Ireland….again!!!! And awesome….again! We woke up and headed to the airport to pick up Grandaddy Z. Once we got him settled in – there was no rest for the weary, we turned him right around and headed out to the Guinness Factory. Where else would you go on your first day in Ireland! We sampled…

London was amazing, short lived but amazing. Seeing that we only had 24 hours, we decided on the red double decker tour bus – cliche’ of course – but well worth the money. We saw every sight in London, while the kiddos napped in our laps, but it was well worth the money. Definitely want…

Planned Itinerary – Sleeper train from Munich to Paris to London Input one canceled Paris sleeper train via an impromptu French strike and… Actual Itinerary – Sleeper train (sort of…) from Munich to Koln to Brussels, Belgium to London And the story goes like this….. We turned in our car, checked our luggage, and then…

It was an early morning for us. We loaded the car up and headed out to the gardens in Salzburg after a good breakfast at a bakery.  From there we headed to the Alps towards Halstatt.  My grandparents have long told me about this place and we wanted to show Nona and the kids. They…

We arrived in Salzburg that morning and checked into our hotel.  We started walking around the town and decided that lunch would be a good idea for our little ones. They get “hangry”. This is hungry-angry, a term coined by aunt Jamie.  We walked everywhere and ended up finding the small place that we had dinner…

We got up early, had a full breakfast, and hit the streets of Rothenberg. We meandered through the old streets and outside of the old village walls of the town. We showed Nona the “man hole” to the big great door to one of the main gates and walked around the old castle gardens.  Mike…

We arrived in Munich that morning from Venice via the night train. It is a great way to cover a long distance without sacrificing a day of sightseeing. TIP: Bring dry shampoo-there are not showers on the train.  We got our rental car: ALL HAIL HERTZ!!! and were off to Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. This…

Well this was an interesting day to say the least. Although we experienced more rain and flooding, we were being held back from exploring Venice by no means. Actually, the rain came and went and it ended up being a fairly decent day for exploring. Sites for Nona included the Dogge’s Palace, a gondola ride…

The trains gave us a little bit of a fit this morning, but all is well that ends well. After getting rerouted….a few times…and then finally making our way through Parma, we ended up on a first class express train to Venice and were finally riding in style. Nona and Mommy with Mimosas and the…

The Five Lands. Well, we actually did it. We conquered the 5 towns of Cinque Terre. The odds were against us with a crazy storm nipping at our heals the whole way BUT we saw all five. Nona even braved the steps of Corniglia. The trails were closed due to land slides but we did…

We woke up early and had the now famous breakfast that we constantly rave about at Il Canto del Sole. Nona was very impressed, more food than you can imagine and I swear I would have drank the 4th cappuccino had they brought it. And I know they would have gave me 20 if I…

Well, the title pretty much sums it up. How is this for Italian tourism on speed and a dime! We woke up in Tuscany, said goodbye to our friends at Il Canto del Sole and headed back to Firenze to drop off the rental car. A quick taxi ride to the train station had us…