We took the Flixbus from Zagreb to Ljubljana. It was fast (2 hours!), cheap (€18 for the two of us!), and had wifi! In all honesty, we had no idea what to expect from this town. We had no idea how to pronounce the name (it’s lee-yoob-lee-yanna) and we had not really heard much about Slovenia. I think this is probably the best way to be introduced to a place because you have no expectations. We loved it! We got…
Holy crap, guys. Istria is the BOMB! It is the northwestern region of Croatia, heavily influenced by Italy, and home of the largest truffle ever discovered. We spent four nights there, and we were sad when we had to leave. After a long day at Plitvice and driving, we arrived in Rovinj and settled into our apartment. Our host, Claudia, gave us a ton of restaurant suggestions, both local and throughout Istria. We told her we wanted to eat truffles…
We were pretty psyched to head to Dubrovnik, the city that King’s Landing from Game of Thrones is based on. We weren’t disappointed. Dubrovnik is a beautiful city surrounded by beautiful water and mountains. Dubrovnik is located in a part of Croatia that is separated from the rest of Croatia by Bosnia and Herzegovina. We opted to take a bus down there, and we ended up getting to stop in B&H for ten minutes (cool!). After our four and a…
We had been recommended to visit Puglia while in Italy, which is the region that is the “heel of the boot”. We had two nights after leaving Sicily before we needed to be in Ancona for our ferry to Croatia, so we decided we’d visit Bari. Bari is on the coast and houses the bones of Saint Nicholas. We made the long drive from Sicily (it took us about 8 hours with stops) and settled into our apartment in the…
After our time in Roma, we picked up our sporty little rental car and headed down to Sorrento. Sorrento is known for limoncello, but also being in proximity to Naples, has very good pizza. We spent two nights there and enjoyed the food and the sights. The pizza was fantastic (we recommend Franco), the pasta was tasty, and we were introduced to the second best pastry in the world (next to cannoli, of course): sfogliatelle (“svoy-a-tella”), which has layers and…
Before we even flew to New Zealand, we were required to have an outbound flight due to visa rules. We ended up having to do this at 4:30am before our flight to Auckland, so made a quick decision that we’d come back to Australia after our time in NZ and explore Sydney since Shawn’s never been. We arrived midday and checked into our Airbnb with our lovely hosts, Jessica & Ben and their amazing dog, Zoey, in the super hip neighborhood…
After our night at Abel Tasman, we said goodbye to the seemingly unreal blue water and headed down the west coast. Our goal was to make it to just before Franz Josef Glacier that evening. Along the way, we stopped at the Pancake Rocks, which was interesting rock formations that “look like stacks of pancakes”, but really they just look sorta cool. The most entertaining part of this little adventure was watching this one lady dart around as a photo ninja…
After a wild night at Hobbiton, we headed over to Waitomo to see the glowworm caves. We booked a tour that was a bit less touristy and went to some different, supposedly more unique caves. We were not disappointed. The first cave had tons of glowworms! Shawn and I have seen them before, but never on this level. We first walked through the cave in total darkness, then we got on a raft and our guide paddled us very quietly…
After our time at Lake St. Clair, we headed south towards Mt. Field National Park. Our first afternoon, we drove out to this bizarre area in Western Tasmania to a town called Strathgordon. We hadn’t had much wifi and hadn’t done much research, so we thought it would just be beautiful and cool. Turns out, there isn’t really much out there. Back in the 60s, a dam was built, which turned the once-small Lake Pedder into a giant lake. The…
Sorry for the delay, people. There has been a serious lack of sufficient wifi to post, and I actually wrote this post on dodgy wifi nearly two weeks ago and wasn’t able to post until now. My birthday was in early January and Shawn decided we were going to Yarra Valley to celebrate. Yarra Valley is wine country just outside of Melbourne. I have to be honest here – the place looks just like California. But it was so beautiful and felt…