Arriving in Cambridge

Firstly, I appologize for the lack of photos in this post.  Having finished our summer of wandering Europe, our time recently has involved many other "real life" tasks that have distracted me from capturing the beauty of this city.  I promise that once my camera is fixed (which is happening now!  I had to send it away), I will venture out and take loads of pictures.  I can already tell that this city offers some great photo opportunities.

I can't believe we're here.  I can't believe that the summer has passed and that we've made our way up to England.  It's crazy to look back on our lives these past couple months and think of all the places we've been and all we've seen.  What a great summer!!  However, I do have to admit, when we finally arrived in England we were completely content with the fact that we'll be staying here for a while.  And though we of course have been welcomed already with a fair share of rain and cloudy days, we already feel like we have really arrived "home".  For one, English is the first spoken language here.  Secondly, we've already connected with some people that have made us feel like this is where we should be.

Summer in Review

As we have now wrapped up our trip, people have been asking us what our favourite destination was.  This is never an easy answer.  We loved all the places we visited for different reasons.  There is not a place that we visited that we would not suggest someone to visit, it just depends on what you are looking for.  This is why I am going to list what we and I loved about each place. This blog has not yet experienced lists and bullet points and this is because my creative and artistic wife as been posting them. Yes, I Zack am writing this post and hope you enjoy it half as much as Sarah's well written posts.

With that being cleared up, here is a list off all the cities and countries we visited.

Paris, France

Bonjour! 

Ca va?

Ca va bien, et tu?

Sadly, that's almost the extent of our French.  Why oh why did I not pursue this language in school when I had the chance?  Zack even spent four years in elementary schooling doing "French extended",  and still we've got nothing on these Parisians.  In our opinion, French is a beautiful sounding language. Yes, it even beats out "sexy Italian"...  haha.  There's something about the way Parisians communicate that sounds sofisticated and soft.  At least that's what we got from all the people watching we did here (and trust me, we did a lot).  We spent a lot of our time here in Paris, really not doing a whole lot!  I actually spent time reading more than just 5 pages of a novel, and enjoyed the parks and scenery of the city.  Being our final destination before England, we just wanted to soak up the city and not exhaust ourselves before the real world of working and living in one city would approach us.  Unfortunately, the weather was a little cooler than we'd had hoped (I guess we left summer behind in Venice!), but we were lucky to have sunshine for most of the time we were there.

Innsbruck, Austria

I've always loved The Sound of Music.  I have memories of watching that film going back to before I was in kindergarten.  I remember feeling inspired by Sister Maria's love of music and her desire for freedom and adventure... Her clumsiness and her "young at heart" personality is also something I feel like I can relate to (I sometimes feel like I'll never truly feel fully "grown up" :p).  Along with my love for the inspiring story line, the setting of The Sound of Music always captivated me.  Could there possibly such green rolling hills?  Well in fact, yes!  I saw them with my very own eyes this summer while we made our way up to Innsbruck, Austria (the actual setting of the movie is in Salzburg- just over an hour away from Innsbruck).  I know this might sound cheesy, but they gave me goosebumps.

Just like our unexpected stop in Bari, Innsbruck was never a part of our original itinerary.  After rearranging our schedule a bit to meet up with friends in Croatia, we had the (glorious) freedom of asking each other "where shall we go next?".  This has to be one of the best feelings in the world.  We were seriously considering the south coast of France (we went to the extent of finding accommodations in Nice), but after spending a good amount of time in Italy and Croatia we thought maybe we'd switch things up a bit.  Though I'm sure Nice would have been nice (haha, I've been waiting to say that), instead of opting for beaches and warm weather, the mountains were calling.  We had really enjoyed our time in Switzerland and knew we'd probably find ourselves feeling the same thing about Austria.  And I'm happy to say, we were right about that!  Despite the fact that it rained every day we were there and at times we felt like we were stuck in a thick cloud, we loved the town of Innsbruck.  The train ride itself from Venice to Innsbruck was enough to satisfy our excitement for the mountains.

Venice, Italy

When we arrived in Venice, it was 10:30pm we had just spent 10 hours in a car.  I knew Zack was fading, but this was the last night we had with Mel, Keaton and Caiti, so we wanted to explore the city a bit.  Though we were all running on little energy, we trekked into the city.  I have to admit, there's nothing quite like strolling the streets of Venice at midnight.  The weather was still warm but not scorching, and the streetlights light up the canals making them glisten in the moonlight.  The void of cars and other vehicles create such a quiet intimacy as well.  This was the perfect start to our stay in Venice.

I know this might be ignorant, but before coming here I had no idea that the city of Venice is an island (to be exact, it's made up of 177 islands... all linked together by numerous small bridges and water canals.  The city is an island made up of islands!).  I also had a picture in my mind of the beautiful canals, but really thought it would be crowded and way too hot (which I thought would take away from the "romantic feel" of the city).  But to my surprise, we found ourselves loving Venice.  We stayed at a campground located off the island (on the mainland, everything becomes a lot cheaper) called "Village Jolly".  And what a jolly little village it was!  We had made these arrangements kind of last minute, and really did not know what to expect.  Arriving late at night, we were worried we'd have to set up a tent in the dark (which would have sucked.  We were exhausted from our time in Croatia) but to our surprise, the tents they rented out were more like small cabins with fabric walls, and included two single beds!  Now, this is glamorous camping!  Village Jolly also had an outdoor pool and a great breakfast buffet which we made use of every morning.  We took the bus into Venice in the afternoon each day and were able to walk around Venice in the evening, which in our opinion is the best time to stroll.

Dubrovnik & Split, Croatia

Arriving in Dubrovnik still feels like a dream.  We took an overnight ferry from Bari, and just like many other ferry passengers, had attempted to sleep on the floor in the common deck area (where they do not even dim the lights for whatever reason).  I blocked out the light from my eyes and dozed in and out until I heard the rustling of many footsteps just a few feet from my head.  I heard a young girl say "wow, look at that view!", so I slid off my eye mask, looked out the window, and there it was: the beautiful coast of Dubrovnik.  The soft morning light made it look absolutely magical.  The old town of Dubrovnik has high stone walls, making it appear castle-like.  Add in green mountainous landscape and the blue glow of the Adriatic Sea... Well it just doesn't get any better than that.  When we reached the old town, we entered through the city gates and got lost wandering the narrow pedestrian roads.  Though we had already spent time in some walled Italian towns, Dubrovnik felt different.  I felt like I was in a land of ships and pirates.  Just magical.

We're stuck in Bari!

Bari was never a part of our itinerary.  The plan was to leave Rome on Sunday, take a long train ride to Bari and catch a night ferry headed to Dubrovnik, Croatia.  We were super excited to get to Croatia.  Not only had we heard that in Croatia we'd find some of the most beautiful beaches on the Adriatic, but we were meeting up with friends from home!  Mel, Keaton and Caiti would plan to arrive in Dubrovnik just one day after us.  Little did we know, Croatia was not to be in the plan just yet...

Rome, Italy

When in Rome... We found ourselves saying that a lot during our stay here.  Should we get gelato? When in Rome!  Splurge on a gourmet pizza? When in Rome!  Should we rent a scooter? When in Rome!  Haha, it  seemed like that was our "excuse" for everything.  We started thinking about why "when in Rome" actually originated in the first place.  We discovered that the complete saying would actually be: when in Rome, do as the Romans do.  So, we'd tried to live up to that while we were here, and that is mainly why we felt we MUST rent a scooter!  We may have spent a little more money than we had planned, so we tried to seek out only the "free admission" touristy things.  And we couldn't have been any happier with that desicion.  In our opinion, there is no better way to see Rome than zipping around the city on a scooter, amongst the many other local (of course) scootering Romans.  

We arrived in Rome late in the evening and made our way to our air bnb.  The apartment was in an excellent location (very close to the city centre, only a 30 minute walk from the colluseum) so immediately we felt the excitement of the city.  To be honest, even  though I looked forward to seeing the sights of Rome, I had been a bit weary about visiting such a busy, touristy spot during probably the hottest time of the year.  We had also been warned many times of pick pockets and theives that seek out tourists.  However, despite the crowds, we found Rome to be a great city to explore even if you have to do most by foot.  The city includes some gorgeous cobblestone pedestrian areas but also has the excitement of a very "happening" city.  The first day we did completely by foot and were able to visit the Vatican City ( we went first thing in the morning to avoid line ups. Had to wait just 10 minutes) and also many other stunning churches.  What struck us about Rome was that you'd be walking down the street, and find that many of the exteriors of the churches would not do justice to wHat you would see inside.  Stepping inside the Pantheon, and walking around the old Roman ruins was even better than we had imagined.  

Lucca & Chianti, Italy

Ahh Tuscany, we're finally here!  It's been months since the beginning of planning for this trip, and Tuscany was always top on our list when it came to our itinerary.  We even named this blog after how excited we were about Tuscany!  So was Tuscany all we dreamed of?  We would have to say yes and no.  We had a great experience, just with a few ups and downs (but mostly ups!).

We arrived in Lucca late in the evening and were picked up at the train station by our host, Giuseppe.  Despite his lack of English, we found him to be an extremely welcoming host.  We stayed at his family's house, 5 km outside the walled city of Lucca.  We enjoyed being in the countryside and they had a couple of bikes for us to use, which we used to ride into the city.  The area was a little different than we had imagined... instead of rolling hills of manicured vineyards, there were unruly wild gardens growing corn, and the bumpy streets were lined with old, weathered looking buildings.  The bikes we rode had rusty old chains and breaks that squeeked (I'm pretty sure the bike that I rode belonged to a child, haha).  The weather was not the greatest either, raining for half of our stay.  I ended up being attacked by mosquitos during the night and woke up to red, swollen bites all over my body. I would post a picture of my face in the morning, but it's a little too embarrassing... haha.  Our host family was not around for the first day and a half though, so it was nice to have some quiet time to ourselves at their house.  The second night we were there, they invited us to join them for dinner and we indulged in Giuseppe's home made pizza.  We enjoyed their company so much and we felt that we were able to experience some true Italian family time!