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Planning a Trip to Iceland – Highlights of our Icelandic Trip

It seems that everyone is going to Iceland these days and I don’t blame them – it is a beautiful country!  Victor and I went there in 2013 (you can see pictures here) and loved it so much that this July we planned a trip there with the girls!  A lot of my friends have been asking me details of our trip so here is a post about it.  Make sure to scroll all the way to the end of the post for detailed logistical info – tours, restaurants, etc.

First time we were in Iceland we spent close to 2 weeks there – there is definitely is enough to see there.  This time around it was a shorter trip – we took advantage of IcelandAir free stopover in Reykjavik and spent three nights in Iceland before heading to Paris for the second part of the trip.  We absolutely love this free stop-over deal – you get two vacations in one – what’s not to love about it?!  So if you have not yet, I highly recommend you join their mailing list because they have some pretty amazing deals there from time to time.

We rarely travel to Europe in the summer (last time we did that was for our honeymoon back in 2003) and I forgot how crowded and busy everything is.  So if you are traveling during high season I definitely recommend booking everything in advance.  One of Iceland’s most famous tourist sites is Blue Lagoon – yes it is very touristy and can get crowded but I highly recommend going there – it is pretty amazing being in a hot thermal lagoon with a silica mask on your face surrounded by beautiful scenery.  You can buy tickets to the lagoon in advance and I am glad we did – by the time I thought about buying tickets there was only one time slot left!

We took a red eye and got to Reykjavik nice and early – at 7 AM!  At the airpot we took a cab and headed straight to Blue Lagoon:

We were a bit jet-lagged and it felt wonderful relaxing in hot water.. I almost fell asleep there (I was THAT relaxed) – good thing that my family loves me because they did not leave me behind:)  When I booked our tickets I also made a reservation at Lava Restaurant – their a la carte restaurant with a new lagoon view.  The food was really good there so if you are looking for a nice way to start (or end) your Icelandic vacation I definitely recommend checking it out.

After lunch, all relaxed and refreshed and a bit groggy we took a cab and headed to Reyjavik to our first ever AirBnB.  We’ve never stayed at an AirBnB before – I am always caucoius about staying event at B&Bs in the US) but a friend of a friend recommended it, it had great reviews so we decided to give the world of AirBnBs a try.  It worked out well – the place was in the center, was really charming (and I don’t use the word ‘charming’ as a code name for ‘tiny’ or ‘old’) and came with a really chatty owner who lived upstairs.

 

we checked out Hallgrimskirkja, had dinner, were amazed by how light it was at 11 PM at night (we’ve never experienced white nights before) and called it a day!

Next day we were up bright and early and ready for a Puffing Watching/Sea Angling Tour that I booked back in the US with Happy Tours company.  I just had to book this tour because this company had amazing reviews on tripadvisor and after taking the tour I can definitely see why – it was AWESOME!  A traditional small fishing boat with a captain and his first mate – his daughter – and there was only one more family besides us!  I was not that impressed with the puffin watching portion (not in any way fault of the tour company) – who knew that puffins were so tiny? – not me!  But fishing was amazing and definitely one of the highlights of the trip.  We don’t fish and don’t know much about the fish and I was worried that we would not be able to contribute our fishing share to the communal lunch that we were to have at the end of the tour. But boy was I wrong!  Mia caught the biggest fish of the day – a 13 lbs cod and Alexa followed a close second.  Victor caught fish and even I caught a few.  The girls had a blast touching fish, learning about fish, touching fish guts and eyes – as Alexa said to me – they are not ‘girly girls’.  And after all the fish was caught and filleted (right on the boat) the girls threw fish remainders to the sea gulls who followed our boat – it was pretty awesome.  And then we all enjoyed super yummy lunch of grilled freshly caught (by us!) fish eaten in the harbor right on our boat!

After fishing me made our way ‘uptown’ – a nice 30 min walk.  I’ve never see as much street art as I have in Reyjkavik – it is absolutely stunning and it is EVERYWHERE!  It really is a very colorful city and we loved meandering there.

Next day was the Golden Circle day.   I think everybody who comes to Iceland visits the Golden Circle and there is a reason for that – it is very close to Reykjavik – I think the whole loop takes only a few hours – and there are pretty awesome sights on the way.  If you are not a fan of driving yourself then you can definitely take a tour – there are lots of tour companies that offer them.  But we, not being bus tour people, opted out and instead rented a car for a day at the Golden Circle.

We drove through Þingvellir national park and stood on North American and Euroasian continental tectonic plates (all at the same time!)

we saw Geyser erupt at irregular intervals:

we stood by Gullfoss waterfall and watched it in awe:

we walked all over Kerið crater (those three dots on the right of the image are Victor, Mia and Alexa)

and we drove through amazing scenery full of sheep and horses:

and in the evening we had another amazing meal and decided that we should come back to Iceland again!

Logistics

If you are planning a trip to Iceland here is some practical info that I hope you will find useful:

Car Rental

we got our car from SixT – they were nice and professional with

Restaurants

  • Grillmarkaðurinn -we loved it so much in 2013 that we decided to go back to it this summer.  You definitely need a reservation and I would recommend making it in advance.  I booked it a week in advance and the only time they had available was at 9 PM!
  • Sjávargrillið – another place we loved from out last trip – and this time around it did not dispapoint – despite a pretty slow service.    I would recommend making a reservation there as well.
  • Braud & Co – a great bakery – it was so good that we went there twice in just three short days we spent in Reykjavik!
  • Lava Restaurant – a fun place for lunch at the Blue Lagoon

 

What To Bring

From what I know it never gets really hot in Iceland – even in the middle of the summer.  When we were here in September it was around 50 degrees and when we were here in July it was around 55 degrees.  So pack accordingly!

Tour Company

We’ve only got one tour – Sea Angling and booked it through Happy Tours – they were wonderful!

Where to Stay

Last time we stayed at a hotel (don’t remember the name of it ) and this time we stayed at an AirBnB.  T

Transportation

The most economical way to get to/from Reykavik and Blue Lagoon is by bus – they run every 30 min or so.  We were running late this time around and took a taxi but took a bus back to the airport last time. dr A word of warning – depending on the exchange rate Iceland can be expensive – more expensive than New York.   When we were there in 2013 dollar was pretty strong against Icelandic krona so things were cheaper than in New York.  But this time around the $/krona exchange rate was not favorable and as result everything was more expensive than in New York – for example – a 20 min taxi ride from the airport to Blue Lagoon was around $80.  If you end up renting a car there to drive yourself around you can arrange to return it at the airport, which is what we did.  It does cost more returning it at the airport but it is convenient and you save $ on a taxi going back to the airport.

Blue Lagoon

I highly recommend visiting it.  Blue Lagoon is located outside of Reykjavik close (ish)to the airport so most everybody goes there either on the way from the airport or on the way to the airport.  We’ve done both (first time on the way out and last time on the way in) and both were fine.  They are set up for tourists – you can check in your luggage, lock your valuables, rent robes and towels, etc.  Between getting ready to go in, relaxing in the lagoon, showering (getting silica out of your hair takes a looong time!) and having lunch we ended up spending about 5 hours there so plan accordingly.

And that’s all!  If you are planning to go to Iceland I hope you find this guide useful.  Enjoy this beautiful country!

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Visiting Emerald Isle | Travel Photography

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that we LOVE to travel.   We love to travel with our girls (I still need to do a blog post about our AMAZING April European roadtrip with the girls through Austria, Slovenia and Italy), but I also love to travel without them.  And every September I thank goodness for my in-laws who take our kids for close to two weeks so that Victor and I can relax, recharge and go traveling as a couple.

Finding a destination for this year’s trip was not easy; I know it totally sounds like bragging but we’ve been to a LOT of places – Victor jokes that we ran out of countries to visit.  My top contenders for this trip were Cuba, Ireland, Colombia and the Canadian Rockies.  Cuba, although technically open for visits, is still very difficult to get into so that quickly fell our the list.  Having been to a number of Central American countries Victor was not convinced about going to Colombia and I wanted something more exotic than the Canadian Rockies.  And so many of my friends speak very highly about Ireland; so the decision was made – Ireland it was!  So we started to plan a visit and decided that since we were going to be in Ireland we might as well see another ‘land’ and visit Scotland!   Scotland will get its own blog post because this one is dedicated to Ireland.

We had five nights to spend in each country and quickly realized that it was not enough to see what Ireland had to offer – so we just have to go back:)  We’ve got a lot of feedback from our friends and decided on covering the south/west part of the country.

Our first day was spent exploring Dublin, with its colorful buildings, cobble stone streets and the coolest library I’ve ever seen!

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We rented a car in Dublin and from there headed to Kinsale, stopping by the castle of Cashel on the way.  The scenery there was what I imagined Ireland would be like – green rolling hills, ruins of castles and lots and lots of sheep.

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We stopped over for lunch in Cork and there our lovely waiter recommended that we go check out the town of Cobe, which supposedly was very picturesque.  And we are glad we did because it was stunning – a beautiful cathedral set on top of a hill overlooking a bay!

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Our stop for the night was a super cute B&B in an adorable and a very colorful town of Kinsale.  But the time we got there I was tired of carrying my big camera so I’ve got no real camera pictures to proove how great it was – you just gotta take my word for it:)  In Kinsale we had one of many spectacular meals we enjoyed on this trip – a dinner at Bastion.  We almost did not get in (who knew that they would be booked solid on a Wednesday night!) but the stars aligned and we did eat there – and it was spectacular.  I had one of the most amazing dishes of the whole trip there – cabbage and bacon (they had me at bacon!) with a 65 (or was it 55) degree egg and a smoked potato mouse foam, which (as the waitress told us in a very excited manner) was served by the chef himself!  The whole dinner was great so if you ever find yourself in Kinsale run to Bastion and thank me later!

Our next stop for the night was a cute town on Dingle and at breakfast we were trying to decide whether we should drive through the Ring of Kerry (supposedly one of the most spectacular drives in the world) or through a less touristy and smaller Dingle peninsula.  I even enlisted help of Facebook asking friends for their recommendations.  There were pros and cons of each but in the end, the decision was made for the Dingle Peninsula – after people at the table next ours at breakfast mentioned many many many tour buses all over Ring of Kerry.

The drive to and around Dingle Peninsula was lovely – on the way there we came across this cool ruined manor – there were no signs about it anywhere in the vicinity so we just took credit for ‘discovering’ it:)

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Next Stop was Inch beach which was super windy and rainy but absolutely spectacular!

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And then there was a prehistoric Donbeg Fort  – not much left from the fort itself but the scenery was stunning!

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After checking into a B&B in Dingle and barely making it to their afternoon tea/chocolate cake festivities (who can resist a chocolate cake?  Not me!) – we headed out to dinner.  Apparently (I think I read it somewhere) Dingle is known to the be culinary capital of Ireland and, according to TripAdvisor, Idas Restaurant is the best restaurant in Dingle so naturally we had to go there.  And of course once we were there we had to get a 9 course tasting menu.  One dish had three different types of sea weed leaves, another one had some roots and berries that the chef himself collected from an edge of some cliff and more like that- the dinner was truly amazing and one of many spectacular meals we had on this trip.

The next day we said good bye to our B&B (admiring cool views of low tide from our windows) and headed to Cliffs of Moher.

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I am not a fan of heights (and that’s putting it mildly) so it was a pretty intense experience for me.  I ended up walking along the cliffs on the inner path – not able to see much except the ocean in the background, but that suited me just fine!  I did breathe out a sign of relief when we were done!

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And the next day it rained, which suited us just fine because I think every vacation needs to have a rainy day to just relax and not rush.  We did venture out to Bunratty Castle and folk park which was VERY well done.  Their fairy garden was one of my favorite signs of the whole trip – and I did not even have our girls with me:)

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And then we explored a cute town of Essin and had the only pub meal of the whole trip!

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We also listened to an Irish ‘session’ which I knew we had to do otherwise a good friend of mine Jaye would disown me as a friend:)

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And the next morning we drove to Shannon airport, returned our car and boarded a plane to Scotland, which will get its own blog post.  So check back soon to see our Scottish Highland adventures!

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Our Transylvanian Holiday

It’s been MONTHS since our Transylvanian vacation but I figured it is better late than never so here is a write up and pictures from our trip.  This is a longer travel post than I usually do because a lot of my friends asked me about this trip (it is not a very common travel destination after all) so I decided to share what we did in more details.

I want to start by saying (well, writing) that while we did have a good time and Transylvania is beautiful, this place is definitely off the beaten path.  So if you are planning a European vacation or even an Eastern European vacation my personal opinion is to go to other place – Croatia is absolutely beautiful, Montengro is lovely, Poland (a bit off the beaten path as well) is well worth a visit and Czech Republic – especially Prague – that must be on everyone’s To Visit list if you ask me.  So if you have been to lots of other places and are looking for adventure, unusual castles, colorful houses and are not afraid of some dilapidated areas, abandoned buildings and sharing a road with horses and buggies then Transylvania is a place for you!

When Victor suggested we go to Romania I turned down this idea right away – we went to 5 eastern european countries the year before and I thought I had my fill of Eastern Europe.  But then I did some reason (and Hotel Transylvania 2 was being released) – Transylvania actually looked pretty cool and unlike anything we’ve seen before.  So before long our research was done, our itinerary finalized, tickets, hotels and car booked and suite cases packed (granted – that last task took place the day of the flight!) and we were ready to go!

We arrived in Bucharest – and stayed in the Old Town, which was pretty cool.  The area we stayed was all pedestrian – cobble stone streets, lots of restaurants, cool churches and buildings.  Some of them were in a pretty bad shape but overall it was an interesting (in a good way) experience.

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There are plenty of interesting places to visit in Transylvania but given that we had just a bit under two weeks we needed to limited out itinerary so we decided on Saxon Triangle – which consists of Brasov, Sighisoara and Sibiu.   Our first stop was Brasov which I fell in love with when I first saw it.  We stayed right in the main square with windows overlooking the main church which was awesome!  I was surprised at how colorful the city was – it reminded me of La Boca in Buenos Aires and Guanajuato in Mexico – and it was a fun place to bring your camera to.

Unfortunately that’s where things went downhill from me because I got sick… Being sick stinks, being sick while traveling abroad – stinks so much more!   I remember leaving a restaurant without getting a dessert (which was a first for me!), searching for a pharmacy and hoping and praying that a pharmacist would speak english and be able to give me something that would make me feel better.  This cold lasted more or less the whole trip – a few days into it I lost my voice completely and could only whisper.   I was able to have a few good hours each day (the time when my medicine kicked in) to walk around and experience each city and towards the end of the trip I was able to do that more and more.

So back to Brasov – it is a quaint little town with cobble stone streets and old town where no cars are allowed.  There are plenty of beautiful small streets to get lost in, old churches and chapels, and tiled roofs – a photographer’s paradise!  And the food was really good – we had some of the best meals in Romania there!

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After Brasov we were on our way to Sighiosoara – another old Saxon town – sharing the highway with people on horses and carriages.

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We did take a detour to visit Peles castle and it was so worth it!  We were contemplating between going there or to Bran – also known as the Dracula’s castle.    We decided on the Peles castle (although we did end up going to see Bran as well) and if I had to choose between these two I would pick Peles.  It is a relatively new castle (only around a hundred years old) and it is absolutely beautiful.  The setting for it is stunning, it has beautifully decorated rooms with modern conveniences (Romanian Royalty knew how to live!) and it was unlike anything we’ve seen before.  I highly recommend taking a guided tour of the castle – we did it and learnt a ton!

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Then stop was a beautiful Saxon town of Sighisoara which I think was my favorite of the whole trip.  The Old Town part of it (where we stayed) is tiny but so beautiful.  Cobble stone streets, very colorful building, old churches and towers.  And for those of you who are history enthusiasts – a house where Vlad the Impaler was born!

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After spending a few relaxing days in beautiful Sighisoara we were on our way to the last Saxon town on our trip – Sibiu.  On the way there we took a detour through Romanian Country side which is pristine and beautiful and I think it looks the same way it did a hundred years ago!

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Sibiu is the largest of the three Saxon towns we’ve visited and definitely felt like a big(ish) city.  As always we stayed right in the heart of old town, overlooking main square.  We did most of the same – exploring, eating and taking pictures:)

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While doing our research on Romania Victor found that there is a beautiful scenic drive through the mountains – Transfagarasan, which according to some is one of the top 10 drives in the world.. and of course we had to take it.  We saw pictures of it beforehand it and did look stunning.  But would not you know it – when we were there it was SO FOGGY!  it was so foggy that I was seriously worried about our safety and praying and hoping that we would see our girls away.  We had to drive ‘indian style’ – i.e. honking at each turn (and there were so many hairpin turns!) to let other drives know that you were coming.  We literally could not see more than 15-20 feet out!  So not only it was scary but because of the fog we could not see much of the stunning scenery.

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But being a smart man that he is, Victor suggested that we take a detour to the other side of the mountain and what did we see there – sun peaking through the clouds!

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We made our way to Brasov for one more night and then headed off to Bucharest to finish our Romanian holiday.

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On the way we did stop at Bran – a.k.a. Dracula Castle, which despite its name was very charming!

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After we got back home I told Victor that while I loved spending time with him (after all, who would not!) and had a good time, Romania was definitely not my favorite travel destination.  I think being sick and not feeling 100% for most of the trip had something to do with it.  But looking through the pictures of the trip I did realize that this place IS beautiful, it is unusual and unlike anything we’ve seen before.  So if you are in the mood for that – Romania should be on your travel list!

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Our trip to Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia – making our way through UNESCO World Heritage sites

This year for our annual ‘kids-free’ vacation Victor and I decided to go to Croatia and Montenegro.  Why these two countries you may ask?  Croatia was the only destination in Europe that we wanted to go to but have not visited yet and since a friend recommended it last year, it went high on our To Travel list.  And Montenegro?  Well,  I LOVE saying ‘Montenegro’ (have done so ever we’ve been Casino Royal, that was supposed to be set thre) and I could not think of a better excuse to say ‘Montenegro’ than to actually go there:)  And since these countries are right next door to each other (AND flying to Montenegro was several hundred dollars less than flying to Croatia) we decided to add Montenegro to our itinerary.

I usually do quick summary posts of our travels but a lot of people have been asking me about this trip so I decided to write a more detailed description of our trip and itinerary.

We LOVED these countries!  I did not know much about them and I gotta say that we were AMAZED at the beauty of these places.

We arrived to the capital of Montenegro – a small town of Podgorica.  It was pleasant – with huge statues of Transformers (protectors of the city!) everywhere.   It was occupied by the Ottomans years ago and you can still see their influence with a couple of mosques here and there.

 

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After spending a night in Podgorica we rented a car to explore the rest of Montenegro.  You may not know this, but my husband has a super human ability to find his way ANYWHERE in the world so when we were told we had to wait 30 min to get a GPS, he said that we would be fine without it.  The thing he did not know, was that they don’t believe in street or any other kinds of signs in Montenegro and the fact that English is not widely spoke outside of the capital, did not help either.  Miraculously, we only got lost twice and somehow made it to all our destination in this small but beautiful country!

We checked out an old monastery built into a rock in Ostreg:

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Then we headed to Bay of Kotor, where we spent on night in a cute town by the sea:

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before heading out to the town of Kotor, which I think was my most favorite sight of the whole trip!  The old town is a UNESCO World’s Heritage sight and is beyond words amazing.  It is a walled city and there are no cars allowed in it.  Even if cars were allowed, they would not be able to get very far because all streets are so narrow.  I absolutely LOVED exploring this town – its cobble stoned alleys, tiled roofs, beautiful churches and of course- great restaurants!  There is an old fort on the top of the mountain outside the city and we were told that it takes 1350 steps to get there.  I don’t know if anyone actually counted the steps but having made that trek I definitely believe it – it was not an easy climb!  But the view from the top – of the whole city and the Adriatic sea was worth it!2014-09-27 Kotor_19

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After spending a few days in Kotor we headed to Dubrovnik, Croatia which was only about 2 hours away.  We were thinking about taking a bus across (returning a car in Croatia was $200 extra so we dropped it off in Montenegro) but someone recommended that we could just take a taxi over the border, which we did.  We’ve crossed country borders on planes, trains, and cars driven by Victor – this was our first time ‘cabbing’ a border crossing:)

Dubrovnik was truly stunning!  We stayed in the Old Town (another UNESCO World’ Heritage Site) and it was awesome!  The view from our hotel room (the pic below) was truly spectacular!  We took a tour around the old wall and it was timed perfectly as we were able to see the city during daylight as well as at sunset.  My picture taking got a bit out of hand because every single corner looked stunning but soon I realized that I should just enjoy it so Victor and I saw on the wall and took in the beauty of the sun setting over the sea and these old city walls.

We did not have any set itenerary so we just walked all over old town and Lovrjenac Fort exploring and breathing in history.  We also found out that they were shooting Game of Thrones there (apparently most scenes from Westeros are filmed there!) so on our last morning we went looking a filming locating, hoping to be ‘discovered’ and making our small screen debut in Game of Thrones Season 5.  Discovered we were not but we did find a Lannisters flag!

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After Dubrovnik we were heading to a town of Split but at breakfast, while looking through our guide book, decided on a last minute detour and a day trip to Bosnia to a town of Mostar – another UNESCO World Heritage Site!   I did not know anything about Bosnia except for the fact that there was a civil war there.   When we went to Germany a few year ago, I remember thinking that a lot of places we were visiting were bombed and rebuilt and we were walking through history in a way.  It was even more surreal going to places like Dubrovnik and Bosnia that had civil wars during MY lifetime..   Mostar was damaged pretty badly and we saw a few buildings with bullet holes – a sad reminder of what happened there in not so distant past.  Stari Most (see below) – a symbol of Mostar was ruined during the war but they did an amazing job rebuilding it and all areas around.  It was very interesting to see how Muslim and Christian cultures co-exist (peacefully it seems!) side by side – with mosques on one side of the river and churches on the other.   It was a lovely detour and I was so glad that now Bosnia for me is associated not with the war but with this beautiful city and friendly people.

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Victor put together our itinerary and I did not know anything about Split – I thought it would be just another town on the Adriatic city.  Was I wrong!  It was unlike anything we’ve seen before.  Yes, it was a small town (at least the old town part) and yes, it was set on sea but it was unlike anything we’ve seen on this trip or before that!  The main attraction there is Diocletian Palace, which, I thought, would be similar to roman ruins we saw in Italy.  But it was completely different – it was a living part of the city so to speak – the city was built around it – with restaurants, cafes and even apartments built right in the palace walls!  On our first night there, we had dinner underneath an arch that was over 1600 years old!  And when we came across the main attraction – the Cathedral of St. Domnius and a square surrounding it, we were left simply speechless!   But outside of the wall it looks like any modern southern European city by the city – with tons of cafes, palm trees and a promenade – a mix of Marseille and Nice.  It was very interesting to see the old and the new side by side.

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Our next stop was Plitvice Lakes National Park, which was a few hours drive from Split.  This park is known for many lakes and waterfalls and while it may not sound very exciting, the pictures I saw prior to the trip, and the fact that this park was listed on one of the Top Sights to See list, made me very happy about going there.  The morning we headed to this park was cold, grey and rainy and when we got in we discovered that a lot of trails were closed due to flooding.  In addition, the fog there was so heavy that while we could HEAR waterfalls we could not see them at all.  But then fog has lifted and the view was beyond words STUNNING!  I literally ran out of words – all I could master was ‘awww’ and ‘ohhhhh’!  There were wooden paths everywhere so we walked across the lakes with waterfalls surrounding us!   It was an experience unlike anything we’ve done before!

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Our last stop on the trip was the capital of Croatia – Zagreb.  Dubrovnik and Split get a lot more praise and we did not have many expectations of Zagreb, other than the fact that it had a great food scene – which was good enough for us!  But the city surprised us – it was quaint and small (as far as capitals go) and did have a lot of charm and personality.  We spent two days exploring it, breathing in (AND eating) fresh fruit and vegetables at Dolac Market, checking out beautiful cathedrals and of course eating at many great restaurants the city had to offer.

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It was a wonderful trip and definitely exceeded our expectations.  Victor said that he liked it even better than Italy, which I disagree – after all what can be better than ITALY, but it did come pretty close.  So if you are planning a trip a bit of the beaten path, I cannot recommend Montenegro and Croatia enough!

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Taking our kids to their first overseas vacation: the good, the bad and the beautiful

If you know me then you probably know that Victor and  I love love love to travel.  And we wanted to make sure that the girls would love to travel as well.  We’ve been talking about taking Mia and Alexa on their first trip to Europe – we wanted to make sure that they would remember and appreciate the trip but did not want to wait till they were ‘too’ old to do it.  We figured that 6 is a great age to do it, April is a great month to go and Czech Republic is a great place to visit (it was on our To Visit List for a while).   As I found out during my research, there are no direct flights between NYC and Prague so since we were flying through Poland we decided to add a stop there to our trip and that’s how our itinerary (Warsaw, Krakow and Prague) was born.

Mia and Alexa were so excited about the trip – unlike their parents (who tend to pack a day prior to the departure), the girls had Packing Lists going and their toys, books and games packed up and ready to go waaaay before we got our stuff together.

I am so happy to report that the love for travel did not skip a generation and Mia and Alexa loved the trip.

There were a couple of small hiccups (Alexa getting food poisoning and Mia crying on the day of our arrival that she wanted to rest in her bed in RIDGEWOOD) but despite that the whole trip exceeded our expectations.  They did great carrying their backpacks (and looks absolutely adorable doing so), they loved trying out new foods, writing in their journals, taking pictures, walking all over the place.   We went to a few museums (which they loved) and 3 classical music performances (which got a luke-warm reception from the girls).  Lesson learned – two classical music concerts in 5 days is a bit too much for 6 year olds….Although we did make it up to them and after two concerts took them to see a Magic Flute performance at the Marionette Theater in Prague, which they loved.

I downloaded a few movies for them on the iPad as a last resort but we did not even finish watching all of them.  The girls found ways to entertain themselves – from playing ‘restaurant’ or building ‘tunnels’ at the hotels, to the games of hide-and-seek in the Old Towns of Krakow, Warsaw and Prague, to writing in their journals and inventing ‘Mia and Alexa’ language (and cracking themselves up as they spoke it).   We did watch E.T. and Mary Poppins with them while having a cake in bed on two occasions:)

I love our ‘Victor and I’ vacations but we were surprised to find out that this family trip was even more fun (in some way more than others) than our couple-only trips.  It was so great seeing the world through the girls’ eyes, and watching them experience Europe for the first time.   And traveling with them also gave us an excuse to take it a little easy, not see as many things as we normally would, take long naps during the day, sleep in more and take a few ice-cream breaks:)  We’ve made so many memories and did so many cool things such as:

Getting new toys:

and taking carriage rides:

Lots of jumping off things:

Watching street performers:

and posing with some of them:

Taking TWO overnight trains (and doing lots of monkeying around!)

And seeing lots of beautiful sights:

Making ‘dragon faces’:

And posing for photographs:

Even getting bored sometimes:)

There were games in the most majestic settings:

and maps to figure out where to go next:

there were museums:

and selfies:

 And most importantly, we’ve made AMAZING family memories and got the girls started on their path as world travelers!

And if you are planning an overseas trip with your own young kids here are few things that worked for us:

1. Don’t pack too much into each day – make sure that there is plenty of time for breaks – ice-cream, snack, hide-and-seek, etc.

2. Have a ‘lazy’ day at least once during your a trip- sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast, watch a movie in bed

3. Take turns between doing what that the kids want to do and what you want to do – e.g. we went to a classical music performance (OUR thing) and a carriage ride (THE GIRLs thing)

4. Let the kids pick a restaurant

5. Buy cameras for your kids and let them take pictures – Mia and Alexa loved capturing the trip and Victor and I loved looking through their images

6. Suggest that your kids keep journals and ask them to write what was important to them at the end of each day

7. Give the kids their weekly allowance and let them pick their own souvenirs with it.  Mia and Alexa spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to get and loved little stuffed animals they chose

Hope these tips will have your make your family trip with kids even more enjoyable!

 

 

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