Category: European Trips

I decided I wanted to take my mom to Italy back in 2019. Originally, the plan was to surprise her after I finished my thru hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2020: we all know what ruined that plan: the trail, Italy, the world got canceled. Then, I decided we’d go after I completed the trail in 2021.. which got pushed back to now simply because I kept extending the length of the trip.

So, to be sitting on an airplane, slightly uncomfortable with tingly feet while Mom snoozes next to me, feels absolutely incredible. I’m supposed to be sleeping, but can’t seem to manage the staying asleep part. My mind just won’t shut down.

The last few months have been a whirlwind, to say the least. I worked a contract at my home hospital for the first three months of the new year, my first contract after hiking the AT (and after being off work for 9 months-let me tell ya, it was a blast 😬). I also started dating someone I’ve had feelings for for several years now. Funny how those things tend to happen.

Anyway, Mom and I managed to pack for this 6 week EuroTrip with only a carry on suitcase and a small tote bag. I’m honestly impressed as hell. We both decided if we end up buying new things (which of course we will), we’ll just mail some of our other clothes home to lighten the load.

Our itinerary is pretty jam packed: London and then Paris, followed by a couple nights in Lyon, France with my friend Morgana and her husband and their fluffy animals (I’m a little disheartened that their most gorgeous floofy pupper does not allow cuddles-BUT they have a new baby floof that absolutely does allow all the loves, and I’m entirely too excited over getting to love on him haha).

We take a train from Morgana’s place to Milan, Italy and have day trips planned to Lake Como and Switzerland. From there, we head south to Florence, where we’ll also see some Tuscan countryside, Cinque Terre, and the leaning tower of Pisa, and obviously, Florence itself, too.

We only spend a couple nights in Venice before embarking on a 10 day cruise to the Greek and Turkish Islands.. Mom and I usually aren’t really cruise people (I get seasick, I refuse to blame the alcohol), but I got a Black Friday deal I just couldn’t pass up. Almost every day of the cruise has a stop with an excursion planned, whether it’s an ancient Athens tour or a beach and snorkeling adventure. Thanks to Covid, the cruise company isn’t (or wasn’t) allowed to let us off the boat without a planned excursion, so, whatever.. take my money.

When we doc back in Venice, we take a high speed train to Rome. We have all the must dos planned out, although I’m super sad to say the Colosseum at Night tour was just canceled and we got rebooked for a regular old day tour.. lol.. like seeing the Colosseum at any time of day wouldn’t be incredible.

From Rome we head to Sorrento, with day trips planned to Capri and the Almafi Coast/Positano. With such busy days filled with sight seeing and all the touristy must see things, we end up flying to Malta to relax on a beach for the last leg of the trip.. nothing is planned or required, just soaking up some sun before starting our “journey” back home.

I was concerned about Mom being on long flights, (one return flight would have been 11 hours), so, I chopped it up for our homecoming. We fly from Malta back to Paris for a night, then from Paris to Newark, New Jersey. Because of the times the flights arrive and the covid testing requirements, we can’t make the connections without spending a night in each place. Even still, I’m holding out hope that they won’t actually require the covid testing to get back into the country by the time we return *fingers crossed.*

Then, at last, we fly home. Sheesh, I’m exhausted just typing all of that out! I know we’ll hit some snags along the way, because it’s impossible for a trip to always go perfectly smooth, but I just pray they’re small (and cheap) snags and nothing monumental.

It’s 1am our time, and in 2 hours it’ll be 8am in London and time to start the day. Hopefully the excitement and newness will overpower the sleep deprivation! I’ll let y’all know how it goes 😉

I didn’t get anymore sleep on the flight, although Mom seemed to. We’re both heavy sleepers in general and tend to require more sleep than average.. which made today entertaining. It was like we were both in a bit of a fog for the first half of the day.

When we got off the plane and went through immigration and customs, we were super disappointed that we didn’t get stamps on our passports.. hello! We want stamped proof we were here, not just memories, photos, and experiences.. hahaha

Figuring out the airport and following the signs to the train stations wasn’t difficult, even with spotty free airport WiFi. The express train to Paddington Station was more expensive than we expected. And originally the man helping me had us paying for round trip tickets. Hopefully it wasn’t a mistake to tell him we didn’t need that.

Our train ride was quick and before we knew it we were lugging our “light” suitcases through the downtown London streets towards our hotel. It was pretty entertaining-both of us exhausted, wheels not wanting to roll well over the sidewalks, forgetting that the cars would be coming from the opposite direction at crosswalks. We made it though! And relatively faster than I thought we would!

The hotel didn’t have our room ready yet, because it was 10am .. but they did let us leave our luggage with them as we left on foot in search of coffee and breakfast. The temperature was in the 50s, and we knew immediately we should have grabbed our bigger jackets. The walk to the cafe we chose didn’t take long, but man it was cold! Originally, Mom wanted to sit outside, within 5 minutes she asked the waitress if we could move it inside. Lol

We had our black Americano coffee and a pretty good breakfast (avocado toast topped with a poached egg for me, eggs and bacon for mom), and tried to warm up and wake up. After leaving I ended up getting an energy drink for some extra pep.. it didn’t help.. but I was dead set on us not taking a nap today so we’d offset the jet lag, sleep hard tonight, and wake up refreshed and ready to explore tomorrow.

We walked around to a few shops, looked at souvenirs and got the lay of the land for our little area near Hyde Park. We inevitably got too cold to continue exploring, so we made our way back to the hotel and sat in their lounge to find the feeling in our fingers again. Close to 12:30 I went to ask about our room, and they were able to let us check in. We were so grateful!

I quickly took back everything I said about not taking a nap. Once we settled into our room, we agreed to set an alarm for 4pm and take a nap.. then get up and go explore the park and find some dinner. I was a little worried we’d both ignore the alarm and wake up at 1am starving.. because we both fell asleep immediately, and when some random fire alarm went off at 2pm, we both woke up, looked around, and decided to ignore it completely and fell back asleep.

When our actual alarm did go off, we got up, dressed more warmly and headed out to see what this Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens were all about. It reminded me a lot of Central Park in Manhattan. It was beautiful, there were dogs running around chasing their throw toys, kids chasing birds, people strolling. There was a pond with a ton of pigeons, ducks, swans and geese. I did my mile run (I’m on a run streak to where I have to run at least one mile every day) around the pond and then Mom and I walked over to Kensington Palace. We had hopes of going inside the palace and the garden grounds outside, but we missed the cut off time to be let in. So, we’ll try to do that tomorrow.

We continued through the park and then down one of the main roads. We checked out a bookstore and got some British Pounds from an ATM.. took pictures of phone booths, funky taxis, and the double decker buses before finding a restaurant to eat dinner at. It was a nice pub with some damn good food. My fish and chips were top notch.. I’d say it’s been my favorite meal while traveling lately (Lauren and I ran half marathons in Maryland, New Jersey, and Oklahoma this month.. I wasn’t a fan of the food we had during our trips lol). The beer was quite good, too.. although it’s not really Mom’s thing.

We took our time walking back to the hotel, and now we’re laying in our beds watching tv with heavy eyes. I think we’ll both be back asleep before too long (it’s almost 9pm haha, how silly), and will be wide awake bright and early. We plan to go to the main touristy things tomorrow, like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and Shakespeare’s Globe.

Fingers crossed that it’s a bit warmer tomorrow!

We got up around 8 this morning.. Mom to have her coffee and shower, me to run 2 miles in the park. It was absolutely gorgeous this morning! The sun was shining, the skies were blue, it was just cool enough to run well.. perfection. Once I got back, I quickly showered and then mom and I went downstairs to eat breakfast.

Breakfast is usually my favorite meal, but I don’t think that will remain true for this trip.. that buffet had watery eggs, funky sausage, and thick bacon.. and beans-that we didn’t eat lol. Thankfully there were croissants, too, and I could make a little runny scrambled egg sandwich.

We started our sightseeing adventure shortly after 10:30 and walked our butts off. We saw the Italian Fountains, The Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben & Parliament Square with Westminster Abbey and Palace, The London Eye along the Thames River.. and from that point we started to take advantage of the sightseeing busses all over the place.. and sat down to ride and rest our feet.

We ate a quick subway sandwich for lunch and continued over to the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge. There were so many people out and about and as the day wore on the more and more crowded it got. We took one of the buses back towards Hyde Park from the Tower Bridge area late afternoon, and got lucky enough to snag seats on the top of the double decker.

We walked through Hyde Park to Kensington Palace and then took the tour of the Palace and the Gardens. I preferred the gardens to the palace, because it didn’t really have much inside except for paper replicas in plastic boxes, set up like dollhouses in each room.. showing what it “would have” looked like instead of making real sized replicas.. I mean, some rooms had actual beds and tables and things, but not many. In the Gardens there was a statue of Princess Diana and her boys. It was beautiful.

We walked back to the hotel room from the Palace and then decided to book tickets to see Matilda, the play, at the Cambridge Theatre. We changed clothes and got a taxi to the area.. it was already 6:30pm and the show started at 7:30. The restaurants were busy and sidewalks were packed with people, so we made the sad decision to go to McDonald’s for our dinner.. yikes! I mean, it served its purpose.. it was fast and filling, and we made it to the show just in time to use the restroom, grab a drink, and take our seat!

We loved the show! It was funny and very entertaining, although musicals do get a little annoying to me at times.. haha. When we left we had to walk a little ways to a main/busy street to hail a cab. The process took a good 15-20 minutes. And then it was easy going to get back.. way less traffic than the way there, thank goodness.. because we’re both pretty exhausted. My watch says I’ve walked 15.2 miles today. Only 2 of those were from my run this morning!

We’ve mostly packed up already, because in the morning we take a cab to Kings Cross Station to take the Chunnel (a train that passes underwater through the Channel) to Paris. I’m so excited for the next leg of our trip! France, here we come!