continued from 4 Amazing Days in Salzburg and Vienna at Christmas On the three-hour drive from Vienna to Budapest we passed through Bratislava, Slovakia. The goal, to add another country to our list for this trip. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. The day was incredibly foggy, and quite cold, so we didn’t see much on the way, and when we arrived in Bratislava, none of us wanted to get…
Europe
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4 Amazing Days in Salzburg and Vienna at Christmas
Read moreLeaving Germany behind, we arrived in Salzburg late on Friday evening. Our lodging for the next two nights would be at the Hotel Garni Frauenschuh. After unloading the car, we settled in to watch downhill skiing. Downhill skiing is self-explanatory. We did not need to understand what the commentators were saying. Ironically, watching skiing on television prompted our kids to declare that they wanted to “try skiing again”. Sigh. The…
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Christmas Market Road Trip: 5 Wonderful Stops in Germany!
Read moreAfter renting a car in Prague, we drove three hours on the Autobahn, to the city of Nuremberg — “the little city of wood and cloth”. Speaking of the Autobahn… Contrary to popular beliefs, there are, in fact, speed limits on the Autobahn. Certainly there are sections of this 12,000km (7,200 mile) network of highways when no speed limit is defined, road construction, and city limits, will restrict the speed…
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Christmas Market Road Trip: First Stop, Prague! (via Frankfurt)
Read moreIt was 2019 when we first approached the idea of taking the kids to Europe to see the Christmas Markets. Doug had done it when he was a kid, and truly enjoyed it. Our plan was to take a river boat cruise, but once we saw the price tag, we went back to the drawing board. Shortly thereafter, 2020 happened, and the trip fell off our radar. Fast forward to…
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Iceland: A Danish “Kit-Kat”
Read morecontinued from: Bring Your Own Bun (B.Y.O.B.) and You’ve Been Dusted… On Easter Sunday we had an 11AM Ice Cave Tour scheduled from the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon car park, so we once again set off early to squeeze in a visit at Diamond Beach. The weather was looking quite ominous on this day, but as we have learned, there is no bad weather in Iceland, just poor clothing choices. There…
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Iceland: You’ve Been Dusted
Read more….continued from Bring Your Own Bun (B.Y.O.B.) We awoke early on Thursday morning to drive to our 12PM Snow Mobile Tour on Langjökull Glacier. En route we took a quick (unplanned) stop at the Kerið crater. There was a nominal charge for entry, we think, but had yet to master the conversion to ISK. In my opinion, the crater was nothing to write home about – at least in early…
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Iceland: Bring Your Own Bun (B.Y.O.B.)
Read moreWith the threat of quarantining in a foreign country behind us, we decided that this was the year to dust of our passports and travel abroad. Fortunately, we had plenty of time (inside) to research a possible destination due to the unexpected “Atmospheric River” and freezing cold temperatures (okay, it was in the 40s, but still!) that we were experiencing in Northern California. After much deliberation, we decided on Iceland…
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Copenhagen With Kids: The Rebirth Tunnel
Read morecontinued from Banana Split, Hold the Banana Before catching our flight back to California, we decided to extend our travel a few more days, and stay in Copenhagen. I was able to book us a fully furnished, high-end, designer apartments at STAY Seaport. ($250/night including taxes). To get there, from the airport, we took the Öresundståg (O-tag) to the Swedish Railways (S-tag) to the DSB, and got off at Nordhavn.…
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Mediterranean Cruise: Banana Split, Hold the Banana
Read morecontinued from “Outsiders” Tour of Rome and Venice This was the kids first cruise and they were ecstatic. Walking up the gangway, Greg kept repeating that the ship was “will-wee will-wee big”, with Roy adding that, he just “wanted to go to the bottom of it”. (yeah, no idea.) We were greeted at the entryway by Grandma and Grandpa (who were worrying that our 1PM arrival was “really pushing it”…