Travelling Lore

And here we are at the end of our "Adriatic Adventure," taking on Rome, our final stop before heading home!  There's a TON of tourist information on Rome (ergo, it's easy to find information), so this will be more of a photo montage style of my favorite shots from the city.  Enjoy! Selfie on the Spanish Steps. Psychedelic shoe store lit up at night. Hello, Colosseum! Tunnels under the floor of the Colosseum. View of the Roman Forum.  Simply wonderful how many ruins you can see! And when in Rome, you check out the Vatican.  Let me interject my photo montage here.  In all honesty, this was my least favorite part of our entire trip.  I was pretty disappointed with my experience visiting the Vatican.  It had nothing to do with customer service, but it had everything to do with how difficult it is to enjoy all of the art and history that's inside due to the sheer number of people pushing through the rooms.  Y...

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...

Now that I've sorted through mine and my boyfriend's photos, let the travel blogging begin!  I'm going to write about my vacation in the same order as my itinerary.  By doing so I hope that it makes it easier for those interested in traveling to the same or similar destinations to have some sort of guide on what to expect when traveling clockwise around the Adriatic for three weeks. That said, we flew into Venice, Italy right after Memorial Day and spent 2 days there.  The cheapest way to get to Venice proper from the airport is to purchase a vaporetto pass in the airport.  Vaporetti, or motorized water buses, are Venice's public transit system.  Not only do these passes save you time, but they're a great value if you're spending more than a few hours in the city since a single ride costs €7.  They can be purchased in 12-hour to 7-day increments and are also accepted by ACTV's mainland buses, like the bus that takes you from the airport to your...

Hello, U.S.A.!  Long time, no see!  After a wonderful three-week vacation (and an extensive return flight delay), we're finally back home.  While on our Adriatic circuit we visited Venice, Italy; Slovenia; Croatia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and southern Italy.  I have a ton of photos to sort through before I can properly share my vacation on here.  But in the meantime please enjoy my Instagram roundup of some of our vacation destinations. Evening gondola ride in Venice, Italy. View from Rialto Bridge in Venice, Italy. Vintgar Gorge hike in Slovenia. Tasting some orange wine at Dvorni Wine Bar in Ljubljana, Slovenia. View of Rovinj, Croatia from St. Catherine Island. Plitvice National Park, Croatia. Amazing view from our guest house in Korčula, Croatia. Beaching it up in Lumbarda, Croatia. Enjoying some Bosnian coffee  in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Pompeii, Italy with Mt. Vesuvius in the background. ...