Category: general news

The first stop on our cruise was actually not in Greece but in Split, Croatia.  Why, you ask?  Because it’s about half way between Greece and Italy.  I created a Google Map of our entire trip (flights and cruise), but you can see the route for our cruise ship here (in green): View Europe Trip…

We spent the morning getting everything packed back up and cleaning up the condo.  We were done by about 10:45 and then went to San Samuele, the same place we were dropped off, to get our reserved water taxi (Rosemary arranged that as well).  The water taxi took us up to the port where a…

Unfortunately, the day we had the most planned in Venice was also the day that it rained.  We started out with an 11:00 am walking tour of the city (in the rain) that started at the Royal Gardens (Giardinetti Reali) near Piazza San Marco.  Our guide walked us around the Piazza, explaining its history.  There…

Most of this day was spent traveling from Paris to Venice, Italy.  We spent the morning packing and cleaning the condo and had everything ready by the gate at 10:00, when a van from the same service that dropped us off was supposed to pick us up.  We had a little scare as the van…

Our excess from the night before had its toll – we didn’t leave the condo this day until about 1:00 pm.  The kids and almost everyone else slept in late (I don’t sleep much, especially on trips, but even I slept in until about 9 am).  With our ambitions significantly reduced for our last day…

This was our first full day in Paris. With the late night activity of the kids we got a slightly later start than I think we wanted, leaving the condo around 11:00 am. This, however, is how travel works when you have young kids. Gary and Rosemary visited Paris a number of years earlier (with…

Once we boarded our 8 hour flight and were settled in, I napped a little, as did Toren, but Debi has found that she can’t sleep when Toren is on her lap, so she didn’t sleep at all.  As a result, when we arrived she was exhausted.  We had a little scare once we arrived…

Debi’s parents are quite frugal, but they do spend money on one particular luxury – travel.  Every few years, Debi’s mother, Rosemary, plans a large trip for the entire family.  Rosemary’s countless hours of meticulous planning finally came to fruition starting on July 24th, when we left Tampa and flew to Detroit, then to Paris,…