Rome, Italy, June 13

I had hoped this blog post would have two fun things to share, but thanks to a tour that didn't happen last night, I only have one. The tour that didn't happen was a night time golf cart tour of Rome to see all everything lit up at night. It would stop at all the major attractions so we get get photographs. I very much wanted a night time photo of the Colosseum and Trevi Fountain, but I guess we just have to go with the flow! Two of the golf carts pulled up, there were 6 of us left and we were told the other would be here in 5 minutes to get us. We waited 45 minutes and came back to the apartment. We are getting a full refund at least.

Now for the tour that did happen! Pompeii!! We got up early and caught the high speed train to Naples, from there we got on a VERY crowded train to Pompeii. The train was so crowded we had to push our way on and we had to stand for the 30 minute ride there. Totally worth it!

We had a guided tour from Askos. The tour guide was an archeologist who had done excavation work in Pompeii. He was a gold mine of information. This was one guided tour that was very much worth it. We would never have learned what we did if we had done the self guided tour. The first part was from the main square of Pompeii where we had a great view of Mt. Vesuvious. Here he gave us the timeline of the eruption in 79 A.D. - which must have been quite a shock to the citizens of Pompeii since he said they would have just thought it was any old mountain at that time. They had no idea they were living so close to an active volcano.

We then went on to the streets of Pompeii where we learned how they lived. We saw the "frozen" people. It is amazing they were able to create casts of some of these people, even down to their facial expressions. I have a picture below of one of them. They can tell she was a female, probably a servant from the sash around her waist. The way her hands were positioned in front of her mouth, they know that she probably died from suffocation - which was how most of the people died. Suffocation or the extremely hot, gaseous explosions that hit the town.

Once our tour was over we were free to look around on our own, so we wandered a little, then went to the cafe for lunch and a view of the part of the city that is still unexcaated. The guide said they still have about 1/3 of the city to excavate. We then took our hot, sweaty and tired selves back to the train station to go back to Rome. It was one of those days, we will truly remember the rest of our lives.

Since we leave Rome tomorrow, I will give my final thoughts on Rome. This city had many things I've always wanted to see, including my #1 bucket item, the Colosseum. It is a must visit just to see all the sites and the history. The Vatican, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica were wonderful. Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum were mind blowing from a history perspective. Jami's mother was here for a week and we did fun things with her. We had great food and wine, including one of my favorite dishes I've had so far on our travels (ravioli with black truffle). Our airbnb was very nice and comfortable. However, we are both very ready to leave Rome and so far this is the only big city we have been to in the last 4 months, that we say we have no desire to return to. It's a must see, but now that I've seen it, I will be happy to move on to other parts of Italy.

Tomorrow we take the train the Florence, where we will be for just two nights, then we are renting a car and driving to Montepulciano. We are really looking forward to taking in beautiful Tuscany.

Rome, Italy, June 10

Ciao! WOW - Rome does not disappoint with things to see. Literally, ancient ruins are almost everywhere you look! We were in an Uber on our way home from the Colosseum tour. We were in the middle of modern buildings and then I noticed we were driving past an ancient arch and columns. They were obviously trying to preserve them by propping them up as much as they could.

Our first major attraction to see was one of my big bucket list items - the Colosseum. We got up early, had breakfast near the Colosseum and walked to meet our tour group in the middle of a thunderstorm. I was thinking that it wasn't ideal conditions to see one of the main things I wanted to see on this trip, but at least I'm seeing it! Luckily, the storm broke and the rain stopped minutes before our tour took off to head to the Colosseum.

I love to write and talk, but words do not describe how amazing it was for me to be standing in the Colosseum. I became fascinated with it and Roman history about 30 years ago when I read a series of Christian fiction books about the persecution of Christians and putting Christians in the Arena with lions. My fascination grew with one of my all time favorite movies- Gladiator. Now...we did find out on this tour that that isn't exactly the true history of the Colosseum...and neither was Gladiator. While it's true during that time Christianity was illegal and many were killed for it, most of it was actually not done inside the Colosseum itself. I still got a chill when we were standing on the arena floor and I looked around and imagined what happened here and the incredible history.

Our tour went on from the Colosseum to Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, where we saw Circus Maximus and the ruins of many ancient temples. The awe I felt that day can't really be described. We got back to our apartment tired, sweaty, but happy messes!

The next day Jami's mother came to spend a week with us. We did several fun things with her. We spent her first day doing the Hop On Hop Off bus, as a way for her to see the city and all the main tourist sites so she could decide what she wanted to explore more. We went to Castel St Angelo, which was interesting and had great views of the Tiber River and St. Peter's Basilica.

We had a guided tour of the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. That was another WOW day! Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside the Sistine Chapel, but I could have stared at the ceiling for much longer! St. Peter's Basilica was gorgeous! It was another "whoa" moment for me standing in front of Peter's tomb. The guide said he is actually far beneath the floor, but being so close to where one of the Apostles is buried was kind of mind blowing for me.

Jami's Mom went home today and we have a few more fun things planned before we leave Rome on Sunday. Tomorrow we are taking the train for a day trip and tour of Pompeii. I'm very excited for that. Friday night we are doing a night time golf cart tour of all the major monuments, so we can see them lit up at night.

I'll write up my final thoughts on Rome on my next post. Check out the pictures below for some of the highlights of our last 10 days. I'll let Jami post most of the photos from our Vatican day since he took his big camera and I didn't.

London, England, May 31

Today is our last day in London and we've had a fun but very hot week. We have been here for record breaking heat. While that made for some very sweaty tours it also made sleeping and being in our unconditioned apartment pretty uncomfortable. Luckily, the apartment had plenty of fans. Unfortunately, the apartment is over a restaurant that had outdoor seating which made it loud if we opened the living room windows and a bar out back, which made it loud with the bedroom windows opened at night. It's all part of the experience, but I am not too upset about leaving tomorrow.

The first tour we did this week was a guided tour of Shakespeare's Globe. The original theater, built in 1599 was destroyed by fire in 1613. It was rebuilt in 1614, but was closed by the Puritans in 1642 and demolished in 1644. It was rebuilt to look like the original and opened to the public in 1997. They did a good job, because when you are inside the theater it does feel like you are in a medieval building. They were rehearsing for a play while we were there, so that was fun to watch also. While the building was not original, it was very interesting to hear stories from the original time period. Also noteworthy is when it reopened in 1997, Queen Victoria II visited to watch a theater performance. The photo below of me is me sitting in the exact spot the Queen sat during her visit. That was pretty cool!

We also did a guided tour of UK Parliament. The building is quite impressive from the outside, but inside was "amazeballs" to quote Jami, lol. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in most of the building, so we don't have too many pictures. I am so glad we did the guided tour. We got to hear many interesting stories, go places not only the self-guided tour could not go, but also where the King himself is not allowed to go.

On Friday night we did a Jack the Ripper walking tour. Before the tour, we had to have dinner at Jack the Chipper for some good fish and chips. It just seemed like the thing the do and when we got to the tour meeting spot, we saw others that were in the restaurant with us, so we weren't the only ones who had this genious idea ;) The tour was good, but since the murders occured in 1888 things have changed since then. There were a few places that had original buildings, but most of the places where the victims were found were now apartment complexes and even on shopping center. We did see the street they believed he lived on and the The Ten Belles, the bar that two of the victims that were seen drinking right before they were murdered. Everything in the downstairs of that bar is original and exactly the way it was in 1888.

Today is packing day. We have gotten into a pretty good routine for packing days, travel days and the first day in a new place. These are my least favorite days-especially travel day-but the anticipation of a new place with new and amazing things to see if worth it. So, I better sign off and get to packing!

London, England, May 22

Hello from London!

First, I need to give my final thoughts on Ambleside, England in the Lake District. It was the perfect place to relax, look at amazing views and recover from my chest infection. My cough is still lingering, but is a little better every day. Fingers crossed, I can stay healthy for a long time now! I needed to add a few pictures of the hike we took to a waterfall on our last day. The hike was a challenge for me since my cardio is shot after this illness, but I think it was good for me physically. I know it was good for me mentally!

Okay...now onto London. We had a fun train ride into town and our Airbnb is cute. We are staying in the Notting Hill area this time and are loving being in a more quiet, residential part of town. It is so much nicer to walk around this neighborhood than it was when we were here in February and were in Trafalgar Square. Although, that part of the city was a great place for our first time since it was so much more central and walkable to most everything we wanted to see then. Now, we are using the subway a lot, but that's not a problem.

Tuesday was quite the day for me! We went to the Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio tour. I am such a fan of the Harry Potter books and movies. I have read the books multiple times and rewatch all the movies every year--well, almost every year. I usually start them at Thanksgiving and watch them all from the beginning. I was definitely in geek out mode at the studio! It was such a great experience and so fun. I took a LOT of pictures and have a few down below. I loved seeing all the sets and costumes. We even got Butterbeer with our lunch :) The studio was about an hour outside of London, but we took a high speed train that got us to the closest town in just 20 minutes. From there we hopped onto the shuttle bus that took us to the studio. It was incredibly done and it was just the best day.

Thursday we toured the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels. That was really great, also. The history there is so interesting. We even got to see the spot where Anne Boleyn was beheaded. The Crown Jewels were very sparkly ;) Unfortunately, no photos were allowed there, but I have a few of the Tower grounds.

Those have been the most interesting things we've done this week. The other days we have just been wandering the streets of London, taking a stroll along the Thames, eating and drinking in more cool pubs. I did a little shopping because I've realized I did not pack well for summer time. I'm enjoying not walking around the city with a coat and earmuffs, like I did in February. It's getting pretty toasty outside and we are trying to adjust to the lack of a/c in the apartment (and a lot of other buildings here). Oh well..that is the experience we signed up for! We wanted to learn the culture and how people live in different parts of the world.

We have more fun things planned next week! We will just continue on living our best lives :)

Ambleside, England, May 11

We are in the lovely town of Ambleside in the Lake District in Northern England. Besides me having a chest infection and needing to rest a lot, we are loving it here. Luckily, I got an antibiotic and if I have to rest, this is the place to do it. I won't get to do all the hiking I had planned on, but it is so beautiful here and we have an amazing view from our Airbnb that I am okay with it. We always intended this to be a low key, restful two weeks in between cities, so it worked out.

On the way from Bayeux to Mont St. Michel we stopped at the German WW2 cemetery. It was quite the contrast from the American and British cemeteries. Everything was dark bronze or black, giving it a very somber feel. It was a pretty setting, but a very different feeling. There were not too many people there either, compared to the others. I had to keep reminding myself of the sign at the entrance of the cemetery, where it said not all Germans who fought in the war believed in what the Nazi regime stood for. I have a couple pictures below from the cemetery.

One of the things I was really looking forward to was spending the night at Mont St. Michel, which is a medieval Abbey. They started construction on it in 708 AD and in 966 AD Benedictine monks settled there. So...it is OLD ;) It is it's own little island, when the tide is in, it is completely surrounded by water. You can only access it by walking across a long bridge (or taking a shuttle from the parking area). The narrow cobblestone streets just wind up and up until you reach the Abbey at the very top. It has shops and restaurants and amazing views. The hotel we stayed in was very old...well I guess that goes without saying since everything there is extremely old. It was a warm, humid day when we were there and we couldn't imagine staying there in the summer with no air conditioning. The only drawback to our visit was we had to get up early to take the first shuttle out so that we could catch our train to London. Check out the pictures of Mont St. Michel below.

After getting up at the crack of dawn, we drove 3 hours back to Paris and Gare du Nord train station, where we returned our rental car. After making it through security and passport control, we headed to the Eurostar lounge, since Jami upgraded us to first class. I gotta love that guy :). Our first train experience was great, although how could it not with a nice meal and all the champagne we wanted! It was so nice to sit back, look out the window at the passing scenery. It wasn't a big deal at all when were traveling under the English Channel. It just got dark out the windows for about 40 minutes. After we got to London, we had to change train stations to take another train to Manchester, England where we spent the night before renting our car and driving to the Lake District.

The Lake District is beautiful. It is a national park and this little town we are in is almost fairytale like. The stone buildings and slate roofs everywhere are so enchanting. We can see the steeple of this very old church from our Airbnb. I have a picture of the church below. It is a much more casual atmosphere around here, since it's known for it's walking and hiking trails. It is also one of the most dog friendly towns we've been to. Every other person you see has a dog on a leash. They are in all the pubs and restaurants too. It is also fun to be back to pub culture! French cafe's were nice, but pub's are more our style we have learned. Also...I love not having to think about a language barrier. It's a nice break before we head to Italy next month- where I know almost next to nothing of that language.

So, that is the update on our life right now. We are enjoying nature, peace and relaxation in one of the most beautiful areas we have seen. We are here the rest of this week and then we head back to London for two weeks. We have lots of fun things planned there, so the blog should be a little more exciting! I am doing my best to get fully recovered so I can do London justice!!

Bayeux, France, April 29

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated the blog. I haven't forgotten about it - I've just been sick :(. I have had a recurring upper respiratory issue and also had a flu-like bug our last week in Paris. So--I didn't get all the Paris photos I wanted, but am so glad we were there for 3 weeks, so I got to see everything I really wanted to.

I'll start with my Paris recap. Paris was so beautiful and I couldn't believe I was actually there seeing all the sites I've dreamed about for - well, for my entire life. I never got tired of seeing the Eiffel Tower. It is much prettier and striking in real life and I was always kind of mesmerized by it. I was glad we stayed so close to it and could see it every day!

We quickly got into our routine of sightseeing, going to the street market on Rue Cler and getting what we needed for dinner that night, then we had our daily stop at the corner Boulangerie/Patisserie where we got a baguette and something sweet. It is a good thing we walked so many steps while we were there, otherwise my waistline would be in serious trouble! The bread, cheese and pastries were all heavenly!

My biggest takeaway from Paris is that Parisians are not rude. They are also not overly friendly, but it's just their culture. They are a formal culture and you MUST start every interaction with "Bonjour". We saw the difference in how people were treated when they did and did not start out with it and our expderience was much nicer. It's not just with tourists though. By staying in a residential area of town, we saw many interactions between the Parisians themselves. They also start every single interaction with "Bonjour,Monsieur (or Madame). If you have the key phrases down, "Bonjour, Merci, S'il vous plait" you will be treated well. Since it's obvious the minute we opened our mouths we were English speaking, they usually started talking to us in French. Granted, some had much better English than others, but even for those with limited English we made it through with broken French, broken English and lots of pointing :).

Paris was a wonderful adventure for us and definitely got us out of our comfort zone!

We rented a car in Paris and drove to Bayeux, France in the Normandy region. We were very happy to get out of the busy city, too! Bayeux is a small, medieval town and has been great to explore. This was Jami's #1 thing on his list of what he thinks will be his best experience of our trip. He has been excited to visit all of the D-day sites here in Normandy. We took a fantastic day tour and saw all of the major sites on our first day here. Our tour guide was so knowledgeable and we had the best day. It was also a very sobering and moving day, when we stood on the beaches and listened to everything that happened on June 6, 1944,

We drove to Caen to visit their large WW2 museum, then to some of the other beaches. We also enjoyed driving through these small French villages and the countryside is just beautiful here. Jami has great pictures from those beaches and will have a better explanation than me, so make sure to read Jami's Corner for his thoughts on Normandy!

We have two more nights in France before we head back to England. I've enjoyed France a lot, but we are both really looking forward to getting back to an English speaking country. While we've managed just fine, it does get tiring managing the language barrier.

Now, hopefully I can finally stop coughing and can enjoy our train trip from Paris to London in a few days!

Paris, April 11

Bonjour! We are into our second week in Paris and I am loving this city so much! I love walking around, looking at the architecture and seeing all the history and famous sights and monuments. I love strolling along the Seine with Jami and people watching. Tourists and locals all come sit out along the riverbank to enjoy the nice weather we have had this last week.

Monday, we had a 12 hour long tour to the champagne region. Our guide picked us up at our apartment at 7:45am and dropped us off at 8:00pm. It was definitely a full day! Along with 5 other Americans, we toured two champagne houses, Dom Caudron and Taittinger. We both preferred Dom Caudron champagne and brought a few bottles back with us to enjoy later. One thing that amazed me about Dom Caudron is that the care and picking of the grapes is all done by hand. No machines are used at all. The harvesting is also done all in one weeks time, where pickers come from all over the world to work in the vineyards. The caves at Taittinger were very interesting. They were built in the 4th century by the Romans for mining limestone. Later, they were used by the citizens of Reims to live in during the wars. They even had school for the children during that time. They are now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Walking through the caves was a much better experience than their champagne, if I'm being honest. We also had a 3 course lunch at a 4 star hotel in Reims and walked through the Notre Dame of Reims. Our guide said many say it is more beautiful than Notre Dame in Paris. I will let you know after we go inside Notre Dame here in Paris, but the Reims cathedral was so beautiful it will be hard to beat. Our favorite part of the day was the tasting our guide had for us. He held it outside, alongside a vineyard. It was so nice standing there in the beautiful countryside and drinking champagne.

Tuesday, we walked to the Hotel des Invalides. It was built in the 4th century as a retirement home and hospital for war veterans. Today, it is a museum of the French military history and wars. It also the resting place of notable French war heroes. I have a picture below of Napoleon's tomb.

That evening we took a dinner cruise along the Seine on le Calife. Jami spoiled me and booked the Premiere experience, where we had the best spot for views on the boat and enjoyed a bottle of champagne throughout the evening. The food was great and it was so much fun eating and drinking while enjoying the monuments of Paris lit up at night. The boat captain timed the tour so that we went past the Eiffel Tower as it starts to twinkle at the top of the hour.

Wednesday, I gave into my claustrophia and let Jami do the Catacombs tour by himself. He had really been looking forward to it and was very happy to go on it's reopening day. It had been closed for renovations for 6 months and he was hoping it would open while we were here. Make sure to check out Jami's Corner for photos and his thoughts on that experience. Wednesday evening we did the closing tour of the Louvre. It was nice because the crowds die down at that time of day and our tour guide made sure we saw all the "big" exhibits. We will need to go back sometime because 3 hours does not even begin to be enough time to see everything. We did walk by the active crime scene from the heist at the Louvre last October. Our guide told us all about how they did it.It was a crazy plot that actually worked. Some of the participants have been found and arrested, but the mastermind and the jewels are still at large. The tour ended at the Mona Lisa, which was a highlight for me.

Friday was a day I had been very excited for. We went to la Galerie Dior. Most of you probably do not know that growing up I wanted to work in fashion. I've been obsessed with clothes and fashion since grade school. I wanted a subscription to Vogue when I was in the 6th grade! I even studied Fashion Merchandising in college, but ended up changing majors. The career path did not work out, but my obsession is still going strong. So, going to Dior was special for me. The exhibit is done beautifully and I was in awe of seeing his dresses in person. They had so much of his processes, notes and fabric samples along with his design sketches displayed also. They also had his office intact from how he left it. We then made our way over to the Dior store, where I wanted to buy my retirement present to myself. I'd been saving awhile for this. Unfortunately, they can't ship to the US, so I will have to wait until closer to time to come home to buy my handbag since there is not room enough in my suitcase for it. I did buy this cute bucket hat I'd had my eye on for awhile though ;) I could have gone crazy, but I really wanted the hat and will patiently wait for the handbag.

I have some photos of this week below. Stay tuned - we have more adventures and sights to see next week!

Paris, France April 5

Bonjour! Ever since high school French class, I have dreamed of coming to Paris, walking past the Eiffel Tower and eating amazing food. It took me 40 years to do it, but I'm finally here, doing all that and more.

It is hard to believe that last Sunday when I updated this blog, I was sitting in Dingle, Ireland in our spacious Airbnb with the amazing view. Today, I am sitting in a very small, but cute, Airbnb in Paris. Our only view from the apartment is a little courtyard, but when we walk out onto the sidewalk, all we have to do is turn to the left and we see the top of the Eiffel Tower.

This week has been an adventure in itself. We said goodbye to Dingle Tuesday and flew to Paris Wednesday. Unfortunately, we had a small hitch when we got here and discovered our luggage was in London. We would have had to wait two days for a courier to deliver it to us, so we opted to make the trek back to the airport to get it ourselves on Thursday.

I will admit I was a nervous about coming here. We have had transition periods in each country where it takes us a few days to get accustomed to the grocery stores and our neighborhoods. Even restaurants have been different. Now, we have all that plus a language barrier to deal with.

It's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be! My small French vocabulary gets us through most situations and so far, everywhere we have gone and interacted, they all knew English. Bonjour is the magic word! If you start with that and then attempt French, they will usually just start talking back in English. Still, I always try to do a little and Bonjour and Merci Beaucoup are musts here.

One street over from us is Rue Cler that has an amazing street market and shops. I am now comfortable walking along and getting food for the day. I braved the Fromagerie and bought some wonderful cheeses, then we went to the Caviste and got recommendations for the best wine to go with what we picked up for dinner. The food we have gotten is so fresh and flavorful. Fruits without pesticides and chemicals!

Yesterday, we took the hop on hop off boat and that was a great way to off ee some of the places we want to come back and spend time photographing. I see the Eiffel Tower every single day and it really does mesmerize me. I love looking at it.

I have a few pictures below from our boat tour yesterday. We have lots of fun things planned for this upcoming week! Tomorrow we go to Reims with a tour for a day in Champagne country. Tuesday we are doing a dinner river boat cruise. Wednesday Jami goes to the Catacombs - I'm extremely claustrophobic, so I'm letting him do that one alone. Then we head to the Louvre for a night tour. Friday we go to the Dior Gallery and I plan on doing on some shopping for my retirement present to myself!! Woo hoo!

Stay tuned for more of our adventures in Paris!!

Dingle Final Thoughts, March 29

It's almost time to say goodbye to Dingle (and Ireland). I had really been looking forward to our three weeks here, but the reality has been so much better than I imagined.

I don't have any new pictures for this week, since we spent our time relaxing, revisiting places we wanted to see again and restaurants we had to go back to, like the Fish Box, for the world's best calamari! It's also been a very rainy week which discouraged outdoor activities, but as soon as the weather cleared, we were out wandering around. Tomorrow night is our last night in Dingle and we have reservations at a highly recommended seafood restaurant that I'm excited to try. I have had so much seafood this last month, but it's one of my favorites and I have to get as much as I can when it's so fresh and amazing. Seriously, though, I won't need to take Omega 3 supplements for quite awhile, lol!!

We are going to have so many wonderful memories to look back from our three weeks here. Three weeks is a lot of time to spend in such a small town, but we always looked at these weeks as the place we can relax, enjoy beautiful scenery and settle into being travellers. We have been so busy since we retired getting ready for this new stage of life that this is the first chance we've had to fully decompress from our jobs and let it sink in that we are retired and not just on vacation. We couldn't have picked a better place to do it.

I've enjoyed the view from our AirBnB so much and this town is so cute. Not all of the locals are fans of the tourists, but they definitely depend on the tourists. Most people have been lovely to talk to. One surprise for me is that our favorite pub, Foxy John's, has been one of the highlights for me. The magical experience we had on St. Patrick's Day there made us want to go back. Since then we've had nice conversations with the staff and a some locals. Tomas, who I talked about in my last post, will forever be one of the fun things we remember about Dingle. When we walked in yesterday afternoon, he was flirting with three young women and it put such a smile on my face watching them all interact.

The Slea Head drive and feeding a baby lamb are right up there on my favorite things, we had some great day trips also. I'm glad we took a month to be in Ireland and am so grateful to know that we are coming back twice more before the end of the year. I really can't wait for September when we come back because my parents will be joining us here for two weeks!

So, to wrap up, Dingle has been exactly what we hoped for and then some! Tomorrow we pack up, Tuesday we drive to Dublin to spend the night by the airport and Wednesday we fly to Paris!!

Thanks for reading my ramblings and next time I'll be writing all about our adventures in Paris!!

Dingle, Ireland March 22

We are still very much enjoying our time here in Dingle. It seems we are quite the oddity to the locals, though. They can't seem to wrap their heads around tourists staying in town for three weeks. We do spend a significant amount of time here in town, but we also take day trips and drive around to see the local scenery.

The Dingle Peninsula is known for its striking beauty along the Atlantic Coast. This area is known as the Wild Atlantic Way and the Slea Head drive is one of the top attractions. After driving it ourselves, we know why.

One of the best things about staying in one place for three weeks is that we can wait and do things on the best weather days. If we had only been here a few days, or even one week, we would not have been able to drive Slea Head on one of the best weather days Ireland has had this year. It was sunny, almost cloudless, warm and for once, the wind wasn't blowing.

We headed out after breakfast since the advice was to start early and beat the tour buses. We discovered why the advice to drive the route clockwise is very important. The road is extremely narrow and curvy (which I'm finding out is pretty much the norm for Ireland)! You would NOT want to meet an oncoming tour bus on that road!

Anyway, we stopped at an old fort that was barely there, but still had a few rows of stones forming the base of the fort. Considering it dates back to 500 BC, I guess it's amazing there's anything left at all. The walk down to the fort also provided amazing ocean views with waves crashing on the cliffs.

Our next stop on the drive was probably my most anticipated stop. The Hold a Baby Lamb and Beehive Hut attraction. It was interesting, the local man who runs it was a little on the gruff side and a very strong Irish accent made him hard to understand. The next thing I learned was that there was not so much "holding" a baby lamb as "feeding" a baby lamb - which also required an extra 5 Euro per bottle. So, I fed it instead of holding it and that was okay by me. It was so fun and the lambs were so freaking cute!!

The rest of the drive was breathtakingly beautiful and we enjoyed a stop at Europes most Westerly pub before heading back into Dingle.

We are loving our times at Foxy John's pub (the pub that's also a hardware store). We have found the most interesting and funny local man, who we found out is a retired teacher. He obviously is a daily visitor to the pub and we love sitting there listening to him joke around with the staff and other patrons. He is such a hoot. We walked in and sat next to him at the bar and he turned and said "I met you two the other day!" He proposed marriage to at least three different women while we were there. I know that chatting to Tomas is going to be one of the fond memories we leave here with that we will look back on for years and talk about.

Yesterday, we took a road trip to Kenmare. It was a cute little town and we still had perfect weather to walk around and visit all the local shops. We also got to experience some more of those very narrow, windy Ireland roads. Again, I am extremely grateful Jami's the one handling the driving!

Today is laundry day, and that is a full day chore with European washers and dryers! It worked out well since it's raining off and on. Even on easy days I never get tired of sitting here looking out at the marina watching the boats go in and out. The boat tours for dolphin watching have started this week, so I watch them come and go and I still like to keep tabs on how many tour buses are in town. Jami is now calling me "Gladys". At least it doesn't take much to keep me entertained. I have a few pictures from this week below and have added some of my best Slea Head drive photos on the Kim's Gallery page.

We are hoping to get a another road trip or two in this week, which is our last full week here in Dingle..well, our last full week in Ireland. We will be off to Paris on April 1.

Dingle, Ireland March 18

Happy Day After St Patrick's Day ;). We have had some fun since my last post. We are still enjoying a few quiet days where we wander around town trying new restaurants and pubs. Some have been great finds. The Fish Box takes the top for favorite restaurant/food so far. I have been trying lots of fish and chips over the last month, but theirs is superior. Also the best calamari Jami and I have ever had. Seriously, I am spoiled for life on calamari and I love calamari. We have to go back there before we leave!

We took a road trip to Cork and toured the Midleton Distillery. We had thought we were just going in for a few minutes so Jami could buy his beloved Blue Spot whiskey, but it was so nice inside that we signed up for a tour and premium whiskey tasting. What was going to be about a 15 minute stop turned into 3 hours of fun. I have a few pictures of that day below.

Now onto one of the best experiences of my life - St. Patrick's Day. When we started planning where to go on this trip and when, one thing we wanted to do was go to places when they were having their country's big events. We wanted to do Bastille Day in France, Octoberfest in Germany, Scotland during the Highland games and St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.

On the home page we have what we each expected our top 3 experiences to be and I may have guessed wrong on mine because experiencing St Patrick's Day here in Dingle was one of the most amazing days! I had thought we would watch the parade and then head into a pub for a pint and call it a day. Now, we did do both of those, but the day became unexpectedly moving.

The parade was fun. I really liked how it was more of a small town parade and instead of big floats, it had local businesses and lots of children's groups marching. There was the band that started it all by stopping in front of us and playing Irish music. I actually got a little emotional at that. I was immediately overcome by happiness at being in that spot and at that time.

After the parade we walked around looking for a pub. We wanted to try one we hadn't been to yet. We walked into one where we heard music playing, but we soon found out this was not the experience we were looking for. Seriously...if I hear a musician playing "Country Roads Take Me Home" in an Irish pub one more time I'm going to scream! This pub was obviously playing to the American tourists, of which there were many, who were LOUDLY singing along. The best thing from that pub was the woman I saw with a KC Chiefs bag and I yelled out "GO CHIEFS!"

We then tried a pub Jami had been anxious to go to. Foxy John's. It is famous for being a pub, but is also a working hardware store. I wasn't expecting much, but it was much better than the last place, so we got a pint and settled onto our bar stools. We quickly realized we were in exactly the right spot when a group of 4 or 5 older local men started singing local songs. It was spontaneous and everyone in the pub was either singing along or taking videos. Jami and I looked at each other and said "we have found our place". There was more singing and a woman started playing an accordion and there was more singing of "Galway Girl" and "Molly Malone" (that one I could join in on the chorus). We sat there for quite awhile, had a couple pints and enjoyed the experience. Later, back at the AirBnB we kept saying what an incredible day it had been. We are truly blessed to be able to be on this trip of a lifetime and experience these unexpected magical moments.

Dingle, Ireland, March 12

Hello from Dingle, Ireland!

I cannot explain properly how amazing this little town is. We have a great AirBnB - we even have our own private elevator. How cool is that?! The view from our apartment is amazing (see pictures below.) I got up to look out the windows yesterday and Jami mentioned that it's hard not constantly getting up to look out the windows all the time. He is not wrong. I sit here in the mornings looking out the window and can't believe I'm here - plus I keep a running commentary going on how many tours buses are currently parked in town. I'm sure Jami loves that ;)

We always thought that our 3 weeks here in Dingle would be when what we are doing actually sinks in. We have gone from NYC to London to Dublin and while we loved all of it, we are ready to be out of the city and enjoying the beauty of Ireland.

Several people asked before our trip what we could do in places for 3 or more weeks at a time. It's hard for people to understand that we are not "vacationing" we are living our life. We can't go, go, go every day or we will be exhausted, sick and tired of this trip. Our times in the cities does feel like we are vacationing because who wants to spend time sitting in a hotel room. Now we are in a very nice, spacious apartment where we can sleep in, cook our own breakfast and decide what we want to do that day. Sometimes, we will be tired or the weather will be bad and we have a stay at home and relax day. Other days, like yesterday, we have a relaxing morning, then we grabbed our cameras and went out exploring Dingle. We stopped into Dick Macks pub where it was more locals than tourists (although the tourists did pop in and out). It was fun sitting there, having a drink and chat.

I have a few pictures from Dingle below and a few more added on the Galleries page. Stay tuned because there will be LOTS more photos. Ireland makes me want to photograph EVERYTHING! Creative Mode has been Activated :)

Dublin, Ireland March 7

Hello from Dublin! I am so happy to be in Ireland!

Dublin is such a different city from London. It's a little grittier and doesn't have the hustle and bustle of London. It's a slower pace and honestly, I like it better than London.

We've had a great week here. We started out by touring the Guinness Storehouse, which was fun, but if we hadn't done the Connossieur Experience we wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. The Connossieur Experience was a small group beer tasting and we learned how to pour a proper pint of Guinness. I'm just going to throw this out there since it's my blog and I can say what I want ;) my pour was better than the Guinness expert himself, Jami. Probably beginner's luck, but I'll take it! After the tour, we visited arguable the oldest bar in Ireland, The Brazen's Head. It was so amazing to sit in the middle of that history.

We also had a guided tour of Kilmainham Gaol. It has a dark, sad history, but we learned a lot about Irish history and seeing the prison itself was very cool. It was built in 1796 and housed men, women and children - see I told you it had a sad history. Our tour guide was phenomenal and that was one of the highlights of this week for me.

I was very excited for the Book of Kells experience at Trinity College. If you don't know, the Book of Kells is a 9th century rendering of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark Luke and John. There was a lot of information on how it was made and the monks who worked on it. The artwork alongside it was incredible and I was glad to have the explanations of what the artwork depicted. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed of the actual Book of Kells. It was under glass and the pages displayed depicted Jesus praying in the Garden of Gesthemane.

After the Book of Kells we got to go into the Long Reading Room. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time and although most of the books have been removed for restoration, we could still walk around the room itself. Some say it inspired parts of Harry Potter, which I can definitely see. We then walked around Trinity College campus and enjoyed the flowers and trees blooming. Although they seem to have aggravated my allergies and I'm a sniffling, sneezing mess today. Whatever - if I have not feel good, I'm happy to not feel good in Ireland!

Monday we are renting a car and driving to Dingle, a southwest peninsula, which is a small village, but a big tourist spot. We are very much looking forward to getting out of cities and driving through the Irish countryside and taking drives along the Irish coastline. So stay tuned. I promise to have better photographs than I do of Dublin!

London Recap, Feb 28

I'm sitting here on our last full day in London (until May). I still can't quite believe that we are not going home, but onto Ireland - yippee!!

I've added a few more pictures below and to the gallery, but I wanted to talk today about my impressions and thoughts about these last 11 nights in this amazing city.

It really is an amazing city. I love it here, but I have to admit London takes quite the bite out of the wallet! We did so many fun things, but I think my favorites were:

1) walking along the Thames, enjoying being with my favorite guy, people watching. We never knew what we were going to run into - like Shakespeare's Globe Theater. No, it's not the original but was rebuilt to look like it was back in the 1600's and used as authentic materials as possible. We wanted to tour, but they're doing some work on it, so we will put that off until we return in May.

2) HISTORY! OMG - my American brain kept getting blown away by seeing all the signs of when buildings were established. A pub established in 1616 that survived the Great London Fire, and walking along and realizing we were right in front of Westminster Abbey. One of the reasons we wanted to see all of Europe was because we both love history and boy, are we seeing it up close and personal. It's so much fun.

3) Photography day when we got up early for sunrise photos of Big Ben and Parliament. We then wandered to a local cafe for a great breakfast then onto Buckingham Palace. We got the obligatory photos of it then sat in St. James Park watching all the people head to the Palace and the ducks trying to scam food off all the people heading to the Palace ;) We then set up along the Mall so that we could photograph the Royal Guard and the Scottish bands making their to the Palace for the changing of the Royal Guard. We will photograph that in May.

London is a huge and very crowded city, but was so clean and everyone was polite. I very much enjoyed sitting at the pub, eating local specialties and having a glass of wine (or two). I'm retired...I can drink wine at 2:00 in the afternoon if I want!

I'm looking forward to coming back at the end of May and staying in a different part of town - Notting Hill.

For now...stay tuned next week for our adventures in Dublin...there may be a pint or ten of Guinness consumed.

February 23, 2026 - We're in London!

Ok - I guess we actually did this go to Europe and start traveling deal ;)

We had a very quick couple of days in NYC before heading across the pond to London on Wednesday and boy, is jet lag a thing! We slept 13+ hours the night we got here! I think we are finally caught up and used to the time change.

We've had a lot of fun so far wandering around. We have visited a couple of pubs and toured Churchill's War Rooms. We have wandered up and down the Thames and are becoming experts on the tube and pub culture ;) It's quite a bit different than in the States, but we are getting the hang of it. Yesterday we went to see London Tower and Tower Bridge. Today we went to the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. We got about 12,000+ steps today and are taking it easy tomorrow morning before we head out for Afternoon Tea. It's an Alice in Wonderland themed tea and I'm really excited for it! Pictures to follow.

Stay tuned for more adventures. I'll get better at the blog thing, I promise.

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