Because we had a few days in Vienna, we had time for a day trip to a surrounding area. And Bratislava was on the top of my list! There aren’t many places where there are multiple world capitals that close together, and it was an easy hour long train ride to get there. The train station isn’t the most convenient to the city center, so we also took a bus to get closer.
It’s not a huge city. Slovakia only has about five million people across the whole country, with about 730,000 of those in the Bratislava metro area. Old Town is particularly compact, and that’s where most of the tourist sites are. We felt pretty content with a day in Bratislava, although I think you could extend it if there were more museums you were interested in. If I was going back to Slovakia, I would focus my attention on the national parks in the eastern side, which look gorgeous.
If you’re picturing Bratislava, it’s likely that you’re imagining the castle on the hill. We started our day there! It had a lot of exhibits. We started in the basement section, which had more of the history as well as the foundation of the castle. From there, we headed up, where there were additional exhibits on military history and artwork. We were starting to reach our limit of museums for the day, though, and we wanted to see more of the city, so we went back down the hill and into the city center.
Bratislava was the farthest east we got during our trip. As we headed back west, we had the chance to start to draw parallels, from the castle we saw in Luxembourg to Bratislava and to the fortresses that we found on hills in Salzburg, Vaduz, and Lyon. And while we all know about the history that shaped this region in the 20th century, we got a chance to see multiple exhibits across multiple countries about the Romans and much earlier eras of history that replicated across the continent.
It also had a lot of charming cafés, some nice street art in the form of statues, and the types of winding alleyways that seem like they’re straight out of a fairy tale. While the main area was a bit crowded with tourists, it was easy enough to find a quiet side street as well.
All in all, Bratislava was a charming and convenient day trip from Vienna, and definitely worth a look if you’re in the region. It’s not the most exciting capital city, but it was pleasant to spend some time in. I’m always interested in new regions and new places when I travel, so it was exciting to get a taste of Slovakia!
I have been to Austria before this summer, technically. When I visited family in Germany, we walked across the border and went to a café and had a pastry. I’ve counted it as my 7th country visited, right between Germany and Finland. But I’ve always known that I wanted to come back and explore, because Austria has a lot to offer!
From Paris, Sam and I flew to Vienna. We originally wanted to try the night train but it sold out too quickly. It was a bit of a strange time to be in Vienna – I hadn’t realized it when we’d booked, but it was meant to be the same dates that Taylor Swift was in town. At first I was glad we had found a reasonably priced hotel but worried everything would be crowded. Then, when the concert was cancelled due to the foiled terrorism threat, it morphed into a different worry. Huge shout out to the Austrian authorities for figuring that out and preventing the attack!
This isn’t my best picture but it does show one of the many Taylor Swift related discounts that the shopkeepers in Vienna offered!
It didn’t impact our trip, really. It meant a few areas were more crowded, and instead of tourists taking photos, it was sad would-be concert goers exchanging wristbands and singing in the streets. The stores were offering discounts to anyone who presented a concert ticket, usually at 22% as a tie-in to Taylor Swift. It was sobering to think that something tragic could have happened while we were there, and a little ironic for it to happen immediately after we left the massive international event that is the Olympics.
Anyway. On to Vienna! This was one of our more chill stops – most of what I wanted was to experience café culture and explore some of the neighborhoods. After so many busy day trips out of Luxembourg and the excitement of the Olympics, these were a few days to rest and enjoy being in a beautiful city before we went back to traversing through Central Europe by train and switching hotels every night.
The amount of pictures I’ve taken of ceiling domes is probably excessive but look at it!
Vienna is known for its museums – so much so that there’s actually a whole district devoted to them, called MuseumsQuartier. If I’ve learned anything from living in DC, it’s that it’s all too easy to get museum’d out, so we picked the one we were most interested in and started there – the Museum of Austrian Contemporary History, which covers their history starting in 1918. The museum was housed in the Hofburg in Heldenplatz, which was a gorgeous building!
In love with these haunting pictures of abandoned checkpoints rendered obsolete by Schengen and Free Movement
Austria has a bit of a complex relationship with its recent history, as, I suppose, any German-speaking country in Europe might. This was a theme throughout our trip. When we were buying our ticket, the woman actually asked us if we realized this museum wouldn’t have any history from before 1918, seemingly confused why we would want to go to this one. It was fascinating – Austria seems to want to have a dual narrative of WW2, in which they were both completely innocent of any actions taken by the Nazi regime and also that they were never conquered as a nation. The two ideas seem to be at odds, yet both are present throughout their telling of history.
I’ve heard travelers debate at length about whether Vienna is boring. I think there is a sense that everything functions as it should, that all its edges have been worn away and replaced by public parks and efficient transit and more cultural institutions than you could ever hope to see in a single visit, and that it makes Vienna somehow less interesting than places that are less organized.
I love this federal government building tbh
Was Vienna my favorite place we went to? No, but I liked it a lot. And if you told me I had to pick somewhere to live in Europe for a few years, Vienna would be among my top choices. There’s something very pleasant about being somewhere where things just sort of…. work. I also had an excellent time in the rest of Austria (more on this soon!) and would love to return at some point to see more.
I have loved the Olympics for as long as I can remember. It’s what drove me to try figure skating and gymnastics as a child (both unsuccessfully, I might add). I love everything about it – learning about the random sports that I didn’t know existed, the international camaraderie, the inspiring stories of overcoming the odds to make it to the world stage. The memory of the Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremonies will forever be seared into my brain. I’ve always wanted to go to experience it live, and when I found out it would be in Paris, one of my all time favorite cities, in 2024, I booked the tickets immediately!
I went through the official hospitality website for our tickets, where I selected a package that included the hotel stay and two events, along with transportation around the city. From there, I added on two more events for the time frame that we were looking at being in Paris, so we had a total of four events across three days and two nights. We minimized the time we spent in Paris that wasn’t directly related to the Olympics, although it turned out that’s what everyone was doing and it was actually really pleasant to be in the city doing the tourist activities during the time we did have!
When we weren’t at Olympic events, we did a lot of sightseeing! We went to Musée d’Orsay to get in some culture, went up to Sacre Coeur, and wandered through as much of the city as we could within the time we had. We even managed to meet up with a few friends for meals. Sam had never been to Paris before beyond spending the night in a horrible hotel near the train station after one of his connections was cancelled, so I was excited for the chance to show him how amazing the city can be.
Plus, it was all decked out for the Olympics! I loved all the signs featuring their mascot reminding guests to recycle, and the rings and logo almost everywhere you looked. The train stations had signage on the floor leading you to the lines that you needed to take to get to the venues. It was also cool to get a glimpse of some of the “behind the scenes” components – I loved the “official timekeeper” buses we passed right next to the Seine.
Our first event was Track and Field. I truly could not have picked a better event to start at. First of all, we had an awesome lineup. We had seven events: Men’s 400m semi-final, Women’s Hammer Throw final, Women’s 400m Hurdles semi-final, Men’s Long Jump final, Men’s 1500m Final, Women’s 3000m Steeplechase final, and Women’s 200m final. The night started out with a few medal ceremonies, which was cool but we couldn’t see much from the angle of our seats, and then the competition started!
Beyond the actual events that we saw, though, Track and Field is one of those events that feels like the quintessential Olympic experience. In the US, at least, it always makes primetime coverage, so it’s one that I grew up watching, and it’s also very clear who the winners and losers are. There’s not much background you need to understand it. We saw the races that my friends and family were talking about the next day. We saw Olympic records being set and races that were decided by photo finish. It was incredible.
Also, there’s something about seeing all of these sports live that lets you appreciate just what it takes to do them. Yes, I know they jump really freaking far in the long jump, but seeing the setup in person emphasizes it so much better than on TV. The hammer throw, too – watching how far those women could throw across the field was amazing. The athleticism on display was so spectacular across the board!
Before they start their attempt, the climbers all get a chance to take a look at the course and map it out in their heads, which was so fun to watch
The next morning, we headed out to an entirely different part of the city to go to our next event: Sport Climbing! Climbing was introduced as an Olympic sport in Tokyo in 2021, along with surfing and skateboarding. Of the three, I thought surfing was cool (although it was held in French Tahiti on the other side of the world for these Olympics), skateboarding was kind of lame (although they did a much better job with the venue in Paris, what I saw on TV was a lot more exciting this time around), and climbing was cooler than I expected it to be.
In Tokyo, they had it as one combined event, with three scores evenly weighted: Bouldering, which is how many short “problems” you can solve in a given time frame; Lead, which is how far you can get up a very tough course before falling; and Speed, which is a set course that climbers get up as fast as they can. Speed climbing is kind of a different entity, and there isn’t much overlap between that and the types of climbers who excel at the other two components, so they did a smart thing and separated those out in Paris. Our set of events was the Men’s Lead semi-final and the Women’s Speed final, which also included the quarterfinals and semifinals because they go just that fast.
Climbing was a great spectator sport. While the physicality is important, there’s also an element of strategy and problem solving on display, and watching the climbers back-to-back meant we could watch how different athletes approached the various sections. Also, the stakes are high – they only get one attempt, and a fall off the wall means they’re done.
And then, when we got to speed climbing… I saw it once before on TV, at the Tokyo games, but holy shit. It is unreal. That photo above this paragraph is the final times of the gold medal run for the women. Watching them scramble up that wall in under seven seconds seemed impossible. If one finger or toe missed one hold, they were out of the race.
Also, these were objectively our best seats. Setting aside that I know that from their category, their location, and their price point, we got another clue…. I ended up sitting right behind someone famous! Specifically, Chris Sharma, who I have been informed is rock climbing royalty.
Did I know who he was, when he sat in front of me? Of course not. I think climbing is cool but I don’t follow it regularly. As a matter of fact, when he first sat down, he was a little late and so I had held out a sliver of hope that maybe the seat in front of me would just be open only to have that hope dashed. And he’s reasonably tall. Which is not a trait you want in the person sitting in front of you in a crowd.
But my slight annoyance quickly turned into intrigue when a woman with a microphone came and pulled him out of the crowd to do an interview in the middle of the session. As soon as there was a break in the action, people from all over the arena were coming over to shake his hand, and get photos with him, and have him sign autographs. They were telling him how much he had inspired them. Finally, I turned to the guy on the other side of me, who clearly knew things about climbing, and I asked him.
“So, is this guy a big deal, in the climbing world?” I said.
“Yeah, he’s actually… he’s kind of the biggest deal?” he replied.
Later, when I sent a photo to a friend of mine who does follow climbing, she confirmed his name (which I’d figured out from Google but did want to verify) and told me that he was “the Brad Pitt of climbing.” Even if I couldn’t fully appreciate his level of celebrity in the moment, it was really cool to feel as though we were present for something important. To learn more about the history of what I was watching, one hastily searched famous rock climber at a time.
From there, we headed to our next event, which was Diving!
The diving arena looks extremely close to the stadium, except it’s actually a 40 minute walk away. Don’t ask how I know this.
I love watching diving on TV, but I found it a little harder to follow in real life. I’ve realized that I don’t actually know that much about what makes it good, and I really like seeing the slow motion shots and where they draw the angles over them – which, surprise, don’t feature in the live prelims of the event. It was cool to see an aquatic event, and helped add to the diversity of the types of athletic events that we saw, but I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I could have if I’d known a bit more about the sport.
From there, we headed back into the city to check out the Clubhouse 24 in Palais de Tokyo! We had access through the hospitality package, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I thought it was really cool. When we came in, they gave us a welcome snack and drink, and then we got to explore their various Olympics exhibits. We even got to meet our new fav, the Paris 2024 mascot!
Obsessed with the hat mascotYep, those are the anti-sex beds
Definitely worth the visit, especially if you’re an Olympic nerd like me. The food court was pretty good as well, and we grabbed dinner there. They had lots of viewing areas set up as well, but we had a long day ahead of us the next day and opted to head back to the hotel instead.
Our final event of the trip was Rhythmic Gymnastics! We went to two rounds of the Individual All-Around Qualifying. Note – only women do Rhythmic Gymnastics, and there are individual and team events.
This one hasn’t taken off as much in the US, mostly because we’re not historically very competitive at it. Of all the Olympic sports, this has always felt the most like dance to me, so I’ve always loved it. At the very least, I know what to look for, even if I don’t know the names of all the elements and the difficulty levels. And they’ve started letting them use more fun music, which makes it a lot more entertaining.
We saw them do two rounds, the ball and the hoop. They also have to compete with the ribbons and the clubs, which was the other session later in the day. Sam said he would have been happy with only one round, but I felt as though I was back in one of the dance competitions in my childhood and absolutely could have kept watching!
But alas, our time at the Olympics had come to an end. We had a few more hours to do visit a few more tourist sites, and then it was back to the airport to head to our next destination.
I had the most amazing time at the Olympics. It was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences of my life, and I am so beyond grateful that I got to experience it in all its glory in Paris. It was a true bucket list item for me and it managed to live up to all my expectations. Next up, Sam and I continue the journey with a flight to Vienna and then a journey back to Paris by train and the occasional bus!
In three days, Sam and I went to the adjacent regions of three different countries as day trips from Luxembourg. It’s the kind of thing that makes me marvel at both the distances and the transportation networks across Europe – coming from the Western US, you can’t even have a similar experience in US states, let alone different countries. It was a great start to the trip and I would recommend any of these destinations, but part of why I keep up this website is to reflect on my own experiences, so here goes.
Third Place: Metz, France
Full disclosure, we weren’t even planning on going to Metz because I’d made this exact same calculation when I was planning this trip based on travel blogs. But the universe had other plans, and instead of the nice, 2.5 hour nonstop train ride from Paris to Luxembourg, we had a stop in Metz and then another stop in Thionville and then a bus ride, and we wanted to have dinner with Sam’s friend in Paris. So we did a stopover in Metz. I was glad to get the chance to explore it a bit before we headed up to Luxembourg City. Perhaps ranking it last is unfair of me, because we only gave it about a half day, which was the least amount of time of any of these places, but I’m also not entirely sure what we would have done with the other half day.
Pros: It’s very convenient, only an hour by transit even if there’s no rail and you have to do a bus bridge. Cheaper than Luxembourg. French food, and in particular, French bread. Charming, small Old Town with a few cool old churches and castles.
Second Place: Namur, Belgium
Namur was my top choice for a day trip, because I really wanted to visit the French part of Belgium – when Alan and I went to Antwerp, we stayed pretty north, and I was interested in going to a new region. I compared Namur, Liège, and Dinant, and Namur had by far the best train connections to Luxembourg. Still, I am going to ding this one in the rankings because of how far it was. Two hours by train was the scheduled time, and it ended up taking us closer to three to get there because our train broke down and we had to get off at the platform and wait for the next one.
My phone informs me that our unintended transfer point was Libramont
Still, despite that strange start to the morning, I really enjoyed Namur. We were there during some sort of food truck festival, which made for a fun lunch.
The best thing we did was take the cable car up to the Citadel. The views were amazing, we had a lovely walk down the hill, and we even found the golden turtle that functions as a de facto symbol of the city, which was something I had wanted to see! We also headed to the Félicien Rops museum, who was billed as Belgium’s most controversial painter. After seeing the room in the museum entitled “Eroticism and Satanism,” I can see why.
Pros: I think the Wallonia region is the most culturally interesting of the three day trips, especially if you’ve traveled to the Flanders region of Belgium in the past. The linguistic division of Belgium is something that we talked about in French class, and the way that my travel has worked out, it was easier to come to Namur from Luxembourg than it was to visit Wallonia when I was in Antwerp and Ghent. There were some solid museum options and we definitely could have spent more time up in the area with the citadel, as they had built that area up more for tourists.
First Place: Trier, Germany
Trier wins because of its Roman ruins and because of its proximity to Luxembourg City. Only an hour away, and it is seriously dense with options of what to do. We started at their symbol of the city, the Porta Nigra, which was an old Roman gate. Fun fact, part of the reason it was preserved so well is because a Greek monk started living in it to get away from society. We also made it to the Roman baths, which were over a larger site with a subterranean portion, and there was an amphitheater nearby that we could have gone to if we hadn’t wanted to eat dinner before our train back.
We also headed to the Karl Marx house, which was a well done museum that read like a cautionary tale – what if you really like philosophy and you think that workers should have a few rights, and then a bunch of politicians decide to take your life’s work and use it to justify a lot of terrible things, like genocide or imprisoning people in Siberia? Pretty rough, if you ask me.
We also had a chance to explore some of the city center, which was beautiful and had a few plaques to commemorate history that Sam had to translate for me, including a very old pharmacy. Sam also found us a potato restaurant for dinner, which for me is the peak German food experience!
Pros: Between the short distance and the German rail system, this was definitely the easiest, logistically. I also think it’s the best option for history lovers, between the Roman ruins and all the other historical sites spread out across the city. Trier has the oldest bridge in Germany, dating back to the 2nd century, and somehow it’s still both standing and in use.
Regardless, all three were excellent and I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong here. We went every direction from Luxembourg City and found something cool – north to Vianden, east to Trier, south to Metz, and west to Namur (well, northwest, but we’ll still count it). It sits really well at the crossroads of a lot of interesting places, and it was the perfect way to start out this trip. Once we were done in Luxembourg, we headed back to Paris to start the main event: the Olympics!
For the summer of 2024, most of my travel plans revolved around one thing: the Paris Olympics! I got an ad for their hospitality packages last year and was immediately sold. I’ve always loved the Olympics, and it has been on my bucket list to go experience one in person. This year, it was being hosted in one of my favorite cities in the world. Sam decided to join me and we planned out a two week trip around it. We started in Luxembourg!
That might sound random, but Luxembourg usually has easy train connections to Paris, and it’s one of the countries that I hadn’t been to yet in Europe. Unfortunately the theme of this trip seemed to be construction work on the trains that we needed to take, so it wasn’t quite as straightforward as I planned, but it ended up being a great place to start our journey. While it’s on the expensive side, it is clean, beautiful, and central to a lot of cool day trips in this region of Europe. We were well acquainted with their train station by the end of the trip!
Once we arrived in Luxembourg and dropped off our bags, we headed into the city! I wanted to start along the walls of the Old City, where I knew we could see the most iconic view of Luxembourg. We walked along to the Casemates and then headed into the city to find a museum and dinner.
We headed to the Natural History and Art Museum, which gave us a nice overview of Luxembourg’s art and culture. Most of the exhibits about Luxembourg were focused on what is unique about it vs. what it gets from the other cultures around it, since it sits at a crossroads between several larger powers. I’ve seen it put in the regional “BeNeLux” category with Belgium and the Netherlands, and it does feel different from both of them – richer, certainly, and it has the sense of being the textbook example of a European fairy tale city. This feeling only intensified when we left the capital city.
One of the days, we spent the morning traveling north to Vianden! Fun fact about Luxembourg, the public transit is entirely free within the country. When you’re traveling to one of the nearby towns just outside of the border, it’s subsidized so that you’re only paying for the portion once you leave Luxembourg. It made it super easy for us to get on a train and then a bus to Vianden.
From the minute you arrive, you can see Vianden Castle on the hill. It’s a pretty magnificent sight! The bus, of course, dropped us off all the way on the other side of town, and I was a little worried it was going to be steep hike up to the entrance, but the walk through the town is a gradual uphill the whole way. It was nice getting a chance to see the town as we made our way to the castle. I would have liked to have breakfast in Vianden, but there was only one café that was open and it seemed to be mostly in a hotel, so we had opted for a breakfast in the Luxembourg train station instead.
Once we got to the top of the hill, Vianden Castle was really cool. They had a great section on the history of the castle, including the restoration efforts, which were only started in the 1960s after the castle had stood in ruins for decades. There were also some nice views of the countryside from the castle grounds!
In my opinion, Luxembourg is underrated. It is a bit pricier than its neighbors, but it was so well-situated within the region, and everything we saw there felt like a quintessential, perfect fairy tale location. There isn’t a ton to do in Luxembourg City itself, but exploring more of the country and the surrounding areas meant we easily filled three and a half days in the area and could have spent more time there. Next up, the day trips we took to France, Germany, and Belgium!
I love Iceland. I went a couple years ago with Sam, and we road tripped around the Ring Road and had a fantastic time. We snorkeled between continents and, in one of my top life experiences, we went hiking on a glacier for my birthday. So when my parents said they also wanted to go, I was happy to go again – my only request was that we went in the summer so that we could be there for the peak season for puffins!
One of the biggest highlights of the trip was seeing puffins in the wild!
The start to the trip was a bit rocky, due to a layover from hell that got me to Iceland significantly later than I was supposed to after a night on the floor in JFK, but when I landed at Reykjavik at around 11:30 pm, I got my first taste of an Icelandic summer with endless nights! It looked like mid morning when I stepped off the plane. It was unreal, and I never got used to it for the entire time I was there.
For the first day, we stayed based in Reykjavik and visited the sites of the Golden Circle! The three main ones, Gullfoss, Geysir, and Thingvellir National Park, can get pretty busy, but it really is a great intro to the country. I think everyone should go beyond those areas, but as a first day, it was a great start to the trip! It also didn’t take us the whole day so we had a little time to walk around Reykjavik in the evening.
There were two main differences between the itinerary of this trip vs. my first one to Iceland. This time, we were going clockwise around the island, opposite of my first trip. And second, we were adding on the Westfjords! They’re more remote, with roads that are a less accessible (read: somewhat harrowing, especially when it’s foggy out) and they aren’t many people who live there. For the first day, we stopped at the Hellulaug Hot Pots (cool, but very windy and it wasn’t super fun to change into a swimsuit in the parking lot), the Gardar BA 64 Shipwreck (one of the cooler things we saw, the scale of it was amazing!) and the Raudisandur Beach (beautiful landscape but maybe not worth the road it took to get there).
The second day had some incredible scenery! We started at the Latrabjarg Cliffs, which are allegedly one of the best places to see puffins. We did see a puffin, but literally one. I still think it was a worthwhile stop but as a more rugged version of the Cliffs of Moher, and there were lots of other seabirds for the people out there who are interested in birding. Our other stop was the Dynjandi Waterfall, which was gorgeous! One of my favorite stops on the trip – it was one of the more spectacular waterfalls that I’ve seen in Iceland, and because it’s so remote, it doesn’t feel nearly as busy with tourists. My mom and I climbed most of the way to the top.
We had one more full day of driving to Akureyri, followed by a more chill day nearby at Lake Myvatn. There are a ton of things to do in and around this area, so we visited Godafoss, the lava fields, and some of the other geothermal areas. This is the area that reminds me most of Yellowstone. It was so warm while we were in Lake Myvatn that my mom ended up needing to buy a T-shirt! She had only packed sweaters and warmer clothes, which did come in handy on the south side of the island.
The next day started with a detour to Dettifoss, which is a great waterfall and definitely worth the drive out, but it was quickly overshadowed by Borgarfjordur Eystri! This is a famous puffin nesting area and it really delivered. We saw so many puffins and were able to get close to them without disturbing them. Puffins are one of my all time favorite animals, so it was such an amazing experience to just watch them in the wild.
We had wound our way through most of the Eastern Fjords, and so our next day started at the Jökulsarlon Lagoon! The last time I was there, I had thought the boat tours looked fun, but Sam and I didn’t have time with the glacier tour and our busiest driving day of the trip to get to our Airbnb. So this time I insisted we sign up for a zodiac boat tour. When we showed up, they got us bundled into these warm jumpsuits, which are mostly to protect us if we fell in but were also great because it was quite chilly out on the water. The glacier lagoon was absolutely incredible and a true highlight of the trip. After floating past icebergs, we got to get so close to the actual glacier, and we even saw a seal! On the drive from the lagoon to Vik, we also saw an arctic fox, so it was a great day for animal spotting.
From Vik, we didn’t go back to Reykjavik. It’s weirdly far from the airport, so instead I found us an Airbnb in Keflavik. On the way, we stopped at Seljalandsfoss, which is one of my favorite waterfalls in Iceland! I think it’s so amazing to be able to walk behind it. We did see some people getting very close to the edge of the water in a typical bold tourist move.
Our last stop was the Blue Lagoon! I hadn’t gone with Sam, as he wasn’t interested, but I knew I wanted to go. This was one of those where I was worried it would be too touristy. And don’t get me wrong, there were a ton of people while we were there. But somehow, it didn’t feel too crowded, and it was so relaxing. Such a good way to end the trip!
Overall, my second time in Iceland was incredible. It’s one of my favorite places I’ve ever traveled, and I would recommend it to anyone! After doing both directions of the Ring Road, I think I liked the pacing of the clockwise version slightly better, but both of those are amazing ways to do the trip and there’s no shortage of natural beauty and cool landscapes across Iceland.
Traveling over Thanksgiving is maybe the best travel idea I’ve ever had? I am such a fan of leaving the US and exploring other places during this time of year. Colin and Alan joined me once more and this year, we headed to Portugal! Who needs pumpkin pie when you can have pasteis de nata?
We spent the first half of the week in Lisbon. Colin and I arrived in the morning and tried to beat jet lag by storing our luggage and wandering around. The luggage storage was a time – I had euros, but not enough coins for what we needed, so I asked a local store for change. While they couldn’t give me change, they could make a copy of something for a few cents and I could get coins that way, so one of my main souvenirs from the trip was a black and white photocopy of my drivers license.
Yes, Lisbon has just as many hills as everyone says. The train station was about 20 minutes from our Airbnb. In classic “grandparent telling you a story” fashion, it was indeed all uphill. We would pick different areas each day and wander around, so I can’t speak much to specific recommendations, but it was such a fun city. We were also there during the World Cup, so we went and watched some of the matches in local bars.
I only had two goals in Portugal, and the first was to visit Peña Palace! I’ve seen so many gorgeous pictures of it, and I love a good castle. It was a pretty easy day trip out to Sintra. We took a quick train ride and then joined the herd of tourists to the bus, which took us up a horrifying series of hills. It didn’t feel nearly as crowded by the time we’d bought our tickets and walked up yet another hill to the palace, and I loved the mosaics and tile throughout. The castle also had some very odd ceramics and a room full of elk antlers. Royalty, they’re… not like us at all.
From Lisbon, it’s an easy trip up to Porto. We split it up a bit, both on the way there and the way back. On the way there, we went to Coimbra, a university town, which was delightful. I would have spent more time there if we’d had it. There was a cute main street, and the campus was… where else but at the top of a hill? We had lunch here and continued on, but it might have been worth doing a full day trip there from Lisbon.
On the way back, our stop was Aviero, which I found to be a bit disappointing. I think all the photos are of the same small section. Yep, that’s my obligatory snapshot below. It has a canal running through it, and theoretically you can do boat tours, but most of the area around the canal was blocked off with a giant mall. I was hoping for something like Ljubljana, but it was much smaller and it seemed like there was less to do.
Porto itself was a delight. I loved our time there, even though the first full day it rained on us very hard. We took a walking tour and then spent the time between the tour and dinner in the Airbnb bathroom, blowdrying our shoes and socks. Also, fun fact, when Colin and I said we live in Utah, the tour guide recognized what that was because of dinosaurs, which is the single best reason anyone has for knowing about the state I live in.
The center of Porto is along the river, which was how they shipped the wine. The first night, we ate along the river, which is maybe more expensive and maybe a bit touristy, but also, the views are stunning?
My favorite street art in Porto
Remember I said I had two goals for Portugal? The second was to go to wine country! The major region in Portugal is Douro Valley. Douro Valley is primarily known for port, although they do have non-dessert wines there as well. Basically, port was created because England demanded wine as part of some sort of agreement, and it was going bad when they shipped it to England, so they started fortifying it so that it could make the trek.
We took a great day trip, which took us to a few different wineries and gave us incredible views of the entire valley. I wouldn’t say I’m usually a big fan of port, but the offerings they had were delicious, and we also got to try different olive oils and honeys as a part of the tour. Also, did you know it was possible to make rosé port? That one was my favorite one.
All in all, an amazing week! I see why everyone raves about Portugal. Both of its major cities are so cool, with lots of interesting neighborhoods to explore. Outside of planning the wine tour, which we booked the week of after waiting to see how the weather played out, and booking Airbnbs in Lisbon and Porto, we didn’t really plan anything in advance, and it was so easy to get around on the trains and explore different areas of the cities. It was a week of good pastries and good wine, and what more can you ask for on Thanksgiving?
The best flight option I could find from Salt Lake to Europe went through Amsterdam. I figured I’d hop back up from the Balkans to give myself a few days nearby, so I ended up spending the last three days of my trip exploring somewhere new! I didn’t have anything specific I wanted to see, but I wanted to eat waffles and chocolate and soak up the Belgian atmosphere. My friend Alan was able to join as well and it was so fun to see a bit of Belgium with no real agenda.
I based myself in Antwerp, since it was the northernmost city that was a slightly shorter trip from Amsterdam. From the first glimpse of the train station, it was gorgeous. I think it was my favorite of the three places I spent time in while I was in Belgium!
In classic fashion, I didn’t consider local holidays when I was planning this, so our first full day in Antwerp was some sort of national holiday. Sort of like when I forgot that Easter existed when Megan and I were in Italy – it just doesn’t occur to me, a person who barely celebrates holidays. Regardless, what that meant was that most of the places in Antwerp were closed. We figured it would be the same if we went to any of the other nearby towns, so we just went bar hopping in Antwerp. Let’s just say…. I’ve heavily sampled Belgian beer.
Somehow, we made it to Ghent the next morning, if a bit hungover (okay, more than a bit). Ghent was abuzz with a festival, which was really fun. There was live music and tents and all the streets were shut down, so we just wandered around and soaked it all in. Plus, both Alan and I got Belgian waffles covered in chocolate, which was really one of my main bucket list items in Belgium!
The last day, we headed to Brussels! We met up with one of Alan’s friends from study abroad, who fed us a delicious lunch and then showed us around. It was a whirlwind tour, so I’ll definitely have to come back some day, but I did see the statue and the Grand Place and a very cool park before I had to go find my bus back up to Amsterdam so I could fly home. It was such an amazing trip, and I felt so lucky to get another summer in Europe!
I absolutely loved the day I spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina – it was one of my highlights out of this whole month of traveling. Mostar is SO cool.
After the drive from Dubrovnik, we started with a quick tour of the city. We walked through the Old City and then headed to the most famous part of Mostar: Stari Most! Also known as the Old Bridge. Fun fact, the original Stari Most was built in 1566, but it was destroyed during the conflict in the 1990s. The restoration work was finished in 2004, and it’s a UNESCO site now. Sometimes locals jump off the bridge, which seems wildly unsafe but also would be cool to watch. Once we were on the other side, our guide turned us loose with an instruction on when to get back to the bus.
I headed over to the Koski Mehmed Pasha Mosque, which advertised that it had the best views of the bridge. I had to borrow a long skirt because I was wearing shorts and, well, it is still a working mosque. It was a beautiful building, and climbing the minaret did have amazing views of all of Mostar!
Mostar represents pretty much my only souvenir purchase of the trip. The markets were selling these absolutely gorgeous Bosnian coffee sets. It’s similar to a Turkish coffee set – I hesitate to say they’re the same, because I honestly don’t know and haven’t been to Turkey/tried the coffee there, but it has a similar shape. I tried some Bosnian coffee at a café for lunch along with a cheese burek! It was delicious.
We had a stop at the Kravice waterfalls on the way back. It was amazing to hike down to the waterfalls, only to find a thriving area where locals were hanging out. I went swimming in the waterfalls and had a hard cider, and it was such a perfect afternoon.
Other side note – I was really pleased that this tour took us through the entirety of the Bosnian coastline, such that it is. Beyond being a really pretty drive, I also have looked at the geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina for ages and wondered about that tiny little piece of its borders that touch the Adriatic.
I am really looking forward to making it back to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo has had a fascinating history, and from the little I’ve seen of this country, it’s a magical place.
It is absolutely wild to me that you can do day trips to two completely different countries from Dubrovnik. Of course I signed up for both – while I’m very interested in exploring both inland Montenegro and inland Bosnia & Herzegovina, I couldn’t resist a small taste of both of them when I was right there!
Montenegro is a tiny jewel of a country. I hadn’t realized how recently it became independent – 2006! Which is so wildly recent. Something fun that I had learned is that both Montenegro and Kosovo de facto use the euro as their currency, despite not being formally in the Eurozone. I think Montenegro would rather like to join but to do so, they would actually need to create their own currency and circulate that before they could go back to using the euro officially. Not sure where this rule came from but it sounds like a fascinating application of bureaucracy.
The Bay of Kotor is probably its top tourist attraction, and it is absolutely stunning. We stopped in Perast first and spent some free time there to explore. Then we boarded a boat, stopping on a tiny island with a beautiful church and finally cruising down the fjord to the town of Kotor. Most of my time was spent in the Old Town, which had winding narrow alleys to explore. Some of the city walls are still up, and I was able to walk along those as well. There were some nice restaurants tucked into the plazas, and I had a lovely late lunch of risotto and wine and sat out of the sun for a bit. It was a hot day, so I was glad I had picked an activity along the water for most of it!
I’d love to make it back to the eastern part of Montenegro someday so that I can do some hiking in their beautiful national parks and potentially spend a little time in the capital, Podgorica, but I had a great time along their coast!
