Having had half of my family from London, I can’t remember how many times I have been here. Spending most of my teenage summer holidays with my grandparents in Shepherd’s Bush I kind of feel a close connection with England’s famous capital, known as “London, England” to my American family.
My Father was born here and my Grandma opened her home as well as her heart to anyone that came to visit. Her and the family survived the bombings of WWII and never had a bad word to say about anyone.
I was therefore very excited to show the family around the city and had tried to jam pack our itinerary in, having no idea when we would back.
“Au revoir Paris” and “Hi England” for the second time in two months started with a very early alarm call. We had checked out the EuroStar procedures at The Gare Du Nord and witnessed some huge lines through to the trains. Ours was at 8.30 am and we needed to be there 90 minutes before and we were a good one hour from the station, loaded with a stroller, kids, bags galore, we had a 5.30 am walk to the local Metro station.
TIP – Book travel early, Eurostar bookings open three months ahead and on that day we booked our tickets, we received the best prices and selected seats with a table for the kids to play easily on the journey.
Paris, France, probably on everyone’s bucket list on any tour of Europe’s favorite and must-do cities. We were all excited, especially Lara. The small list of places she wanted to go had the Eiffel Tower in second place to Pompeii, Italy. The boys were already familiar with the landmark and even recognize it today when they see it on the TV or in a picture. Kristi and I had both seen Paris before and boy oh boy we were in for a massive culture shock in the City that is known as “Europe’s Most Romantic City”.
We were also meeting up again with our wonderful traveling family friends The Lea’s from San Jose, California, who we had met in Thailand and spent time with during our Rome visit. It was their last stop before heading home after a year so their mood was somewhat mixed, we were only one step behind them. We had the UK after this and then back to the USA.
A birthday celebration for two very important people in my life
Stuttgart
Most of you that know us well will know we worked for Daimler AG, headquarters in Stuttgart Germany. For almost five years, while based in Fort Mill, South Carolina we reported for the most part to the world’s best boss, Claus P Roth. The nice thing and although the year was very different, Claus and Kristi both share the same birthday. So coming to Germany had a double whammy for us, to see Claus and his family and to spend time with them in Stuttgart, outside of Daimler. And also to plan our trip around their birthday for a double celebration. We were somewhat excited for both.
Taking one step back for a minute, Claus had called me right at the start of our trip, before we had even left the USA. He told me about a job position in Mercedes UK and it would be working for his division. It was a huge decision to forego applying and to turn down the chance of working with Claus again, but the right one at the time because of our family’s awesome experience that we just weren’t willing to miss. But, if Claus’s call had been a year later, towards the end of the trip, we would probably be living close to Milton Keynes, England by now. Pretty crazy! As much as the girls loved England, I think they are both happy to be back in New Zealand.
So the thought of going to Switzerland on our world travels brought a sense of excitement and nervousness. Of course, I wanted to see the stunning scenery of this beautiful country but, I had always been told it was an expensive place to visit. The first bit is true, the scenery is simply out of this world and coming from New Zealand where we have this type of landscape on our doorstep I can honestly say that this country famous for cheese and chocolate certainly gives the Kiwi’s a run for their money in this department.
The second bit of that statement, expensive, yes it certainly is but we did well, we cooked inside our accommodation most of the time, took sandwiches and snacks for our day trips and in the end felt we could have been in any other expensive country, it was very manageable. Glad we made it here? You bet we were. Would we go back? You bet we would. Just look at the scenery
OK, having given 15 years of our lives to a great German company, I was born in Germany and Kristi studied here where she learned fluent German, you could say we have a fondness of this lovely country.
Germany is actually a wonderfully beautiful country, we were planning to visit our wonderful ex-boss in Stuttgart, Kristi’s ex-university in Freiburg and started with a week in the stunning area of Bavaria. Viewing the photos from this blog is an absolute must, so don’t miss out in clicking on the gallery link.
Ever thought of Montenegro as a destination? We did, and what an awesome surprise it was. Only about 30 minutes drive south from Cavtat, maybe an hour from Dubrovnik is the Crotian / Montenegro border. It may take over an hour to get through the control process but within another hour you are in the majestic surroundings of the Bay ofKotor andd simply breath taking.
As Nana was with us we splurged a bit on the accommodation and made sure we were making best use of the wonderful view across the Gulf.
When we decided to travel to Croatia, in particular Dubrovnik, I didn’t have a great sense of excitement but still wanted to see the old city and see what everyone was talking about. We had heard so much about it being very crowded, I had also heard that it was steep with lots of steps and we had twins with a stroller. But yet again, our preconceived ideas of a place, taken from reading blogs, reviews and listening to others should have been best left until afterward.
What Kristi did though was dig a little deeper into where to stay and came up absolute trumps with the beautiful, quaint Cavtat. A small village sitting on the Adriatic coast and the best bit, a 30-minute ferry ride from its port, shown below, straight into Dubrovnik, mooring right in the middle of the old town. The big bonus? When we get there, Nana would once again be joining us for two great weeks.
A very short blog because we were only here less than a day, but it was so good I decided it deserved its own blog.
Only about an hours drive from where we were staying in Pompei was the beautiful and drop-dead gorgeous Amalfi coast. High on Kristi’s bucket list of places go, we had to allow at least a day to check it out but where was the best place to go?
Talking to our Air BnB host that day over a couple of glasses of Limoncello we asked him in our broken Italian where would he suggest going just for a day? In true Italian style, he put his middle finger to his thumb, put both closed fingers to his lips, kissed them and spoke one name with a smile……..Positano
At the top of Lara’s bucket list items on this trip was, No 1, anything related to Harry Potter and No 2 Pompeii. Why? She was fascinated by the history behind the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and in particular, wanted to see the man that was caught sitting on the toilet at the time.
About three hours drive south of Rome on the west coast of Italy is where we wanted to go and see this splendid ruin of a Roman city dating back to the 7th century BC. We took the direct train to Rome airport to collect our hire car and we were off to tackle the mad drivers to get on our way to Pompeii.
