Holy hippopotamus, we’re in Africa! After nearly 8 months of world travel, we’re finally on the home stretch, and both visiting the African continent for the first time. Our plans over the 3 weeks we’re here include some time in Cape Town, a self-drive safari in Namibia to Etosha, a few days in Joburg, a 1-week private safari in the Kruger, followed (finally) by our flight home to Seattle via Dubai! We decided to stay in Cape Town at the…
After 3 excellent days of hiking in Skye, we stayed the night in Inverness (“the capitol of the Scottish Highlands”) before heading further afield to more adventures. We had the chance to check out nearby Culloden Battlefield, the site of the last battle of the Jacobite Rising. This was especially interesting for Amanda since it has become familiar from the Outlander books, but I also got something out of it. From there, we were off to Cairngorms National Park, the largest park…
Our time in Scotland was full of great hikes, and this was especially true on Isle of Skye. We spent 3 nights at a B&B close to Portree, which gave us plenty of time to explore the island’s most interesting spots. Everyone had told us Skye was really nice, and it lived up to all the hype. Amanda found a bunch of nice hikes on the very useful and detailed site, Walk Highlands. Our first hike was to the Neist…
After saying goodbye to half of the #Shamphonny crew (Steph and Johnny) in Westport, Amanda and I had 4 more nights in Ireland and Northern Ireland to explore. We first made our way to Donegal city, with a quick stop in Gortarowey Forest along the way for a hike. The hike had great views of Benbulbin mountain, as well as a centuries-old ring of rocks thought to be a family’s home. Coincidentally, our hike was on Arbor Day, which made the presence…
After what felt like far too short a visit to Prague, we traveled to Berlin for a 4 day and 5 night stay. Once again, the bus was the way to go, being cheap and fast, with wifi and coffee included in the price. We chose to stay at the Leonardo Hotel in Mitte, which is close to the former Jewish quarter, U-Bahn train system, and plenty of good restaurants. Berlin has a totally different feel than the previous ten-or-so…
After Krakow, we continued our European city tour with a visit to Wroclaw for 3 nights, and by the 3rd night I can say we actually learned how to pronounce the city’s name. We stopped there partly to break up our journey to Prague, and partly to see the city (Poland’s 4th largest) and nearby Karkonoski National Park. We were also excited to see the Jewish quarter with its synagogue, restaurants, and memorials, and (unrelated) the random dwarf statues scattered…
After a weekend in lovely Bratislava, we bused to Budapest for 4 nights in the Hungarian capitol city. This felt like somewhat of a homecoming for me since my mom’s family immigrated from Hungary to the U.S. when things started getting bad for the Jews during WWII. And while my grandmother really comes from farther east, in a town that’s now part of Ukraine, seeing the synogogues, memorials, Hebrew signage, Jewish food, etc. really made both of us feel at…
Our first order of business upon arriving in Vienna from Ljubljiana was to drink some Austrian beer, so we did just that. We ended up picking a lovely Airbnb with high ceilings and tons of space, though it wasn’t as central as we’d hoped. On the bright side, it was close to Naschmarkt which, at night, has a bunch of restaurants with outdoor seating, beer on tap, and big food menus. Though we enjoyed our beers, we didn’t stay out…
It seems everywhere we go, either Amanda or I find a terrible pun or phrase to repeat over and over. In Italy, I liked to remind my wife that “this place is ruined,” or I’d sing “That’s Amoré” in my best Italian accent. In Zagreb, the best Amanda could do was ask “Can I Zagreb you anything?” Turns out there aren’t a lot of punny phrases to make out of Croatia’s capitol city, but we have few complaints for the…
After parting ways with our friends Eric and Lishan and beautiful Dubrovnik, we spent the good part of the next day making our way north to Zadar. We decided to stay in Zadar for 3 nights to explore the city and the two nearby national parks, Krka and Plitvice Lakes. We wasted no time getting out of town to Krka in the morning to check out the waterfalls and wildlife. We had two big observations of our visit there: Spring is just about to hit….