Planes, Trains, and Gondolas

For our honeymoon when we were both 22 years old, we went to Disney World. And while Disney is great, I think we did a little better for our 20th Anniversary ~ a rail trip starting in Florence, Italy and ending in Basel, Switzerland.  So many beautiful sights, amazing cities and experiences, and of course lots of incredible food!

~ Italy ~

Florence

Florence, the capital of Tuscany, was a really cool, really beautiful city. It's very walkable, and we did a ton of walking! Going in April, which is still considered shoulder season, I thought it would be a little less crowded; however, what we didn’t realize is that we would be there on Italy’s Liberation Day. There were tons of people, but all the museums and gardens were free that day, so even though there were big crowds, we got to see a lot that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

Some of our Florence highlights:

~Accademia Gallery - Michelangelo’s David truly is magnificent.  I knew it would be, yet, there still are just no words to describe this masterpiece. There were many other treasures to see in this museum, but the David is definitely the diamond.

~Italian Opera - How fun would it be to get dressed up, sing your favorite arias and a couple duets with a professional baritone and an amazing accompanist in a beautiful old chuch once or twice a week!? Just me? This was such a great experience - a prefix dinner before the concert, and then the most incredible musicians giving just a taste of several beloved Italian operas. Even if you don’t love or appreciate opera, this would be such a memorable experience for anyone.

~Scuola del Cuoio (Leather School) - Kind of tucked away in a pretty area in the city, we found this leather workshop/ school/ store where they had booths set up with various leather tools, videos playing of the pieces being made, and beautiful leather pieces for sale. It has an incredible history dating back to WWII when it was founded to provide orphans of the war a practical trade to learn and means to earn a living.  We were able to bring home a piece from the Leather School that we loved and that will carry our memories from Florence.

~Wonderful Food in Florence! The favorites:

-Gustapizza for truffle pizza with burrata cheese on top

-Trattoria Napoleone for pici pasta with spicy sausage sauce

-Strega’s Gelato

-La Bussola - my favorite - Everything was good here, but they are known for their tiramisu.  Tiramisu is not usually a favorite of mine, but here - Oh My Goodness - it was the best! We ordered the tiramisu tasting and got to try their three different varieties, and every one of them were slap-your-grandma good! (Apologies if you are unfamiliar with this saying from my old Kentucky home … that I learned from my Grandma).

Pisa / San Gimignano / Siena

For one of our days in Florence, we did a Tuscany Experience Day Tour where we rode a bus with a tour guide and about 50 other people to visit some other areas in Tuscany.

First was the leaning Tower of Pisa along with the Pisa cathedral and baptistery - very beautiful.

Then on to San Gimignano, which was my favorite of the day - a small medieval town with beautiful scenery and vineyards all around and lots of little artisan shops. I loved this little chocolate shop that gave out samples, one of which was a chocolate ball with limoncello inside - Yum! We had lunch and a wine tasting here that was excellent. We got to try some balsamic vinegar that they age for 20 years without any added ingredients, and it was out of this world.

Our last stop was Siena, where we had a different tour guide who did not speak English very well, so that was a little rough. Also Siena made me feel claustrophobic in the way that you can’t see out past any of the buildings and everything feels very enclosed with lots of and lots of people.

Venice

Most of our travel on this trip was by train, which was super easy.  So Florence to Venice by rail, then once in Venice a water taxi (fun and beautiful ride) to our hotel.

Venice is truly a unique city, and I’m so glad we got to experience it.  It is a bit touristy, and again - SO many people there with lots of tight little alleys you walk through. I know I’ve become spoiled living in our tiny town of 74 in the middle of wide open Wyoming, where there are way more cows and horses than people … but I just could not get over how crowded it was everywhere we went in Italy!

Highlights in Venice:

-Teatro La Fenice (the Opera House) - so beautiful with interesting history; there’s a nice audio guide as you walk through.

-Gondola Ride - a must in Venice! The gondolier takes you through some quiet, very pretty canals and under some of the bridges we’d been walking on around the city.  Certainly a good memory made to mark our time in Venice.

-Walking Food Tour - This was so fun and we got to try a ton of great food! I will say that Venice was a little harder for us to find the “right” places to eat - with lots of tourist traps, and then the places offering cicchetti (small bites), but not knowing what any of them were or how to order. Our local guide Emma was incredible.  We learned a lot from her about the city, the locals and their customs, and of course, the food and drinks!

~Switzerland~

From pizzas and pastas to cheese and chocolate ~ by train from Italy to Switzerland. *If visiting Switzerland, definitely get the Swiss Travel Pass - it will get you on trains, buses, or boats, and into most museums, making it super convenient and totally worth it.

St. Moritz

St. Moritz is a cute little town - a ski town - so in April it was kind of shut down, but we were only here one night.  The train ride to get into St. Moritz, the Bernina Express, was awesome - incredible views and an audio guide pointing out interesting facts along the way. Then in St. Moritz, we took a nice walk around the lake there with mountains on all sides, and we had an incredible meal at a small family run place called Banfi’s. A nice hotel here and then a city bus ride to the train station the next morning where school kids were hopping on and off with their scooters, helmets, and backpacks - so cute:)

The Glacier Express

Next stop would be Zermatt, but getting from St. Moritz to Zermatt was a whole experience - quite possibly my favorite of the entire trip! The Glacier Express is the slowest express train in the world, but this is one time the slow leisurely pace is exactly what you want as you take in the beauty of the Swiss Alps through the panoramic windows all around you.  As this is an 8 hour ride, and a highlight for our trip, we decided to splurge and do the Excellence Class experience.  It is definitely a splurge, but it is so worth it! Such a special and memorable experience - breathtaking scenery, delicious food and wine served to you throughout the day in comfy seats, stopping spots for short walks and taking pictures - all around superb!

Zermatt

Another cute little town in the Alps, also a ski town. There actually were still some skiers here, but not a lot. The best part of Zermatt for me was the Gornergrat - taking a 30 minute train ride up into the Gornergrat Ridge with fantastic views of the Matterhorn.  It was chilly but sunny and beautiful at the top.  The 360 loop hike had spectacular panoramic views all around. We had lunch at this outdoor restaurant with epic views and the best cheese fondue I’ve ever had while watching some paragliders flying with the mountains in the background - surreal!

We found some great little shops in Zermatt and we had another wonderful meal - their traditional beef fondue, and of course we followed that up with some chocolate fondue - all really good!

Basel

One last train ride and one last day exploring one last city together before heading home. We were tired and ready to get home at this point, but we made the most of our last day and truly enjoyed the city of Basel.  It’s a colorful, surprisingly quiet, artsy city - a mix of old and new. I loved old town Basel in particular. It’s also unique in that it borders both Germany and France. It seemed as though everyone in Basel spoke several languages! It was impressive to listen to a server speak English to us very well, then hear the next table who was just seated ask, “Do you speak French?” - “Oui!”, and then what had to be German being spoken with yet another table. Seems like a superpower to me!

Basel has 40 museums! With the Swiss Travel Pass we were able to kind of hop in and out of a handful of museums without feeling obligated to stay and take in every bit of each one, which was really nice. We had a wonderful lunch at Krafft, a restaurant overlooking the Rhine River (so clean and beautiful!). We also loved the cathedral here. They were doing a community sing inside when we were there, taking requests for hymns. I’m not sure what language they were singing in, but one I recognized as my dad’s favorite hymn - “Morning Has Broken.” A beautiful moment - the acoustics, the familiar tune, history, and faith all combining at once.

This trip was so full, getting to see and experience SO much. Traveling as a family with our kids is something we really love to do, but it was also so good to have this time together with just the two of us. We did some reminiscing of the past and some dreaming for the future. We also did a lot of appreciating the now … and home.

It’s funny how “getting away from it all” makes you remember how much you really appreciate it all. Since we’ve been back home, I keep thinking - “We get to live here!” Yes, it is a lot of work - we have four kids, two businesses, we live on a 300 acre ranch where we grow our hay and we have 2 dogs, 4 horses, 2 dairy cows, about 20 beef cows, and I lose track of how many chickens … and it all does feel overwhelming sometimes.  I heard someone recently (Amanda Sudano Ramirez) speaking about the blessings of God - saying that we can carry them as a burden or carry them as blessings. God’s blessings don’t come without some work.  And that’s so true - that’s true for 20 years of marriage too! I want to always appreciate the work that comes with the countless blessings.

So thankful for travel adventures with my favorite person … and how that always seems to put things back into perspective and provide some refueling.

Thankful for a home I truly love to come back to.