It feels like a long time ago that we left Tirana for Italy on October 6, because it was. Over 100 days ago in fact. That’s how far behind I am on this blog. But I’m going to do my best to remember and capture the wonderful time we had during our first days in…
Zihuatanejo: We’re Home
We are halfway through our four weeks in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, so it is time for me to do a post about our arrival and initial impressions, no matter how many posts I still have to catch up on from our time in Europe (eight of them). Because I don’t want to fall behind on posting…
Our Last Two Weeks in Tirana
My We’re Home post from Tirana was a bit of a downer. We really didn’t love the city and it had quite a few challenges. I’m sorry to say that the second half of our time there did not get much better, though I think we coped better. We certainly explored more than our first…
Perugia: We’re Home
Our first two weeks in Perugia have been a true mix of magical and mundane. On the magical side, we’re living in a charming apartment on the top floor of a 17th century building with rustic wood beams and a stunning view. The history of Perugia goes back to the Etruscans (300 BC) and the…
Lake Life in Ohrid
I’d read great things about Lake Ohrid on the blogs of other full-time travelers, so it was a no-brainer for us to stop and spend a few days there as we made our way to Albania from Bulgaria. It definitely lived up to my high expectations. The lake itself is huge and beautiful and the…
Tirana: We’re Home?
We’re halfway through our stay in Tirana, so it is time for my customary “We’re Home” post. Unfortunately, we don’t love Tirana, so it doesn’t feel much like home, other than our wonderful Airbnb. Chad asked on our walk the other day if it was really worth it to do this post or do just…
Scoping out Skopje
One of our goals with this leg was to not do any flights other than our flight to Europe and our flight home. We knew we’d start in Sofia and end up in Rome, slowly making our way via buses, trains, and ferries. Our other constraint was a desire to be in Europe for about…
Bansko ✓
As I said in my We’re Home post, we had high expectations for Bansko and they were exceeded. That remained true throughout the remainder of our one-month stay. In many ways, our last two weeks were a lot like our first two weeks, except for our two-night trip to Plovdiv, which I wrote about in…
Pleased with Plovdiv
Our third Christmas gift of the year (following the sports/event badminton match in Vietnam and the science/attraction animal cafes in Japan) was a two-night trip to Plovdiv covering the categories of arts and overnight. Plovdiv was an obvious choice for this, having been selected by the EU as 2019’s European Capital of Culture. It has…
Sophisticated Sofia
When we decided years ago to do a long stay in the Bulgarian town of Bansko, visiting the capital city Sofia was an afterthought. We knew we’d need to enter Bulgaria through Sofia, so we might as well spend a few days checking it out. But having not loved the Romanian capital Bucharest when we…