After 9 plane rides, 8 train rides, 7 hotels, 1 AirBnB rental, 8 cities, 5 countries, 5 different languages, 3 currencies, more than 60 meals in restaurants, and 26 days of traveling, we have returned home from our trip to Europe.
Our adventure began in mid-June with a full day in Cinque Terre, Italy, where we hiked between the villages of Monterosso and Vernazza, ate pizza and local pesto, and sunbathed on the beach. We loved the peach, butter yellow and sunkissed pink colors that made up the landscape of this iconic beach town.
From Cinque Terre, we took a train to a small village outside of Venice called Arqua’ Petrarca to attend Alina and Alberto’s wedding. The setting in the middle of the Italian wine country couldn’t have been better for this Ameican-Italian wedding. The meal at the event lasted four hours, not including appetizers, fruit or dessert, and the wedding itself lasted nearly 12 hours, going into the wee hours of the morning. Italian’s really know how to savor the best things in life!
The best hotel and coffee on our trip was found here. We stayed at Villa del Poeta hotel and had the most incredible customer service we had ever experienced, along with divine Italian coffee. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Our final stop in Italy was Lake Como. We took a cooking class, sunbathed, drank a lot of wine and toured the lake and a village by Ferry.
Alex’s family was with us on this leg of our journey and we enjoyed getting to spend several quality days with them, especially his Great Uncle Larry and his wife, Jayne, who live in England.
One of the highlights of our trip was the first day we spent in Switzerland where we took the Glacier Express train from the alpine city of St. Moritz to the ski town of Zermatt. We wove our way around mountains, through tunnels and across expansive landscapes dotted with brown and white Swiss mountain homes until we ended at the foot of the Matterhorn in Zermatt.
My favorite city of our entire trip was Zermatt. Alex and I adore being in the mountains and I loved the small-town feel of the mountain town, as well as being able to look up and stare at a mountain peak as majestic as the Matterhorn. We had an incredible time hiking, taking in the scenery and eating fondue, which was our favorite meal on our trip. The meat fondue {pictured below} is from Whymper Stube and we also had a phenomenal cheese fondue from Restaurant Stadel.
The customer service in Switzerland and Italy was by far the best in our trip. We were so impressed with the level of care and consideration that every person we encountered in the service industry in Italy and Switzerland had. The hotel we stayed in {Hotel Bristol} was great too!
The third country in our trip was Spain. We split a week between the bustling, cosmopolitan city of Barcelona and the quiet beach town of Alicante.
Barcelona provided a lot of culture and tourist activities, a phenomenal wine tour through the Priorat wine region, as well as incredible sangria. Our two favorite restaurants in Barcelona were 15 Nights and Bilbao-Berria.
We were able to relax and work on our tans as we laid out on the Postiguet Beach in the coastal town of Alicante. By this point in our trip we were beyond tired of any type of ham, jamon or prosciutto and were really looking forward to a new type of cuisine. Even so, we had two exceptional meals at La Taberna de Tito and Piripi, where we dined with some new friends, Jose Luis and Conchita.
Enter London, the fourth of five countries on our trip. It was a big change going from Spain to London, not just because of the language difference, but the architecture and overall feel of the city drastically changed here. We had the most idea of what to expect in London since there are so many iconic photos depicting the cityscape.
It was really fun to visit places like Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abby, ride the London Eye, as well as see the bright red double-decker buses and telephone booths.
Other than simply walking the streets, the best parts of our trip in London were seeing the Tour de France come through and eating Indian food at Gopal’s.
The final city in our Euro-trip was Amsterdam, Alex’s favorite. We both loved how quaint the town of 700,000 people was. It didn’t feel crowded or over-run with tourists. The weather wasn’t great at all until our last morning in Amsterdam, but being Seattleites, we didn’t let that ruin our time there. Both of us adored the architecture and structure of the city, where it was situated alongside semi-circle canals. The people were very friendly and we really enjoyed the food.
We are really looking forward to being able to return to Europe again one day. As Rick Steves says, plan to be back!