar of something red with pesto-like consistency, mainly because we couldn't figure out what it was. I'm still not sure, but it was delicious!

The beaches in Croatia are all rocky, so we spread our towels on the hot black rocks between pine trees and the sea.

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Split, Croatia & Krka National Park

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Split, Croatia & Krka National Park

We left Montenegro to cross the border back into Croatia and make our way up the Dalmatian Coast. Split, Croatia's second-largest city (and largest city in the Dalmatian region) was a great place to stay for a few days. Split is home to Diocletian's Palace, which is a palace built in the fourth century for a Roman emperor of the same name.

This huge, fortress-like structure is enmeshed in the heart of the city.

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Bay of Kotor, Montenegro

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Bay of Kotor, Montenegro

After meeting Reyn and Cindy in Dubrovnik, Charles and I rented a car and drove a few hours across the Croatian border into neighboring Montenegro, where we spent a few nights on the shores of the lovely Bay of Kotor. Kotor is another walled city, though less "prettified" for tourists than Dubrovnik. 

Since we had a car, we stayed along the shores of the bay in neighboring Dobrota, about a 10 minute drive from Kotor. It was nice to have a little peace and quiet, and our AirBnb had a great view of the bay. 

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

We are still working on some of the finer points of travelling.  For example, we spent about 8 hours getting from Kalambaka back to Athens for a flight that we had booked to meet up with my Dad and Cindy in Dubrovnik.  If I had done a little more digging, I would have seen that there are flights from Thessaloniki, which would have taken only an hour or so by train.  Regardless, we arrived in Croatia.

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Athens, Greece & the Island of Hydra

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Athens, Greece & the Island of Hydra

After an incredible stay in Istanbul, Samantha and I headed west a bit to Athens.  We figured this would make a great stop before meeting my Dad and Cindy in Croatia at the end of the month,  and we were right.  I had never been to Greece before, while Sam had but only for one rainy day back in college so it really felt like we were both exploring it for our first time.  Athens is a really beautiful city so full of history and culture, which made for days full of museums and walking tours through the ancient city.

We stayed in a great little apartment right below the Acropolis...

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