Chronicling our crazy yearlong worldwide family sabbatical
Over the Christmas holidays we headed back to the states and spent a few weeks with our family. This was a great way to recharge before setting out on the next phase of our trip. It is hard to believe that our 14 months of travel is already half way complete. In 2019 we head Read More …
With a few days left of the European portion of our family sabbatical we decided to make a short visit to Brussels before departing out of Paris. Since we were now without a car, we rode the rails from Paris to Brussels Midi. Train travel in Western Europe is quite comfortable and easy. After arriving Read More …
After a magical time in Venice it was time to bring our European road trip to a close because we had reached the end of our 170 day Renault Eurodrive lease contract. We had originally planned to return our car in Nice, France because it is the closest free return center to Italy. As our Read More …
We almost didn’t go to Venice because of the bad rap that it has gotten as being ruined by hordes of tourists. Annette first visited almost 20 years ago and even then the narrow walkways were so full of bodies they were difficult to navigate. Despite our reservations, we wanted to see the famous canals Read More …
After a few days in Novi Sad we left Serbia and drove west, back to Zagreb where we had spent a few days in the early fall. We had mainly decided to stay for a night in Zagreb since it was a convenient stopping point on the way to Venice, but were also excited to Read More …
Following an excellent stay in Belgrade we made the short drive to Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city. Situated on the Danube, Novi Sad is only an hour away from the capital. Christmas Market After getting settled into our AirBnb we went out to explore the town and were delighted to find a Christmas Market Read More …
Leaving Skopje, we continued north into Serbia towards the capital city of Belgrade. Once again we had to avoid going through Kosovo since our Eurodrive auto insurance was no good there. The highways along this route were mostly four lane and well maintained. We only had to slow down to pay tolls every 20km or Read More …
Skopje, the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia (or just “Macedonia”) is totally unlike anywhere else we’ve been before. The downtown area is packed full of gigantic statues and grandiose neoclassical buildings. They are supposed to look older, but all were constructed since 2010 as part of the “Skopje 2014” project. The purpose Read More …
After three days in Bitola we were ready to get on the road to our next destination. However, we weren’t sure if we’d be able to since it had snowed about 6″ and we had neglected to buy snow chains or tires. Technically we were required to have snow chains and contemplated buying some, but Read More …
When people used to ask what we’d change about our itinerary in Europe, we’d struggle to find an answer. That changed after our stay in Bitola, a city in the southern part of the Republic of North Macedonia (“Macedonia” from here on out). We chose to stop in Bitola because it was a convenient stopping Read More …