Upcoming Trips

I am thrilled to have two trips to look forward to in the next year.

Two years ago, we had our last family vacation with the boys in Barcelona. With Evan still in college, Dan working and jobhunting, and my school schedule, it was difficult to coordinate everyone for a repeat vacation together. Christmas week looked doable for everyone, so we began looking at options. Unfortunately, our frequent flyer options were terribly awkward and a bad value for that week. Happily, Larry noticed a heavy price drop for flights between JFK and Milano. We had driven to New York for our Italy trip last summer, and it worked very well, so we booked it

Now, where to go for the week? Larry and I loved Bologna, and thought the boys (can you call young men of 19 and 23 boys?) would also enjoy the old, lively university town. We’ll take the fast train from Milan to Bologna (just over an hour), and settle into this apartment..http://www.vrbo.com/474798?utm_source=SYS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=20140906&utm_content=propid_text_o_lprop&utm_campaign=VRBOOwnerInquiry#

Plans include just experiencing Bologna, a daytrip to Ravenna for the mosaics, and a food tour with Italian Days to producers of Parmigiano, Balsamico, and prosciutto. We’ll spend New Year’s Even in central Milan, and fly home New Year’s Day.

For next June, Larry and I tossed various ideas around. Larry has been wanting to go to Croatia for a while, so we decided to start out in Venice. We’d been there once and really enjoyed it, though I was hesitant to visit there during a peak season. We decided to give ourselves a bit more than a week so we could really settle in and also have opportunities to take easy daytrips to Padua, Vincenza, possibly to Aquileia for the mosaics. We had to keep bumping up our budget for apartments, but got a nice deal for a lovely place a friend had stayed in.

After nine nights, we’ll take the ferry to Rovinj, Croatia. Initially we were thinking of spending more time in Croatia so we could explore the more southern area as well, but decided instead to concentrate on the Istrian peninsula, saving the south for another trip. Here’s our apartment in Rovinj.

We’ll drive to Plitvice National Park, spend a night there, and then drive to Zagreb. One night in Zagreb, and then we’ll fly to Berlin. We loved the glimpse of Berlin we had last year, so are spending three days there before flying home. Apartments are very reasonable, and I booked this one in the Prenzlauer Berg.

Yay! And perhaps I’ll tag along to California if Larry schedules a business trip during my February or April vacations…