Over the mountains and back

Over the last three weeks, we have been on a road trip exploring central Europe. We loaded up our little Honda Fit with the three kids and all our stuff and set out.

There is way more to share than one post will take so I will break it down - stop by stop. The past three weeks have offered so many memorable experiences, with most places leaving us wishing we could stay longer. It has been an incredible summer !

One thing we tried hard to enforce as no electronics in the car. Reading, Lego and imaginations kept the kids occupied and, for the most part, got along well.

Peter learned about the highway systems. Some countries required pre-purchase of window vignettes, others had (pricey) tolls. Some had the vignette AND tolls for the tunnels.

So read on, if you want to see where we went and what we did...

Nice Nice (France)

We just got back from a week in the south of France. Hot sunny weather and lots of beaches.

Exploring the old city with its little shopping alleys, and side trips made an adventurous trip. 

One day was a trip to Cap Ferrat and it’s wild coast and vacation feel. The kids learned to snorkel and saw lots of fish. 

And twice we took the bus to Monaco. The aquarium is amazing! Worth a whole day. 

And of course, when in Monte Carlo one must go on a luxury car safari. 

A little clean fun

This past weekend, a group of us ran the Muddy Angels charity mud run. At first we thought “where’s the mud?” We soon found out. 

It was a super fun day of being silly, getting dirty and spending time with friends. 

Like it’s your birthday

April was a blur, so Peter planned a birthday party for me in May. It started with a cryptic set of instructions and a drive to an undisclosed location. 

Laser tag madness (I have some competitive friends...some military trained too!) followed by dinner and dancing at a fancy club with a bunch of friends. 

It was a great time and helped me to not feel old. I also got a fun new art medium to play with - oil pastels. 

Cobblestone and stilletoes

I’ve been busy writing my dissertation lately and have found myself needing to do some catch up in my blog writing. 

Several weeks ago, Peter and I attended an official dinner at the Belgian military barracks. Long dress was required so it was a fancy affair. The one challenge was that fancy dress means fancy heels and those do not make walking on cobblestone an easy feat. 

Turning the decade

As it happened, my 40th birthday fell both on a long weekend and right before Peter needed to be in Italy for meetings. What luck! 

We took off a little early and spent my birthday on the beach in a little town on the Sorrento peninsula called Marina dei Cantone. It was a wonderful, relaxing few days of Italian sun.

We were able to visit the ruins of Pompeii. 

Drove the Amalfi Coast 

Visited the Blue Caves in Capri (and saw the island) 

And had pizza in Naples, the place where it was invented (and home of mount Vesuvius) 

As I celebrated my 30th in Rome with Mara and Sarah, my 40th in Sorrento...I’ll be back! 

Ole, eh!

For Easter we took a trip to Seville in the south of Spain. After a cold, wet, grey winter we were looking for sun, and we found it. We  were travelling with another family so we rented a villa outside Seville and used that as our home-base for exploring Andalusia.

The villa had a pool, and like all pools in the south it was unheated. This did not deter our polar bear children. First, they dove in with wetsuits but soon it was swim suits only.

We set out the first day to see the traditional easter parades. We caught one of the smaller, earlier ones, as these go quite late at night and can be quite crowded. These parades are held by the various parishes in the city and represent mourning for Jesus before the resurrection. The highlight of the parade are the floats, one of Jesus and one of Mary, carried on the backs of selected parishioners.

After that we spent a day at the beach, a day visiting the traditional bullring in Ronda, a day riding Andalusian horses through olive groves, and a day experiencing flamenco.  It was a very Spanish and wonderfully relaxing holiday.

And yes, the Easter bunny found us.