Road trippin'

Bled, Slovenia

We began our long journey to Barcelona, Spain on Sunday the 15th of July. The trip was planned to celebrate mike's birthday, on the 19th. Originally we were going to fly but realized there was still so much we hadn't seen on the way to Barcelona. So pack up the car we did!

Our first day was spent in Slovenia. We saw Ljubljana and Bled. It was a pretty little country where the language was Slavic so I'd pick up on some things. My favorite was the fairytale like lake in Bled.

Florence, Italy

We drove to Trieste, Italy next. The next 5 days were spent in Italy. We saw Trieste, Venice, Verona, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, and Rapallo. In that order. All of which were visited for the first time except for Venice. We couldn't not go back for a couple hours when we were so so close to that beautiful city! We actually liked it better in January! There were way too many tourists. There were lines to get over some of the bridges!! What is that?! Some cities were small and there wasn't too much to see (Modena, Rapallo). Pretty much just hung out there for a meal. Others were the kind that have one big thing they're known for and besides that it's just a typical city (Verona...Juliette's balcony, Pisa...leaning tower). So those cities went fast. We spent a little more time in the bigger ones. Trieste was a little port city. We did some beach there and walked around and saw the sights. Cathedrals and such. We discovered (thanks to tourist offices and brochures) that tortellini originated in Bologna. Bologna is also home of the oldest university in the world. University of Bologna, founded in 1088. We really enjoyed Florence. Aside from being beautiful....Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael (painter), and Donatello (sculptor) were from this region. (all the ninja turtles) Also home to....Antonio Meucci: inventor of the telephone, Machiavelli: philosopher, Galileo Galilei: astronomer, Roberto Cavalli: fashion designer, and Guccio Gucci: founder of the Gucci label. Those are just the names I recognized.

Mike's birthday happened to be met in Florence and spent in Pisa. We went atop this beautiful hill overlooking the entire city of Florence and waited for midnight. The chiming clocks all over let us know when exactly to begin celebrating. It was perfect! We left for the leaning tower the following afternoon. It really is leaning! :)

Monaco

From Pisa we continued on to Monaco! We did a whole lot of relaxing on the beach in this tiny little country. Most of our day was spent there. And it was amazing! I had time to catch up on my writing...which always makes me happy. We went to see the sights after the beach. I think the main attraction was all the nice cars. Mike was like a little kid in a toy store! I don't think I've ever seen him so excited. Every which way you looked there was some amazing car that by the way he was acting you'd think it could fly or something. Every few seconds he'd tap me or nudge me to look at another one. He probably would have enjoyed it more if he could have experienced that with someone who appreciated the cars like he did.

Nice, France

We kept on trekking to Nice, France and then to Marseille, France. We did another day of hanging out on the beach and then going to explore in Nice. I liked it, it was very nice!:) Nice in Nice...get it? I like anything relaxing that we do. I'm pretty sure it's because we don't do too much of it. Mike's style of traveling is....go, go, go!!! I don't know how he doesn't get tired. When he's got his map and his camera that's all he needs. I'm not exaggerating when I say this....he doesn't need food, he doesn't need a bathroom for hours and hours! Just an occasional drink of water. It amazes me! He cant wait so long between meals at home.:) Superman traveler is what he is! Makes me feel like such a wimp. He's been giving me breaks on this trip in particular though...even got a nap in the park!:) In Marseille, we did a lot of walking! Explored their old town for a while. Hit up every point of interest on the tourist map! The last poi was the Notre Dame! We always thought there was just one Notre Dame, but turns out there are many! In all the French cities we visited there was one!:) It was on a hill, a huge hill! I was so mad by the time we got to the top of it! It was a long uphill hike! And it was hot! But definitely well worth it. Was not my take on it as we were climbing though. Our last city in France was a tiny town outside of Montpellier. We only spent half a day there and hung out on the beach the whole time! This was my favorite beach! It was so quiet and so so beautiful!

Next stop was Barcelona!!! We encountered many problems on the way there. We hadn't had any car

Sagrada familia, Barcelona

trouble or traffic the entire time but this drive was rough. First there was a semi truck accident. Literally stand still traffic for 1.5 hrs!! We're used to them clearing a lane real quick and letting people at least move by slowly. They didn't do that in France! It might have been Spain at that point, not sure. A little while later they close the freeway down! Took out a center divider and began turning everyone around!!! I've never seen anything like that! There was a forest fire and they were afraid it might spread to the road. There were actually a few fires! They were big! A lot of people died. We were delayed another 2 hrs or so because of the fire. We finally arrive in Badalona, right outside of Barcelona, to find that we dont have a hotel reservation where we thought we did. We booked through expedia and someone somewhere messed up and booked us a hotel in Badalona Square in Madrid, Spain instead of in Badalona, Spain. Same hotel chain. Anyway it took hours and hours to figure out what the issue was and how to fix it. The weirdest part was that all the confirmations we got (yes multiple) had the information we thought we booked but expedia had only the wrong booking on file. The hotel only had a room available for 2 nights and we had anticipated 3. So we had to pack up and switch hotels for the last day. It was definitely an inconvenience. Anyway, Mike figured it all out and managed to get all the additional costs covered by expedia. Even a few of the breakfast charges and all the parking fees.

Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona was nice. Very busy no matter the time. Tourists tourists everywhere! I thought we'd spend a lot more time on the beach...but we spent maybe 2 hrs at one on the last day. It wasn't high on Mike's priority list. We had a few days there so we could take it easy. We weren't rushing to get everything in.

Gaudi was an amazing architect from Barcelona. Some of his most famous works include the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. His style is so interesting. Some things are plain weird while others are just so unique in shape and color and detail that you can't not appreciate it.

After 3+ days of enjoying Gaudi's works we left Barcelona to head in the direction of home. Not a straight shot of course. First we went to Lyon, France. Saw another Notre Dame:) and more of beautiful France. Next up was Switzerland. Oh, the chocolate! It was a beautiful country! Driving through the hills was my favorite! The cute little houses in the hills. It was exactly like I'd pictured it would be. Things were crazy expensive though. We didn't eat out too much. Plain black coffee, starbucks, tall: was $6! I was shocked. A Mcdonalds meal: like $15. So about triple the cost of in the states. We explored 3 cities in switzerland. Geneva, Bern, and Zurich. Bern was my favorite. Small, cute.

Zurich, Switzerland

We continued on to Stuttgart, Germany where Mike's family lives. Spent almost 5 days with them! They were so good to us! Had the best of foods and couldn't pay for a thing while we were together. They showed us around Stuttgart and took us to Strousberg, France. We really enjoyed it there and wished we could have spent more time in the city.
We left them and headed for Liechtenstein. We were really interested to see what this tiny little country would look like. It's pretty neat. We learned a little bit about it and found out that there is a prince of Liechtenstein! The country is governed by a monarchy! We continued on to Innsbruck Austria. The plan was to visit Salzburg and Vienna as well but we were short on time. So Innsbruck was our last city on this tour:( I was so ready to go home and sleep in a bed, not in the trunk of our station wagon. It was nice and all. Felt adventurous! But 3 weeks! Of which we had a real bed only 8 of the nights....thats a little too much adventure for my liking. Trip totals: 9 countries, 22 cities! List just keeps getting longer.

Strousberg, France

On the way back from Barcelona we started staying the night at rest stops! Its absolutely wonderful! No sneaking around, there's always a bathroom, some even have showers! I don't know why we didn't think of it before. There are campers and truckers all around and people expected that there were people sleeping in the car. Otherwise we always had to find dark spots away from the houses that had their lights on. We had to be super quiet with shutting doors and everything else. Every morning was rough because we had to clean the bed up fast and not get noticed all while needing a bathroom REALLY badly! I'm glad we figured this out for at least part of the trip.

Liechtenstein

What absolutely killed me was my misfortunes with Bon Iver. Been dying to see them forever!! And while we were in Stuttgart they post on instagram that they were in Stuttgart...last night. A night that we were also in stuttgart! And the night before that...they were in Lyon...where we also were. And they were coming from Barcelona! They were like right behind us, doing the same drive! Worst part was when I asked Mike's relative if she knew of the park that they played at she answers "yea, we're going there now"!!! Where Bon Iver was the previous night! They decided to show us a different part of the city the previous night. Oh, if I only knew! Or if the relatives had chosen differently. I would have been such a happy girl! They were headed to Vienna next...also the direction we needed to go but not for a few days.:( At least I got to see the stage they played on...Pathetic.

For more pictures: http://s1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa406/mikeandalla/Road%20Trip%20through%20SO%20IT%20FR%20MO%20SP%20GE%20AU%20LI/