City v. Countryside Travel

I was hopping around a few blogs and stumbled upon the button you see with a themed post for the next two weeks. And, while it's not a Tuesday, I thought I'd write a post to connect with the designated theme of city versus countryside travel and which you prefer.

So............the question stands, which do you prefer? Travel in cities or in the countryside?


For me, I think I naturally lean towards city travel. I wasn't raised to be the most outdoorsy-est person in the world and the introvert in me loves being able to blend into the buzz of a big metropolitan city. Cities also seem to have such energy, which I find magical and it's easy to get lost in that feeling.

I mean, Florence is one of the world's greatest cities. It just has that 'je ne sais quoi.'

Wandering through Amsterdam's bustling bike filled streets and finding the solitude of a quiet canal.

Venice- at the start of Carnivale. Incredible!

Street markets on weekends that pop up around a city. This one's in Split, Croatia.

Love. Dubrovnik.
One of my all time favorites.

But for every great city experience, there's always a few awesome sights only to be seen or experienced when you take a few steps back from the hustle and bustle.

You will certainly not find giant chunks of glacier in the heart of a city!

Or be able to take hot air balloon rides over the majestic white mountains of Cappadocia, Turkey.

So, which do you prefer? And recommend? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Where Exactly is Luxembourg?

Throughout the fall, we're not granted many long weekends, so when one rolls around it is nice to get out of Milan. Columbus Day weekend Caitlin and I headed to Luxembourg because, well, because we're not really sure why!

I have never known anyone to go to Luxembourg before so this seemed like an ideal country to add to my list of places visited. And this makes country #25.

We flew tiny Lux Air planes to Luxembourg City, complete with free Luxembourgish wine from the kind flight attendant.

Luxembourg is sandwiched between Belgium, Germany and France. There are three official languages, including Luxembourgish, but French seemed to be the most prevalent. I've heard people say it is really expensive in Luxembourg, but compared to other European places the prices felt about the same.

There are a few things to do in Luxembourg and so on our first day we followed a city walking guide, toured the Bock Casemates, and walked through the local market. We stopped for an afternoon beer that turned into three at a fun, street side neighborhood bar.

outside the Grand Palace

at the Saturday market

Jams for sale..with no lids...only plastic wrap and a rubber band. Hmmm.

view of the town called 'the Grund'

Caitlin's cool shot of me in the Casemates

from the park

The next day we took a train and bus out to Vianden to check out the castle and the annual Nut Festival. I'm pretty sure this is the biggest day of the year in this town. But, given that it is the Nut Festival the availability of 'nut' based products seemed fairly limited. As in, you could buy the random bag of nuts and nut liquor. There were no candied nuts or piles of varieties of nuts to sample. There were no weird creations made from nuts. Just typical festival food and drink.

stained glass in the train station

chair lift up to Vianden Castle

Vianden Castle

from the castle

Nut Festival

nut liquors

selling nuts right outside his house

Our 2nd shot of nut liquor...I could only handle the cream version...Caitlin dared to try a stronger one.

A Luxembourgish specialty...essentially potato pancakes

That same day we went to see Gone Girl at the nearby movie theater since it was offered in English. The theater had the most impressive concession stand this girl has ever seen. So. Much. Fun.

#happykila

sweet and salty popcorn

We spent our final few hours the next morning back at this cute French cafe eating baguettes with butter and jam. Then we moved on to Luxembourg's noted chocolate shop for chocospoons, small bricks of chocolate in a variety of flavors and combinations that you stir into hot milk. So. Delicious.

breakfast...French style

chocolate spoon choices! too many options!

amazement.

I had salted caramel. #yum

Travel Tips:

Luxembourg is a tiny country and was nice to visit if you're in the area and had an extra day. Pretty sure a special trip is not necessary!

We stayed at the Radisson Park Inn near the train station and would recommend these places where we ate: Urban, Mamacitas, The Chocolate House, and Paul, our breakfast place of choice.

Getting to and from Vianden was fairly simple. At the train station, the information desk sold us a ticket for the entire day that works on every mode of transport in the country, for 4 euro. We took a train to Ettelbruck and then a bus to Vianden. There were special buses on the day of the Nut Festival, but the rest of the year I believe it is bus #570.

There is also bus service to and from the airport. Single tickets are 2 euro.

Waking Up with the Sun

Every year our students in grades 4-11 depart on a week long field trip of outdoor education and cross curricular learning. I have always been somewhat envious of these trips, knowing that despite the long and exhausting hours of work, that these trips are such an awesome opportunity to explore the world.

This year, on the first day of school I was asked to chaperone the 9th grade trip to Valle Aurina. Apparently they were short a few chaperones and since when I'm gone a sub is not required it is easier to miss me than some other teachers on staff.

The 9th grade trip is a week of challenging outdoor adventure activities in northeastern Italy, near the Austrian border.

We spent 4 nights in this area of Italy. It was the most physically challenging week I have had in longer than I can remember.

View from our hotel for the week

Our first evening was spent at an adventure park, testing out various levels of high ropes courses around the park. Most of the kids were like little monkeys, just climbing and leaping from one obstacle to the next. This was a first for me, so I tried the easy course as required and then moved on to a medium leveled course. The first obstacle was a climbing wall and then there were eight other obstacles before finishing on a zip line. I would like to try one of these courses again with some friends at the same time. By the time I made my way up all the students had moved on to other courses and it wasn't as exciting as I had hoped. Once I was back on solid ground I worked on taking some pictures of our students flying through the air.

Gettin' ready for the ropes!

Holding on for dear life!

The 2nd day we woke before the sun and headed to a nearby mountain for a day of hiking. The views were incredible and worth the early wake up call. The day of hiking had its ups and downs, both literally and figuratively, as I spent my time with a student having challenges with the physical demands of the hike. But the scenery was incredible and an awesome way to spend a day.

Sunrise

On the way down

The next day we hiked up to a castle for a tour and an opportunity to repel from the castle tower. According to our guides, this is the only castle tower in the world you can repel from since it was once rebuilt and is stable. The tower is 40 m tall and we had to crawl out a window to repel down. I was not sure about doing this but knew I'd never have an opportunity like this again. Something tells me Richard Zimmer would not approve of this activity!! (Love you Dad!) Once I was finished, I was able to persuade three other girls to tackle the challenge.

I can't believe I did this!

Tallest tower, top right window...that's where we repelled from...craziness!

Listen carefully...and you'll know for sure I was with teenagers!

Our last full day was split into mountain biking and rock climbing. I rode with a group in the morning on the "easy" trail. We rode to a waterfall and through some nearby countryside. It was a pleasant morning, despite the students' minimal bike riding knowledge (apparently) and one fall around a tight corner! That afternoon, we were taught how to make the proper knot for rock climbing and how to belay for each other while climbing. I attempted to scale the rocky cliff two different times and made it higher the second time around. It was so difficult to find places for your feet and hands and in the end this was my downfall. Maybe next year I can try again...

Trying...

Made it a little higher...

It was an incredible week and I was thoroughly exhausted. The kids were really well behaved overall and I was so proud to be representing ASM with them. And I'd happily do it all over again if given the chance!

Have you done any of these crazy activities before? Or which ones would you want to try?

N'Ombra de Vin

I'm always on the hunt for interesting places to check out in Milan and lately I've found a few good leads of bars and restaurants that might be worth the time to search out.

On Swide, they've published lists of the top aperitivo places in Milan and their writers' favorite haunts around the city. Swide, an online magazine written in English, is connected with the Italian fashion label Dolce & Gabbana.

N'Ombra de Vin, a wine bar in Brera, found it's way on to both of these lists. Based on their descriptions it seemed like a place worthy of checking out.

There are some great pictures on this site.

Glasses of wine start at 8 euro and a few snacks were served to accompany our wine.

When we arrived the outdoor tables were completely full of young Italians, but I had read about the downstairs, so we headed inside. There were a few tables occupied at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night and we sat a huge central table built for 40. The vibe changed while we were there, from a mellow wine bar to a DJ-ed set of American 80's hits. It was a little strange, but this place feels like a nice option for a night out where you intend to spend a little money. Reservations are probably necessary if you intend to eat dinner, as they are almost anywhere in Milan on any given night.

The entire downstairs has wine covering each wall.

Verdict? A cool vibe, big wine selection and a good place to start a night out.

Milano Film Fest

This September, the Milano Film Festival opened in the city. There were events over a ten day span around the city, showcasing a variety of international movies.

Many events were taking place at Parco Sempione, on a large screen erected specially for the festival. For just a few euro you could buy a ticket for the next event and watch comfortably from a chair.

A few of us decided to check out a group of short films one night during the festival. Prior to the films, Jules not Jude, an Italian pop band entertained the crowd.

The shorts were super weird, but I suppose that's what comes with a film festival. Most of the films were in foreign languages and subtitled in both English and Italian.

It was cool to check out the film festival and it's fair prices made it accessible to everyone. It seems that another film festival is expected to open in May, coordinating with the opening of Expo 2015.

Have you checked out a film festival in your city? Favorite type of films to see?

Destination Unknown

If you know me personally, you know that I'm crazy organized and love to plan and know every detail. But, there is something to be said for being more spur-of-the-moment and just going with the flow. So, I'm working on it and I enjoy spending time with people that can encourage me to love spontaneity as much as I love organization.

With that in mind, Caitlin and I headed to Centrale train station a few weeks ago.

With NO destination in mind.

I knew that I wanted to go relax by a lake, but there are several options for this in northern Italy, so where we would end up was a complete guessing game.

Based on the times of trains on the board, we selected Lugano, Switzerland as our destination for the day. We bought our tickets and ran for the train.

Where to go, where to go?

And then remembered that we should probably have our passports since Switzerland is not part of the EU.

(This is the reason I like to plan.)

But, we boarded the train anyways and figured we'd gamble a little.

When we stopped at Chiasso, the first Swiss stop, I panicked internally a bit when the Italian staff left the train and the Swiss employees boarded, but they never came by to check for anything more than our tickets.

Phew. Deep sigh of relief.

Lugano is only about an hour away from Milan by fast train. We walked down to the town center and stumbled upon a festival. There were food and wine booths set up around town.

We wandered around a bit and relaxed in a park overlooking Lake Lugano.

The park had some cool and interesting art installations.

The view from our blanket in the park.

Traditional dance and costumes.

So pretty!

This festival surprised us by including a parade!

We thought the kids were handing out beer, but it was only apple juice! Bummer!

I'm pretty sure every local was either in the parade or watching from the side!

It was a gorgeous day at Lake Lugano!

Do you enjoy traveling without a plan? Share your favorite spontaneous travel moment!

Traveler tip: Switzerland on a Sunday is pretty boring as all the shops are closed. Had this festival not been happening, I'm not sure what we would have done all day. So, make your city plans in Switzerland on Saturdays!