Travelling Lore

Before I wrap up my Adriatic Adventure series with Rome, let's backtrack a little bit to our time spent in Dubrovnik .  Wanting a change of scenery during our last day in Croatia, we took an unplanned guided trip from Dubrovnik (there are a handful of companies to choose from) to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.  We're big into planning vacations, but sometimes we like to be spontaneous. Sometimes. ;) Mostar is about a three hour drive from Dubrovnik when you take into account all of the border crossings.  I think we crossed borders three times each way due to the route.  Before we got Mostar, though, we stopped at Počitelj , a small city in the Čapljina Municipality.  During the middle ages it was the administrative center and center of governance of Dubrava župa (county) and its westernmost point gave it a strategic advantage.  The town fell to the Ottomans in 1471 and, once the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell in 1878, it lost its strategic impo...

On our last day in the Campania region we decided to visit Paestum .  But before I get into that, here's a pro tip on luggage.  Since we'd checked out of our apartment that meant we didn't have a place to keep our luggage while we played tourist for the day.  Thanks to our trusty Rick Steves guide, we learned that most train stations will hold your luggage for a small fee--well worth it to not have to carry our luggage on our backs all day! Anyway, back to Paestum!  Unlike Pompeii, which is an ancient Roman city, Paestum is an ancient Greek city.  There aren't nearly as many people visiting there as in Pompeii, so you more or less have the place to yourself, can take as many photos as you want, and don't have to hurry through your exploration. Paestum was likely founded around 650 BC by a group of people called the Dorians , who originally named the city Poseidonia after one of their gods.  It became quite a large and bustling city until it was c...

After exploring Pompeii our driver took us through the Amalfi Coast.  Hiring a driver (we used AP Tours ) was our biggest splurge on the trip, but in our mind it was totally worth it because we only had one day to see both Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.  He was very professional, easy to talk to, and had plenty of experience driving on the curvy roads. We stopped in Positano for about an hour to check out the scene.  My fiance took this beautiful photo of Positano's tiered houses.  It's quite a lot of downhill to get to the beach, which makes for a hike back up. Positano is great if you're visiting for a beach weekend, but personally I wouldn't stay there for more than a day or two.  While pretty, there didn't seem to be much to do there aside from shopping at one of the many expensive (think $125+ for a casual dress) boutiques in the city.  Granted, we only had an hour to take in as much as we could, so please feel free to share your experiences...

Sadly, Dubrovnik was our last city in which to sightsee .  But, happily, we took a short flight over to Rome from which we took a train to Salerno.  We chose to stay in Salerno because it was a central spot from which to see Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast, and Paestum.  But first, Pompeii! Pompeii, for me, was one of the highlights of our entire trip.  It's incredible that this ancient city was buried under so much ash from the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD that it wasn't discovered again until the 16th century; a more involved rediscovery occurred in the 18th century.  It's currently (and finally) undergoing some serious restoration , so a lot of the "rich folk" houses that we wanted to see were blocked off.  But that didn't stop us since there's so much to see in Pompeii!  This place is huge, so if you want to see all of it, plan for a whole day of exploring! Of course, it's understandably a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  I mean, just look...

Looks like time has run away from me again!  I apologize for not updating more frequently--my fiance and I are in the early stages of planning our wedding, which means lots of emails and coordination with potential venues, caterers, and photographers.  But the good news is we've locked in our venue, which will be a beautiful local Virginia winery.  Now, we've just gotta secure a caterer (BBQ, yay!) and photographer. On the traveling side of things, continuing on from our wonderful time in Korčula , we ferried over to Dubrovnik.  Nowadays Dubrovnik is famous for being the set of Kings Landing in HBO's Game of Thrones  series, written by George RR Martin .  As such, there are tons of GoT  tours, etc. if that's what you're into!  Otherwise, you can continue being an old school tourist, which is what I am. ;) This was the rooftop view from our hotel.  It wasn't our favorite accommodations (prices creep up as you travel down the coas...