Much like our Europe leg (aka Leg 1), we decided to take a scenic route to reach our Mexican home of Puerto Escondido. So we decided to rent a car for our first week and begin with a couple of days near the archeological site of Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan was at one time the largest city…
How We Came to Love Istanbul
Previously, on this blog, things were looking pretty bleak for us in Istanbul. It was a rough landing and a huge change from our easy life in Budapest. But don’t despair! We rallied, we adapted and we truly grew to love Istanbul. Here’s how: 1. We ate out more One of the biggest issues with…
Rough Landing in Istanbul
We didn’t face a really hard time on our journey until we arrived in Istanbul. While travel days and arrival days are always tough, coming from comfortable and easy Budapest to 5x larger Istanbul was a tough challenge to bounce back from. Looking back, that seems crazy to say – we were living our dream,…
Hungarian Rhapsodies: My “Liszt” of Things I Love about Budapest
We spent 55 wonderful nights in Budapest during the first leg of our journey – nine in early June and 46 in July/August. It was more than enough time to fall head over heels in love with the city and experience it as a second home. Here is my “Liszt” (composer pun!) of things I…
Puerto Escondido: We’re Home
Hola! After falling behind and out of the blogging habit a couple months ago, I am ready to reengage at our new home-for-the-next-7-weeks in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Of course, I missed recording many of our experiences in the time I wasn’t blogging, so my plan is to catch those up as well. By my count…
Anniversary in Paris
Soon after deciding to spend the summer in Europe, Chad and I agreed that it would be fun to celebrate our anniversary in Paris. Eight years ago we celebrated our 8th anniversary in Paris, so I thought this could be the start of a new tradition – every 8th anniversary in Paris (see you in…
FAQ – What Have We Learned Halfway through our Europe Leg?
A few days ago, we hit the halfway point of our 116 days in Europe and today we’re at the halfway point of our six-week stay in Budapest, so it is time again to take stock of what we’ve learned. We’re at a very different point than when I wrote about what we learned after…
Starý Smokovec and the High Tatras
At the end of June, Chad and I spent three wonderful days hiking in the High Tatras mountains. We planned the stop based on seeing that Slovakia is between Poland and Hungary, doing a little research on best of Slovakia, and wanting to get some time away from cities knowing we’d be spending the rest…
Wroclaw: Gnome is Where the Heart Is
A sort of strange confluence of events/interests (explanation below) brought us to Wroclaw and I’m so glad they did. It is an adorable, quirky, friendly, fun city and we had a fantastic week. Here are some of my favorite things about Wroclaw: The Gnomes! Or are they dwarves? What is the difference between gnomes and…
Budapest: We’re Home!
At long last (37 days to be exact) we have arrived at our home base in Budapest! We’ll be here for six wonderful, relaxing, mostly travel-free weeks. I’m so excited to be here that I’ve skipped writing about three destinations we visited – Berlin, Wroclaw and the High Tatras mountains – to rhapsodize about finally…