Good morning from sunny California!
I type as I sit here eating my late breakfast of a big ole bowl of fruit. Yum.
Thus far, my weekend has been a lot of fun. On Friday night my hubby and I went to Clos LaChance winery for a wine member party. We picked up our latest wine shipment, enjoyed a glass of wine on the house, and listened to some live music.
Yesterday my day was spent in San Francisco. A friend I grew up with, Ashley, was in town with her boyfriend on vacation. She and I have been friends since we began cheerleading together as young kids. We even shared a parking spot and drove to school together our senior year of high school. She lives in Jersey and I don’t get to see her often, so it was great to have a double date lunch together and catch up a bit!
After we parted ways, Adam and I went to the park near Ghiradelli Square to enjoy the gorgeous day.
We laid in the grass and enjoyed the scenery…
…and took a few silly pictures:
Even though we hit ridiculous traffic both coming in and going out of the city, it was worth it for the great time I had.
And now, I’ll get to the reason for my post title — an upcoming vacation!
In exactly a month, I’ll be leaving for Amsterdam for a work trip. I’ve been there for work a few times before (I blogged about my trip here last year), and have always enjoyed my time there.
I decided to plan a Euro trip immediately following my work trip, so Adam will be flying into Amsterdam towards the end of my time there, and we’ll be vacationing in Germany, Austria and Italy! In Germany, we’ll be staying in Cologne; in Austria, we’ll be in a town called St. Johann; and in Italy, we’ll be staying in Venice.
I booked all of the travel arrangements within the past few weeks – which I love because it’s not far away at all and I can start scoping out things to see and do. Here are some things on my radar so far:
Cologne –
Cologne Cathedral aka Kölner Dom:
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Hohenzollern Bridge:
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The Rhine Cable Car, aka Rheinseilbahn:
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And since I read that Cologne has the most pubs per capita in Germany, I’m sure that visiting a pub (or two or three…) will be on our to-do list.
Austria –
I’m so excited to go hiking during our stay in Austria!
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Ice caves:
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Visiting Munich, which is about 90 minutes away from our hotel in Austria:
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Seeing Vienna, the capital of Austria:
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Venice –
Being a foodie and lover of Italian food in particular, Venice is where I plan to indulge in lots of good food!
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And we can’t forget about the wine – oh there will be lots of wine.
On my “must do” list is a romantic gondola ride:
Exploring Piazza San Marco is another thing I know we’ll be doing:
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Adam and I have never been to Europe together and I am so looking forward to an awesome vacation. Friends, if any of you have traveled to these areas and have any great suggestions, please do share!
Have you been to any of these cities before? What’d you think?
If you could pick a dream destination to travel to, where would you go?
Looks like you had a great weekend, Nicole! You always do such fun things.
Wow you’re going to have so much fun on vacation. I haven’t been to any of those places yet, and look forward to reading about your trip!
I certainly try to have as much fun as I possibly can! Thank you reading.
A regular weekend for you sounds like a vacation to me!!!! That eurotrip sounds incredible though. I did a eurotrip a few years ago and went to Amsterdam, Germany and Italy but we skipped Austria. I still regret it…guess I’ll just have to go back 😉
Ha, not all of my weekends are this dreamy!
Oh nice, so I’m doing a similar Euro trip to yours then. At first I was looking more into doing Germany, France, and Switzerland, but then this just worked out better. I’m sure you’ll get back to Europe one day! 🙂
I have never been to any of those cities, but they sound amazing. Your trip will be fabulous I am sure.
I sure hope so! Thanks for stopping by, Abby!
Ahh sounds like it’ll be so much fun! Italy has always been at the top of my bucket list. Like you, I love Italian food! I’m hoping to get there sometime in the near future.
Ah yes, I’m in love with Italy! I was not sure if I wanted to do Italy this trip because I’d really love to do an entire vacay visiting the whole country, but then when I saw that Venice was a mere few hours from Austria, I couldn’t resist! I’ve never been to northern Italy before so it’ll be neat to see it in comparison to the southern parts.