Travelling Lore

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope everyone brought in 2016 with fun, good cheer, and--most importantly--good friends!  My fiance and I hosted a small, low key party in our home with some good friends.  This was our third year hosting and, like the two years before, we had a new signature drink ready for our guests.  This year we went with a White Cranberry Martini , which was very delicious and subsequently a big hit! With 2015 now behind us, I wanted to take a look at my top 5 most read 2015 travel adventures on my blog.  I started this blog as a creative outlet, and that's still how I'll continue to run it, but I'm pretty happy with my stats considering I use a free blogging platform.  Most of my readers are, unsurprisingly, based in the United States; but I was surprised to see that a fair amount of my readers hail from Brunei followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.  I've discovered a ton of travel bloggers along the way and I really enj...

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...

After exploring Split we took a catamaran to Korčula (Kohr-choo-lah), one of Croatia's island towns.  Like many other Croatian coastal towns, Korčula was founded by the Greeks; it then became part of the Roman Empire and then was a key outpost of the Venetian Republic.  One of the biggest historical attractions is that Korčulans take pride in the claim that Marco Polo was born there. Before we explored Korčula, though, we instead checked out Lumbarda after checking into our private apartment at Panorama Apartments .  Our room had an absolutely wonderful view (scroll down for those shots) which rivaled our view of the Grand Canal from our room in Venice, Italy.  Not only that, but our host at Panorama Apartments was incredibly friendly, more than willing to give advice, and dropped us off in Lumbarda on his way to work.  Talk about great hospitality! Our main goal in Lumbarda was to try some of the local wines of the region.  We quickly dis...

Continuing on with my Adriatic Adventure vacation earlier this summer, we traveled from Plitvice Lakes National Park to Split, Croatia.  We returned our rental car at the airport and from there took a bus into Old Town Split. Through Booking.com, our preferred hotel booking site of choice, we stayed at Private Apartments in Diocletian's Palace .  This was the view from our room--perfect for people-watching.  We only spent one full day and two nights in Split.  Split, like many of the other towns/cities we visited prior, also has a more or less turbulent history in terms of dictatorship turnover.  The Roman Emperor Diocletian, who wasn't exactly the greatest guy around, ruled in the fourth century and had a palace built for his anticipated retirement.  The ruins of the palace are integrated into the city of Split, so it's free to view since you're essentially walking in and around the palace.  Additionally, you can explore the cellars for a...

Once we'd had our fill of Motovun  we drove down to Plitvice Lakes National Park , a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Plitvice (PLEET-veet-seh) is one of Europe's breathtaking natural wonders.  It's a lush valley with 16 terraced lakes, countless waterfalls, boat rides, and hiking.  If you'd like to nerd out a little more, the UNESCO website has a great description about the geology of the park. Since it takes a while to drive inland to Plitvice, I recommend spending the night in or near the park.  We stayed in the park at Hotel Bellevue .  It's not the most modern or attractive hotel, but the front desk associates were pleasant and there's a breakfast buffet that caters to early risers who want to explore the park right when it opens. We followed Rick Steves's suggestion of starting at the Lower Lakes (Donja Jezera), which are accessible at Entrance 1.  Starting here takes you down to the Big Waterfall (Veliki Slap) seen above in this photo. ...

Wow, it's been a while since I last shared my adventures in Croatia! Sorry about that! But never fear, there's plenty more where that came from. I left off in Rovinj last time, one of Croatia's lovely coastal towns in Istria. After our relaxing stay in Rovinj, we started to make our way to Plitvice Lakes National Park . But first, a pit stop in one of Croatia's best-known Istrian hilltop town: Motovun (moh-toh-voon). If you're lucky and it's not too crowded, you'll be able to drive most of the way up and park near the top. However, chances are you'll only be able to drive part way up and will have to pay a small fee and park in a lot. There's an additional fee to take the shuttle bus to the top. We opted to skip the shuttle bus and instead walked up the old Roman road to the top of Motovun. When you get to the top you'll be able to see vineyards as well as a ton of wine and truffle shops everywhere you look.  There's no...

After stopping by Croatia's wine region in Istria , we drove to the coastal town of Rovinj, which is also in Istria. According to Rick Steves , while Rovinj was prosperous in the Middle Ages, it also flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries when refugees flooded the city from the Ottoman invasions and the plague.  Since Rovinj was part of the Republic of Venice from the 13th to 18th centuries, a lot of its architecture, culture, and language are reminiscent of Venice.  (We did notice that there were a lot of Italian tourists in Rovinj and, as such, we heard a lot of Italian spoken around us.) Napoleon eventually seized the region, but after his defeat it became part of Austria.  The Austrians brought railroads, gas lights, and a big tobacco factory.  Luckily for Rovinj, the Habsburgs used other cities as major ports, which allowed Rovinj to keep its quaintness. During our relaxing stay in Rovinj, we visited the Church of St. Euphemia .  Once there...