With different itineraries, we parted ways with our traveling companions for the day. The first stop on the list for us was Musée de Cluny, the National Museum of the Middle Ages. I have always been particularly fascinated by that time period and wanted to see the famous tapestry housed at this museum, the Lady and the Unicorn, that I had studied and fallen in love with in an art history class in college.
Read MoreOur day started with what had become our Paris norm: flaky goodness of croissants. Adding some excitement to the mix, Dustin added a ham and cheese croissant, whereas I stuck with my you-can’t-go-wrong choices of croissant au beurre and pain au chocolat. Hey, if you can’t have chocolate for breakfast on vacation, when can you? (Never is not an option!).
Read MoreAfter long days of walking around Paris, our feet were sore and some blisters were starting to rear their ugly heads. So, we planned our fourth day perfectly: a bike tour of Versailles to give our feet a rest and use some other muscles for the day!
Read MoreWhile we are pretty active travelers, we are not over-active travelers; we know when to go-go-go and when to go slow! With a full week in Paris staying at one place, it was a perfect excuse to explore the city at just the right pace. What that meant is we whiled away some mornings over croissants, coffee, and conversation. Bonus: the day was able to warm up a little before we ventured out. Our April in Paris was a tad on the nippy side!
Read MoreIf you like wandering without a goal in mind, Paris is a great city for absentminded discoveries. Our first full day in the city can be summed up in that sentence. Along the way we explored a huge section of the city on foot, wandered much of the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery, lunched in the oldest planned square in the city at Place des Vosges, which dates to the 17th century, and dined casually along the Seine.
Read MoreWe talked about going to France for several years before we actually took this trip. When we finally booked it, we weighed whether to spend a handful of days in Paris and then head out to the French countryside or to just stick with Paris. I can’t think of another trip we have taken where we stayed in one city the entire week but we knew Paris had so much to offer and didn’t want to feel like we were rushing to jet off to the next spot. We easily filled our 7 days in Paris and didn’t even get to every spot on our list! Don’t worry, we feel other regions of France deserve the same dedicated focus, so we will be back to France at some point!
Read MoreI have always loved Ireland for its beauty, history, and accents. In the 1870s my great-great grandmother and grandfather emigrated (likely separately) from County Cork, Ireland, to San Francisco, California, where they married. So, for my first trip abroad, it’s no wonder that Ireland topped my list.
Read MoreI feel as if I’m probably in the minority here, but I love noticing interesting geology in the places I travel. Knowing a little about how an area has formed helps me to put its current appearance into perspective and allows me to better appreciate the uniqueness of every place I travel.
Iceland is packed with wonderful natural features not seen in most other places in the world and especially not found right next to each other. Check it out!
Read MoreAs always it is important to do your homework when traveling to ensure that you are not inadvertently contributing to practices that negatively impact the planet. Then you can make informed decisions. In Iceland some of the items to be aware of include shark, whale, and to a lesser extent Puffin. Below we explain more about each of these animals. For our general blog on food + drink in Iceland, check out more here.
Read MoreTen days in Iceland is just enough to make it around the country’s famous Ring Road. This overview goes over the basics of our trip.
Read MoreWe booked our flight on Icelandair in September 2017, about 9 months before our June-July 2018 trip. We planned to arrive a little before midnight and spend two nights in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik. But, as we’ve experienced before, the risk of booking a flight so far in advance is that the airlines may shift their schedules. A few months before our trip, we learned that our flight had shifted to being a red-eye, getting us in the following morning at 6:30am local time. We contacted our Airbnb hosts, who had no problem with the delayed check-in.
Read MoreFrom Reykjavik we headed toward our first destination of the day, Þingvellir National Park. The most densely packed tourist spots on our trip were during this day. While we didn’t complete the so-called Golden Circle just outside of Reykjavik (ours was more of a Golden Half-Circle), the stops along the way are very popular for individuals and tour buses taking day trips from Reykjavik. Getting photos without inadvertent photo bombers was ranged from quite tricky to entirely impossible.
Read MoreAfter a quick run to Hvolsvöllur for some basic groceries at Krónan grocery store, we headed to the shore to catch a ferry from Landeyjahöfn to Heimaey, the only inhabited island of Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).
Read MoreWaving goodbye to the cute cottage that was our temporary home and to the Icelandic sheep that dotted the fields and played in the roads, we prepared ourselves for a long day of driving with a number of stops along the way.
Read MoreWe were poised to love Seyðisfjörður, population 700, from the moment we saw it from high up on the mountain road. The town is quaint, walkable, and has the best setting on the water with the ring of peaks surrounding it.
Read MoreWe left the eastern fjords and headed northwest to the second largest town in Iceland - Akureyri.
The entire drive for the day was scheduled to take about 5 1/2 hours and we found many amazing places to stop along the way.
Read MoreIn trying to figure out some activities for our two full days in Akureyri, we discovered that we could take a ferry to Grímsey Island, an island about 25 miles north of the mainland and the only part of Iceland officially (though just barely) within the Arctic Circle.
Read MoreLeaving Akureyri, we enjoyed our drive along the western side of the country, weaving in and out on the Ring Road and wished we had more time to check out the western fjords. Of course, that’s what any good trip does: leave you wanting more.
Read MoreTraveling to Iceland? Here are a few things we think might help.
Read MoreFinding food while traveling is usually a very simple activity. Depending on your preferences this might be tricky so read this blog to help plan ahead.
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