Florence, Italy, Europe Today started out on a very relaxing note. We figured that we would take the opportunity to go to the beach while we could. We’re not going to be on the coast much more after today until maybe the Amalfi coast later in the week. We also thought we would see if the day crowd in Chiavari was any younger than the one we saw last night. It wasn’t. We went down to the beach at about…
Chiavari, Italy, Europe For our first full day in Italy, we saw A LOT! We started out by taking the metro into the center of Milan from our hotel. It was only meant to take 20 minutes, but considering we took the first metro going the wrong direction and had to turn around and go back, it ended up taking a bit longer, but not bad. It was definitely worth it when we walked out of the metro to the…
Milan, Italy, Europe Today we moved on from Amsterdam and jetted over to Milan, Italy. We had a few hours to spare this morning in the Dam so walked around and found something for lunch before heading out to the airport. It’s a perfect system in Amsterdam: tram from anywhere in the city to Centraal Station and then a direct train to the airport in about 20 minutes. You can’t really get it wrong, which is good for us! We…
Amsterdam, Holland, Europe Today we slept until about 11am. For both of us, the main effect of the Space Cake was to make us wicked tired. We felt like we had to get up an not waste our last full day in Amsterdam. Our first stop was the Van Gogh museum. It was interesting to see a lot of his work that he’s not as well known for. It is amazing to find out he only painted for 10 years…
Amsterdam, Holland, Europe Today we woke up to a rainy day for the first time on this holiday. Not bad considering we’d already spent 5 days in Scotland and The Netherlands. We walked around for 30 minutes before finding a place selling crappy umbrellas, so by that point we were soaked and the umbrellas seemed totally pointless. Regardless, we got the umbrellas and waited in line for Anne Frank’s house. We had to wait for a while, but it was…
Amsterdam, Holland, Europe Today had a well deserved easy start to it. We got to sleep late and then had nowhere to be until early afternoon. That was a very good thing for me since I hadn’t started packing yet, and Ryan’s suitcase seemed to have exploded in my flat. So we spent the morning getting ready to take off for mainland Europe stop #1: Amsterdam. We stopped in at the world famous Preacher’s Patisserie for lunch before heading to…
St. Andrews, United Kingdom, Europe Today we took a ride up to St Andrews to show Ryan one of the nicest towns in Scotland. Again, we got lucky with the weather, it was sunny and warm, but very windy up on the coast. The drive up to St Andrews was relaxing and very entertaining for me, as Ryan kept falling asleep and head-bobbing the whole time. It was hilarious. We stopped in for a drink at Ma Bells, then on…
Barr, United Kingdom, Europe Today’s motive was to find McWilliam Farm in Barr, Scotland. This was the farm that Ryan’s Great Grandfather lived on, so we thought we would try to find that. We drove for just over two hours to get to Barr, but were unable to find anything that said “McWilliam Farm” on it, so it’s tough to say if we ever did find his family’s land. Regardless, it was a nice drive and the weather ended up…
Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Europe Ryan and I had awesome weather for his first day in Edinburgh. It was about 75*F (21*C) and sunny all day, so it was probably the best start we could have hoped for. We walked all through Edinburgh stopping frequently at bars to give Ryan a taste of the pub culture of Scotland. We got up the Royal Mile to see Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, and Holyrood Park. At night we found a bar that was…