Holland, A Place like Home

The Netherlands, the country of my roots. Visiting this country is always special—I was here in 2009—and I was excited to show Nicholas where some of our family traditions had come from and for him to meet some of my European family. As always, we didn’t stay long enough, but I could easily rent a bike and spend a month exploring this beautiful country. 

Nicholas’s introduction to the country was not quite as pleasant as I was hoping; we missed our flight from Berlin (oops) and had to resort to taking an overnight bus, which is not the most enjoyable way to travel. The one thing I had attempted to avoid the entire trip was overnight busses. It’s basically the same as pulling an all-nighter, which I am decidedly too old for. Let’s be real, I’ve been too old for all-nighters since, well, the age of 1 year; I hate them! Even in college I only ever pulled one! Either way, it was our only option unless we wanted to spend 600 euros on a train, so off we were. We left at 10:30 p.m. on June 19th and arrived in Amsterdam on the 20th at 7:00 am. My sweet Tante (Aunt) Hinke made us breakfast and we proceeded to take a well-deserved three hour nap. Nicholas fell asleep in about 8 seconds! 

After napping for a few hours we got up and enjoyed afternoon coffee with Tante Hinke. Nicholas was able to meet her more fully and we enjoyed telling her about some of our travels thus far…not to mention coffee and treats is a Dutch tradition Nicholas and I both really appreciate; Nicholas loves the coffee and I love the treats! ;) We had planned to visit our friend, Joost (pronounced “Yost”), that day and didn’t want to miss our opportunity, so headed out in the afternoon after coffee. Here our story takes a turn for the worst. Those of you following this blog remember our train ordeal from Spain. Well, on the way to Rotterdam, guess what?! Another train broke down and blocked our train! We were in the unlucky 2% of people who end up NOT reaching their destination on a Dutch train. We asked a guy on the platform what was going on and he explained the situation and that the next 3 trains had been canceled. Kees (pronounced “Case”) was extremely kind though, and told us to just follow him; he had to get to Rotterdam as well. He led us to the bus, chatted with us the entire ride and made sure we knew where we were going once we arrived in Rotterdam. Dutchmen are so nice! 

Once we finally MADE it to Rotterdam, Joost met us and took us on a fast, but wonderful tour of his city! We originally met him in Cambodia and met up again in Vietnam, but travelers really become your family, and we had a blast getting to know him and hanging out. We had a delicious dinner, walked some of the city, saw some sights, took a water taxi to an old hotel in the harbor and had drinks before we had to head back to Amsterdam. It was great! Joost (and his girlfriend) are planning to visit the U.S. in about 2 years, so hopefully, we will see him again then! The train that had broken down earlier was still causing issues, so our train was late arriving in Amsterdam and we missed the last metro (it ends at 12:30 a.m. if you’re wondering). We met ANOTHER nice dutch guy though, and we shared a cab with him to get to our final destination. If nothing else, this trip has taught us a lot of flexibility and problem solving skills! Tante Hinke is a night owl, so she was up when we arrived back at home. We told her our story, enjoyed a beer and, finally, headed to bed. 

The next day we slept in until about 9 a.m. Breakfast was very Dutch and consisted of cheese, cold cuts, tea and some delicious, dark bread. I’ve never been much of a cereal eater, so it was perfect for me and a new experience for Nicholas! Then it was time for sightseeing, so decided to go to the Heineken Brewery first! Nicholas enjoys beer and you usually get a few free ones if you take a tour, so it sounded like a good idea. It was actually interesting and the company has done a great job with the tour. It’s technically self-guided, but there are a lot of videos, interactive spots and a few people who talk to you about what you’re looking at/trying. We really enjoyed it. Afterwards we took a boat tour through some of the canals. That we were somewhat disappointed in; we used a company called Stromma, which is well known, but the tour was cut 20 minutes short and our audio guides cut out as well. We think that because it was the last tour of the day the captain decided to skip some of it. It goes to show that even with research, sometimes you just get unlucky. Afterwards, we headed back to Tante Hinke’s for a nice homemade pasta meal, some good wine and conversation.

The next day we took a day trip to Fryslan, which is where all of my Dad’s family originally is from. Many of my distant relatives still live there and are dairy farmers. I’m honestly not sure what the people we visited technically are to me; maybe 3rd or 4th cousins? Either way, they showed us around the farm, made us a yummy lunch, played games, took us to the closest village and provided us with coffee TWICE! Let’s just say we ate really well that day. ;) We were planning to go to the beach as well, but the weather didn’t cooperate so we weren’t able to. Tante Hinke then took us to the village she grew up in and where my Great Beppe (grandma) is buried. It was a really special day! I loved that Nicholas could see where my family came from, why we do things a certain way, and what traditions came with my Dad from Holland. 

The 23rd we went to Anne Frank’s house, explored the city center of Amsterdam and enjoyed Indonesian food with Tante Hinke for dinner. The Anne Frank house is a very moving place to visit, especially if you’ve read the book. One word of advice; you MUST book tickets in advance if you want to visit. We were lucky and found some two days before, but there were less than 80 tickets left for that entire day!

The Netherlands was one of our most relaxing and enjoyable stops during this trip. Tante Hinke is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met; extremely generous and always willing to help, not to mention her mattresses were the most comfortable ones we’ve slept on in 4 months. We slept well, rested well, ate well, visited well and traveled well. It was so nice to be in a place that felt like home. 

Beer & Cheese in Germany!

Germany! From the start of our trip planning, Nicholas was very excited to visit Germany. His maternal Grandfather is 100% german and Nicholas has always been interested in the culture, so it we decided to spend 10 days in the country, instead of our usual 7 days. We were so glad we did! 

Let’s start with a little backstory. While flying from Laos to Vietnam in the beginning of our trip we met a fellow backpacker named Steffi (pronounced Steffi), who lives in Münich. She was spending 3 months traveling SE Asia, Australia and Spain. We chatted on the plane, went through customs together and walked her to her hostel since it was late at night when we arrived. We exchanged numbers, and said we would try to meet up again at some point. We stayed in touch over the next few months; fast forward to June 8th, we were hugging and catching up on a Münich metro platform where Steffi met us at 11:30pm! Steffi and her family were kind enough to let us stay in a spare bedroom, share their food with us, spend time and energy showing us the city and surrounding area and generally speaking, completely welcome us into their home!

Our first day in the city, Steffi had to work, but that was okay because we needed to catch up on some sleep. I’m pretty sure we slept in until noon. As we’ve said in a couple other blogs, traveling can be tiring at times, so we deserved a good long nights rest! We were able to meet her younger brother, Florian, that afternoon and spent some time chatting with him…Nicholas even went to the grocery store with him later in the day. Unfortunately, Steffi’s parents were vacationing at Lake Garda, so we were unable to meet them. Steffi arrived a little later and asked if we’d be interested in going to a traditional Bavarian BierGarten. We of course said, “yes!” We made some finger foods for dinner and headed out to meet her aunt at one of her local favorites. Steffi’s aunt, Christina, was wonderful! She had an adventurous spirit as well, and was the one that encouraged Steffi to travel. Christina is an architect/professor, so is able to travel quite a bit herself and has been all over the world! We enjoyed exchanging travel stories and picking her brain. ;) The beers were a full 1 liter (yikes!) which were accompanied by shaved radish, mini burgers, pretzels with a cheese dip, veggies and berries with yogurt for dessert. It was delicious! Afterwards we walked some of the Old City and then headed back for a good nights sleep.

The next day we decided to bike! Christina and Steffi agreed it was the best way to see the city and Steffi graciously let us borrow some of her families bikes. It was a very full day, and by the end of it we estimated we had biked close to 40 kilometers (~25 miles). Although our bums were sore the next day, it was SO worth it! We saw so many things we can’t even remember them! The BMW Museum, Olympic Park, the entire old city and many famous, historical buildings within it, weekend market, English Park, Hofbrauhaus, another BierGarten, the people who surf on the river, and finally, picnicked on the river bank. I know I’m forgetting numerous things, but unfortunately I can’t remember all the names! It was such a fun day. Spending time with friends makes the time so much more valuable and fun. By the end of the day we were planning Steffi’s and Christina’s visit to the states, which hopefully will happen next year! I’m not sure Minneapolis can meet Munich simply because it doesn’t have BierGartens, but hey, we can try. ;)

The next day (Sunday) we had an afternoon train to Füssen, but had enough time to visit a lake in the morning/early afternoon. It was beautiful! The lakes all have stone beaches, which is nice because there is no messy sand to deal with. It was surrounded by mountains and fed by mountain streams, so crystal clear and cold! We got in once, but that was all we (well…Nicholas and I could handle…Christina thought the temperature was perfect) were brave enough for! We swam, had lunch at the lake, played Phase Ten, sun bathed and headed back to Munich to catch our train. It was a nice way to relax after having a busy day biking. The only negative was that we all got sunburned (mine was terrible); kids, where sunscreen unless you want all your skin to peel off. Our train ride was smooth and only lasted about 3 hours, which was nice.

Füssen is a small, tourist town famous for Schloss Neuschwanstein, or the fairytale castle. It is one of the most famous castles in Europe. I had rebooked tickets for Monday, just in case it was crazy busy. The castle was about a 45 minute walk from Füssen. There is also a bus line, but I would encourage anyone who visits to walk instead of taking the bus on the way there. The scenery is very pretty; many wildflowers, birds and views of the castle (also the occasional person using the natural bathroom). We choose to purchase tickets for both castles: Schloss Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. The tours were not quite what we were expecting, you don’t actually get to see the whole castle and it only takes about 30-40 minutes to do the full tour. However, it was still worth it, and the pictures we got were amazing! We did take the bus back to Füssen; the sun was strong and my sunburn was so bad I couldn’t stand outside in the heat/sun for more than 5 minutes without being in pain. We went to the grocery store for dinner—salad kits and sandwiches have become our best friends—and decided to download some of our pictures before bed. It is here our story takes a turn for the worst. We realized that when i had updated my phone it changed some of my settings (darn you, Apple updates). Because of the setting change, 800+ pictures were stuck in my i-cloud and unable to be downloaded onto the computer since they were technically already downloaded in the cloud, thus unable to be put on our portable hard drive or Facebook. We messed with it until midnight, gave up, and tried again the next day. On Tuesday we spent close to 10 hours manually downloading, sorting and deleting pictures. It was horrible! Thankfully, we were able to eventually resolve it. 

Because we had wasted an entire day of what was suppose to be rest, we decided to get outdoors and burn off some negative energy the next day. We rented bikes again and biked around the large lake next to Füssen. This time we estimated we biked about 30-35 kilometers (~20 miles). It was a nice day to ride bikes; just cool enough to be comfortable but warm enough to not wear jackets. The lake, mountains and valleys were all very pretty. We found another BierGarten, although not as good as the one we went to with Steffi, and had some beers, a brat and french fries. It was a good ending to our time in Füssen. 

We spent all of the 15th on a train traveling to Berlin. Berlin is another HUGE city. I was able to find an AirBnB very close to the city center, which was awesome! Pretty much all of the sights we wanted to visit were a 30 minute walk from us, which wasn’t back at all! Over the next couples days we saw the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Unter den Linden, the Holocaust Memorial, walked the Tiergarten, the Topography of Terror, Hitler’s Bunker and a small section of the Berlin Wall. We also did some shopping and went to church on Sunday. The church spoke mainly English, but sang a few hymns in German, which was beautiful. It’s amazing to listen to people praising God in another language!

All in all, Germany was a great country to visit with so much to see…which means for us, we’ll definitely be back for a second visit. Plus, we have some pretty awesome friends in Münich who we are looking forward to keeping in contact with and continuing to build our friendship.  If you are looking for a country with big cities, vast history, yet with beautiful surroundings, Germany/Bavaria would be a great place to look into traveling…As I said earlier, Nicholas was excited to visit, now he is very excited to return some day and see more. Cheers!

Switzerland

Switzerland! A land of cheese and chocolate (two things we both greatly enjoy)! While Switzerland was one of our fastest countries to date, we hit it hard and enjoyed buying a ridiculous amount of chocolate bars in that time period. ;) Just kidding…but not really: we visited three cities in a week. (And…the chocolate was for energy, of course!) 

Our first day in the country, June 2nd, was spent exploring Geneva! We had found a flight from Madrid to Geneva for 25€ a person, which turned out to be a fourth of the price of a train, not to mention much faster! We stayed in an AirBnB again, which was great. As we've travelled through Europe we've really enjoyed staying in AirBnBs; you get to meet the locals! Additionally, in Europe, a private room through AirBnB is often cheaper (or close in price) to an eight bed dorm in a hostel, and we will always choose a private room over a dorm. 

Geneva is a fairly walkable city and we stayed close to the city center, so we first headed to Parc Des Bastions to see the Reformation Wall. John Calvin, William Farel, Théodore de Bèze and John Knox were at the center of the wall and are all important figures of the reformation. From the park we walked to the Geneva cathedral, the Jet d'Eau and the U.N. Building. The highlight of the day, however, was the Patek Philippe museum. Anyone who knows Nicholas knows that he loves watches. You can buy him a watch for every anniversary, birthday, holiday and special occasion and he will be thrilled! The museum explained the history of watch makers in Geneva and why it became such a popular form of art in the area. Patek Philippe is one of the oldest family-run watch/clock companies (and most expensive brands in the world— $5,000,000 for a few of it’s luxurious watches). The museum told the story behind the name/brand and has an extensive collection of clocks and watches dating from the 1500s to present day. We spent three hours in the museum but could have easily spent five; unfortunately, we arrived a little too late for that. 

The next day we took a train to Zermatt, a town famous for its proximity to the Matterhorn. The ride through the mountains to get to Zermatt was spectacular. Upon arrival, we met two American students who were interning in France and had a 3 day weekend, so joined them for dinner, spent a little time walking the town and went to the grocery store and bought snacks for the following day. 

Sunday, we hiked! We started out at 9:00 a.m. and finished at 7:30 p.m. While hiking, we listened to our brother Matt in Oklahoma preach God’s word. There is nothing better than hiking in God’s beautiful creation and hearing the Word from our brother back in Oklahoma. As many of you have read in our previous blog, our Oklahoma church family had a huge impact on Nicholas’ and my relationship today and we have continued to listen to our pastors preach, even while on the other side of the world…thanks to podcast! God continues to use them in our lives to be an encouragement, which is truly awesome to experience. Our hike led us 22 kilometers through the mountains of Switzerland, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it feels like it is when most of it is uphill! The scenery was beautiful and the views, stunning. We had a lot of fun!

On Monday we took a train to the historical city of Bern. Sadly, after hiking Nicholas got sick (pushing our bodies so much definitely wares on them) so we didn't do anything the rest of that day or the next even. It poured rain almost the entire day though, so it worked out that we took a rest day. One thing we did do was go to the grocery store. We have burned out on eating at restaurants, so have started going to grocery stores for our meals. We've been able to buy a lot of salad kits, soups and sandwiches, which has been such a nice change from all the "restaurant food." Plus, it is much much cheaper! We did the math and figured we are spending about $5-8 per person a meal, instead of a minimum of $20 per person a meal at a restaurant. 

The next day, June 7th, Nicholas was feeling much better, so we walked the old city. We saw the clock tower, cathedral, went window shopping, and finally went to Einstein's house. Learning about Einstein and his life was really interesting; neither one of us knew much about him, so enjoyed our time at the museum, even though it was small and mostly reading. 

Like I said earlier, Switzerland was a fast country! The natural beauty was wonderful.  We did a lot of active things and were also able to spend some time catching up. The next day we headed off to Germany, but that's another blog!

Thanks for reading,

Cheers,

N + K

Sunny Spain

When you think about Spain, what do you think about? I think about tapas, the architect Gaudi and sunshine! Nicholas thinks about bullfights, ethnic food and bright colors! We experienced (almost) all of these things and more during our week in Spain. (We decided to skip the bull fight.)

Traveling to Spain from Italy was one of our longer trips. We took a train from Malcesine to Marseille, France (10 hours), stayed in Marseille for the night and, finally, flew to Barcelona the next evening. We were able to find a flight that was considerably cheaper than taking a train or bus. We made it to our hostel by midnight and quickly headed to bed. Unfortunately, we had some pretty terrible roommates, so we didn't sleep exceedingly well, but, such is life in a dorm room. 

On May 26th, our first full day in Barcelona, we started our day by heading to La Sagrada Familia! I had visited Spain and the cathedral during my European trip in high school and was excited for Nicholas to see it! Sadly, when we arrived, tickets were sold out for that day and the following three (we were planning to be in Madrid by that point) so we were unable to visit. We snapped some pictures of the outside of the cathedral and decided to find some lunch. I had been looking forward to some tapas, so we found a good, local spot and had a yummy lunch. After that we took the metro and walked to Parc Guell. By the time we had finished exploring the park it was time for dinner, so we headed to the San Fernando Market. This was probably our favorite part of the day! Both Nicholas and I love markets; the bright colors and smells are always interesting. We bought a vegetarian burrito "bowl" for dinner. It was delicious! Even beat out the tapas we had eaten earlier in the day. 

Our second day in Barcelona we slept in a little, did some housekeeping (organizing pictures and whatnot) and then checked into our AirBnB. Afterwards we headed to Montjuic, an old fortress, and then Font Magica. The light and music show at the fountain was a lot of fun! We were surprised at how bright the lights were and how well the fountain moved with the music. If you ever find yourself in Spain, this is a must see show…and arrive early to get a good seat.

May 28th we boarded a train for Madrid. Little did we know how exciting our day would become! 1.5 hours into our trip the train slowed to a stop. It sat on the tracks for a bit, reversed, pulled forward, reversed and stopped completely; our train had broken down. We sat on the tracks for 3 hours at an old abandoned station; finally a second train met us on the tracks to transfer the goods and passengers to continue our journey.  However, the people from the train that met us had to get off their working train and board our non-working train and wait to be rescued themselves (we were told this is how they do it in Spain).  Surprisingly, those individuals had no complaints and just did what they were told.  It was unfortunate that neither Nicholas or I spoke the language as we would have loved to know what everyone was saying. The second train took us 20 min down the tracks and again slowed and stopped, this time, in the middle of no where. Everyone on board moaned and grumbled and as the conductor ran back and forth, we all assumed the worst; our second train had broken down as well. Eventually it was confirmed, and we sat for another 1 and 1/2 hours waiting for a third train.  This time, there was talk of busses coming to pick us up, which would have led to a hike to the road 1km away, through a farmers field.  However, they told us another train would be coming to meet us on the track again.  Amusingly, we all had to jump off, walk down the tracks and board the new train.  Our first stop was at a little town with a bunch of angry people waiting at it…with the malfunctioning of the train, there was no way for them to get to their destination since there is only 1 train that goes each direction.  Here the ticket master got off and brought back some sandwiches and waters for all the passengers, which was nice.  We were off again and this 3rd train took us about 400km out of Madrid and dropped at another station, where they rushed us through security and onto a 4th high speed train. Luckily, for our troubles we got 1st class seating! I was able to email the train company and we got our entire trip refunded, which was about $100, so that was nice! One of our fellow passengers said she had been riding the route for seven years and only once had a train broken down. Two in one day was unheard of! It was an adventure though, and that's what's great about traveling! Our AirBnB host, Marissa, was incredibly sweet to us when we arrived (late), which we were so grateful for. 

Our next day--Monday--we had planned a day trip to Toledo. One of the reasons we wanted to visit Toledo was so that we could spend some time with new friends! While in Vietnam we went on a cruise to Halong Bay and met a Spanish couple, Cruz and José. They both are history teachers and have lived in Toledo the last two years. They kindly offered to show us around the city when we came to Spain. The high speed train ride was only 30 minutes and Cruz picked us up from the station. We stopped for some breakfast and then began our walking tour! Cruz showed us all of the old walled city, from the square where the Spanish Inquisition burned people to the beautiful old cathedral, she was very knowledgeable of the town, due to history being her expertise. We had beers and tapas for lunch, and José met us for dinner at one of their local favorites. Dinner was amazing! For 11€ a person we got: a drink, tapas, appetizer, entree and dessert! It was so much food and incredibly delicious. More special was the company though; we truly enjoyed getting to see our new friends again.  It is always a blessing to see familiar faces and experience sweet hospitality from those we meet again on our travels.  It was sad to say goodbye, but it was a fun day trip and we were so thankful to José and Cruz for the time.  We headed back to Madrid around 6:30 pm, watched half of a movie, and crashed for the night. Traveling is hard work, guys!

The next day we predominately rested; we did venture out to visit a market (which was completely closed) and a park. We decided to wander the botanical garden in the park, which was fun and filled with beautiful flowers! 

May 31st was our last full day in Madrid, so we went out to sightsee and explore. Our first stop was the Royal Palace. Probably the most interesting part was the royal armory, which boasts one of the largest collections of armor and weapons in the world! Nicholas was pretty excited about that. On the way back from the palace we randomly ran into a movie premier for The Mummy, so decided to stick around to see Tom Cruise! We waited for about 30 minutes and he arrived. I was too short to actually see him, but Nicholas did, and we got pictures and videos! Who knew...go to Spain, see Tom Cruise! For dinner our AirBnB host took us to one of her favorite Cuban restaurants (she was originally from Cuba, had lived in the U.S. for 20 years, and then moved to Madrid). We then walked through some of the city center together, which was great because we had gone to places we had not been to yet. Marissa was very sweet and very helpful to us and we enjoying the time we had to spend with her. 

June 1 we had a late flight to Geneva, Switzerland, so slept in and did some window shopping in the afternoon. Nicholas wasn't feeling well that day, and one thing we've learned is that if you don't feel well, don't push it; you'll only end up feeling worse. Thankfully, it was a short-lived bug. 

Well, friends, that concludes our time in Spain! It was too fast and we felt like we barely saw any of the country. I think we say that in every blog post though! 

Hope you're still enjoying following our adventures! 

XOXO

N & K

Italy, Part 2

Finally, part 2 of Italy! We like to keep people in suspense (hence my saying it again); just kidding. We actually are often tired and want to rest instead of blog or, like this week, have technical difficulties! But without further ado, the rest of our Italian adventure. 

On May 20th Nicholas and I left Florence and took a train to Venice. It was sunny when we departed and pouring rain when we arrived in Venice; not the most pleasant first impression. We took a water taxi (the public transportation system) to our AirBnB and were amazed to realize that our "taxi" was going to take a full hour to get to our stop! The nasty weather slowed everything down considerably. Our AirBnB host picked us up at the taxi stop and walked us to our accommodations. Luigi, our host, was very kind, if not a little quirky.  He was very particular about how you closed the doors and making sure we knew what direction to turn the keys. He even had Nicholas practice for him a few times! Like I said, though, he was very kind, and we had a nice stay. After the rain stopped and the sun came out we decided to walk around a little bit and visited the Bridge of Sighs, which is the oldest bridge in Venice. We realized we were staying about 10 minutes from Marco Square as well, so enjoyed listening to the live music and looking at the cathedral. We were feeling romantic (it was Venice, you know) and decided to have a glass of wine at one of the old restaurants in the square. We sat down, looked at a menu, and realized the LEAST expensive item was 18€! One glass of wine was around 45€! I think I said, "Run, before the waiter comes back!"  Sorry, but backpackers spend that much in a day, not on one drink! For dinner we stopped at the grocery store and bought some soup and salad for dinner, which was nice. 

Our second day was a full one! We wandered around Venice, trying to see as much as possible since we didn't have a lot of time there. We visited the Jewish ghetto, walked to an original paper mache mask shop to buy a souvenir (Venetian masks are famous), located the spot where the opening scene of the movie The Italian Job was shot, saw another famous bridge, and purchased Orchestra tickets for that evening. Lunch was an adventure as well. We had spent a decent amount of money of some authentic masks, so one had 8 euros left and were on the other side of the city, so had to get creative with our meal. We went into another grocery store and bought lunch meat, bread, chips, yogurt and even a bar of chocolate. We spent EXACTLY 8€ and had a great makeshift picnic! That evening we went to the orchestra, which has turned out to be one of our favorite events to date. Nicholas and I both love the performing arts, and the music was beautiful. 

The 22nd we bid farewell to Venice and started out for Malcesine  a small lakeside town on Lake Garda. A small backstory; when Nicholas and I were dating, I told him that if we got married, the one place he would have to take me before we died was Lake Garda, Italy. I had seen a picture in high school and have dreamed of visiting since then. While planning this trip I completely forgot about our anniversary (bad wife moment, I know), but Nicholas didn't, and asked where we would be on May 23rd. Amazingly enough, Malcesine was the place. God perfectly provided a romantic anniversary trip for us without me even knowing! Getting to Malcesine via public transport is a little taxing (it took us 8 hours by train and ferry), but completely worth it. It is, by far, the most beautiful place I have ever been, exceeding all expectations I had. Since it was our "almost anniversary," we decided to splurge for dinner and found a lovely lakeside restaurant right on the water. The food was delicious and, surprisingly, extremely affordable! Nicholas had a mussel chowder and I had fish. We had wonderful time talking and spending time together! 

The next day we slept in a little, had a nice breakfast (provided by our BnB, which was great) and then decided to visit the castle in town. We had some beautiful views of the lake and learned about the area itself. We then did some shopping; we bought a small oil painting and a Italian leather coin purse for Nicholas. We had made reservations for dinner at a restaurant called al Vas in Brezone, another small town 10 minutes from Malcesine  It was one of our best meals to date. We had scallops for our appetizer, Nicholas had an ostrich fillet wrapped in bacon with asparagus and I had balsamic glazed steak with wild mushrooms. For dessert we chose flambeed crêpes suzette. It was an amazing meal and we enjoyed each other and our food for three hours! (We're getting good at eating like Europeans!) All in all, it was an amazing day. 

The next day we started our journey to Spain, but I feel that Italy will be my favorite European country. It was beautiful; full of kind people, gorgeous scenery, wonderful food and interesting history. It's one of those places you never forget and always want to return to. Until next time Italy, until next time. 

Love,

N & K