Lenz Winery We've been members for years, and we love visiting in the summer in the shaded courtyard. Service was great as always across our four visits! On our first visit with our friend Leah, we...
Blog posts from Travel
Long Island Summer 2024: food + restaurants
As usual, we tried out some new-to-us spots while returning to old favorites for things like pizza and bagels. Watershed Kitchen + Bar We ate outside on the back patio as it was a pleasant...
Long Island Summer 2024: sunsets at Bailie Beach
Once we secured the correct sticker for beach parking (why does LI have to make things so complicated!?) we headed over a few times during out four week stay. This year we saw a good number of...
Long Island Summer 2024: overnight in Lancaster, PA
As we've done in previous years, we split our drive to NY with a night in Pennsylvania. The drive up was fine, with typical traffic near DC. Left at 8:45am and pulled into our friend’s driveway just...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencia wine bars (+ one brew pub)
La Patrona We had an hour to kill before our apartment was available and this was one of the only Russafa wine bars open in the later afternoon. It was warm in the sun so we grabbed a table outside...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencian paella
We visited 3 paella-specific restaurants while in Valencia. It's traditionally a leisurely lunch meal with family and friends on weekends but we did have it for dinner once. Important to note that...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencia restaurants
As one can imagine, we visited a lot of restaurants in the month+ we stayed in Valencia, even if we did eat at home most nights. There were many options right outside our door in Rusafa, and we did...
Europe Spring 2024: Russafa neighborhood memories
We have a lot of good memories from our month in the Russafa neighborhood. Just about anything we could possibly need could be found within a few blocks, including two large grocery stores and...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencia gardens
Valencia has as a lot of different gardens, some simply between streets, others as large formal gardens. Jardín del Turia The famous former Turia riverbed is now a large, winding park for the city....
Europe Spring 2024: La Semana Santa Marinera de València
One of the memorable moments from our 2022 visit to Valencia was stumbling across the Our Lady Of The Forsaken Festival while trying to go for a drink (never made it to that bar...). Our 2024 stay...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencia apartment
Finding an apartment for a month in Valencia wasn't difficult, but narrowing the choices down definitely took us some time. We started with neighborhoods of interest - on our 2022 trip we had stayed...
Europe Spring 2024: introduction + flights
We have long wanted to try an extended stay in Europe, but previously stuck to 1-2 week long trips due to our dogs. Finding ourselves dog-free for the first time in 15 years we decided to finally...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria restaurants
Pazin Peperone - Located just a few blocks from our apartment, we stopped in and made a reservation for dinner on our first night. It's a good thing we did, as a group of ~20 French folks had...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria wineries
Istria has a really interesting wine industry with a mix of international grapes (cabernet sauvignon, merlot) and locally unique varieties (teran, malajvasia). In addition, some spots have a...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria waterfalls
Pazinski krov / Pazin Roof waterfall - lightly muddy, but not too bad. Great water flow due to recent rains and I continued upstream for views of additional cascades. Zarečki Krov Waterfall - just...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria coastal towns
As a peninsula, you are never that far away from the Adriatic on Istria, and we stopped to explore three coastal towns during our visit. Rovinj One of the better known towns on the west coast,...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria hilltop towns
Istria has a lot of hills, and quite a few feature a town with a tower poking up from the middle. Over our long weekend we managed to stop by a handful. Pazin Our homebase in Istria, featuring a...
Europe Spring 2024: Plitvice food & drink
As it was a 15 minute drive on a rural road into Rakovica, we limited our trips, but still managed to try three places. Bistro Old Shatterhand - We had made a reservation for 8pm, but it was not...
Our Itinerary
2024 Trips
San Diego, CA (Jan)
Sarasota, FL (Feb)
Madrid, Spain (Mar)
Valencia, Spain (Mar+Apr)
Palma, Mallorca (Apr)
Croatia (May)
Long Island, NY (July)
Faroe Islands (Aug)
London, UK (Sept)
Puglia, Italy (Sept)
Matera, Italy (Oct)
Rome, Italy (Oct)
Mosel Valley, Germany (Oct)
Frankfurt, Germany (Oct)
London, UK (Dec)
Manchester, UK (Dec)
2023 Trips
San Diego (Jan)
Orlando (Feb)
Richmond, VA (Apr)
Northern Italy (Apr)
NC Mountains (May)
Long Island (Jul)
Wisconsin (Aug)
Chicago (Aug)
Oak Island, NC (Sept)
Brooklyn, NY (Sept)
Bordeaux + Rugby World Cup (Sep)
Castilla y León (Sep)
Seychelles (Nov)
Willamette Valley (Dec)
2022 Trips
Florida (Feb)
NC Mountains (Apr)
Washington DC (Apr)
Valencia, Spain (May)
Hilton Head, SC (May)
Pacific NW (Jun)
Long Island (Jul)
Florida (Sept)
Chicago (Sept)
Poland (Sept)
NC Mountains (Nov)
Euro Xmas Markets (Dec)