Wine Country Weekend

Last weekend...

yes, still not blogging in real time, thank you...

we met up with a group of our friends for a fun weekend 

of relaxation and wine tasting!

We stayed here.

And we would highly recommend it.

My favorite stops?  Archery Summit, White Rose, and Domaine Drouhin.

  

And even though it's only an hour outside of Portland,

it was the perfect escape.  

Montenegro

Wow.  Been back from our trip to Croatia what,

two months now?  And I am still posting pictures?  

Way to keep in current.

While we were in Dubrovnik we made a day trip down

to the country of Montenegro.

The beauty of their gulfs and coastlines was the highlight of our trip (as you can see below).
(Not to mention the amazing gyro we devoured for lunch.)
And while we had fun touring around in our rental car (we always do)...
it's no Croatia.
We were happy to cross back over the boarder and
enjoy our last few days in the country we had grown so found of.  

More Dubrovnik...

Dubrovnik: Early Hours

In Dubrovnik I woke up early one morning

(really early for vacay, like 5am!) to head into town

and take some photos before the rest of the city woke up.

The live in, who is famous for wandering around foreign cities alone

in the early morning hours, was by my side.

And as painful as it is, to wake yourself up so early, it's well worth it.

Not only for the gorgeous lighting, and streets all to yourself, but just to

see a city as it prepares for the day is very special too.

And then of course we came back to our hotel 

and slept for another couple of hours...it's us we're talking about here.

The drive to Dubrovnik

From Hvar we took a catamaran back to the mainland where we rented a car
(less than 24 hours prior, thank you very much) and drove along the coast down to Dubrovnik. 

The drive was stunning.  Absolutely gorgeous.  I remember thinking to myself
that if there were a list of ‘best coastal drives in the world’ this would have to be one of them.  

Sadly for us today I don’t have a lot of pictures of said drive. 
Not only was I the driver but stopping for anything other than food wasn’t
really cool with the rest of the car.  

  

Here is the food…and any scenery that happened to be near the food:

Hvar Island, Croatia: Night Time

Hvar at night is a special, special place...  

Photo #1:  If it seems a little crooked, I would agree with you.

Photos #2:  One of my absolute favorites from our trip.     

Hvar Island, Croatia

After four nights on Vis we headed to the island of Hvar.  Leaving Vis was a bit sad for me.   It’s the first time I’ve ever suggested to the live in that we cancel the rest of our trip and just stay put instead. 

He was on board, until he learned that our future hotel plans were non-refundable.

Luckily, Hvar did not disappoint.  

In fact, it was actually a nice change of pace from sleepy, locals only Vis. 

On Hvar we kept to a schedule…sleep in, breakfast, pool, beach, pool, lunch, nap, more beach, more pool, nap by the pool, walk into town, dinner, sleep.  So I’d say about 100% of these pictures were taken between the hours of 6pm and 8pm as we made our walk into town every evening for dinner and fun.      

Vis Island, Croatia

If the blog suddenly goes dark, I fail to show up at work, answer my phone,
or even neglect to watch the season finale of (the worst ever) Bachelorette…
it’s because I’ve moved.  To Vis. 

One of my new favorite places on Earth.

Vis was our first stop in Croatia and couldn’t have been more perfect.  It’s authentic, and beautiful, and small, and charming.  It’s vineyards reminds me of Italy.  It’s insane cleanliness reminds me of Switzerland.  It’s gorgeous waters and landscape reminds me of Greece. 

While we were in Vis we rented scooters to travel around the island.  We were a scooter gang, the live in and I.  We explored hidden beaches, old churches, and got lost in the small cobblestoned back alleys of the village.  The first day we had the scooters I was a little timid with the idea and took all of the precautions you’d expect…closed toed shoes, long sleeves, using the blinker.  But before you knew it we were quickly zipping around in swimsuits and flip flops.  We loved scooting.  

We leave (early) tomorrow for our trip!

I'd like to say that at this time we're all packed, and the house is clean,

and we're ready to tuck ourselves in for a good nights sleep...

but that's just not the case.

In fact, it's 10:30pm, the house is a disaster, I have no idea what we've

packed yet, we still need to finish booking our trip...

and the live in just left to go work out.

Awesome.

Actually it's okay.  

It gives me some alone time to remove some of his articles of clothing from the suitcase.

He'll thank me later.

I won't be blogging while we're gone but I will be taking down

bits and pieces to share with you when we return.

Which leads me to this...my best piece of travel advice...

always bring a journal.  Always.

We're not talking the Dear Diary type.

We carry a pocket size Moleskin journal that literally goes everywhere with us.

And we basically use it like an old school Twitter fead.

It's an amazing way to look back on any trip - big or small.

Here are some entries that still make me laugh:

7/19/06 Rome, Italy:

"Next Halloween costume...

Pope and pregnant nun.  Can get great costumes here."

7/20/06 Rome, Italy:

"The famous heat rash of '06 is here.  Had to buy a "Brazilian" tee shirt

to cover up my gross chest."

11/13/07 Florence, Italy:

"I am still mad at Troy for being the meanest person ever last night.

At 4am he's up and running around the room because "he

absolutely cannot sleep".

9/3/09 Paris, France:

Troy made a rare entry: "Find big glass building."

12/28/10 Cabrera, DR:

"Troy went swimming in Playa Grande today with 

his sunglasses on.  He acted surprised when he lost them and then

 proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes searching

the ocean for them."

12/28/10 Cabrera, DR:

"Troy said, "if you ever want Harry Potter glasses, I'm

going to tell you no."

Q&A soon...

I recently received an email from someone asking me to help them plan their first trip out of the country. Holy cats, I think I’ve given you people the wrong impression. Although I would love love luuuuuuuv to set up some sort of free travel site/blog with tips and hints and local spots, I don’t know how worthy my advice might be, especially at the moment. Or maybe it could be more of a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ type of thing?

See, the live in and I leave in about a week for Croatia and London. Here’s what has yet to be done...booking two nights of hotels, a rental car, a way off the freakin island, and all the silly pre-trip errands. Mind you I have lists galore (Big list maker. It’s like my passion.) yet several of these things are not even on the top of the list. Buying new flip flops, why yes, that of course makes top priority. And the worst part? This doesn’t even bother us. We've put far more important things off, for far longer.

But putting our little procrastinator flaw aside, we actually might have a few pieces of advice on travel.

Good advice? Honestly, who knows.

So look for a little Q&A from the live in and I soon…

and if you have a question that you’d like to ask us either leave it in the comments or email me.
Serious or not so serious, we don’t mind.

I know my first question for him will be, “how in the world do you manage to pack more

than any woman I know?”

 

Mediterranean Bound

I told you I had fun travel plans to share…this weekend I’ll be finalizing the details of our trip to Croatia!

I cannot wait.

However in true procrastinator form I’ve nearly waited until

the last minute, once again, to completely book this trip.

I’ve had the air booked for months. Many months. But hotels? Not so much.

And we leave in June.

Fun fact about Croatia. They celebrate a national holiday on the live in’s birthday!

(And, we just happen to be there on his birthday.)

I wonder if he’ll be in a parade or something?

We’re going to visit two islands and the city of Dubrovnik.

We’ll plan to take ferries from the island to island, but cross your fingers that actually works out for us.

Reading their online ferry schedule is a bit challenging to say the least. Right now there isn’t exactly a ferry scheduled to go from island #1 to island #2, but what’s the point of worrying about that little detail just yet.

(Speaking of getting left on a island…did anyone see Sawyer from Lost on this week’s Community? I just love him. I especially love his ability to give people random nicknames.)

I’ll keep you posted on the travel planning as I check off my list…

(Image: Travel Photo Blogging)



Minneapolis

Minneapolis was a blast!  I miss my friend already.

Here's a few iPhone pics from our weekend.

Note to Portland: adopt the rent-a-bike aka "nice ride" program from Minneapolis.  

You won't regret it.