Everything in Between: Catching Up!! My Trip to Europe May 2024

Oof where do I start!? We've had many adventures since Italy but I've been terrible at blogging them. So it's 11:25am on a Sunday let's see if we can get though them all!

Let's start with my solo-ish trip to Europe! If you would have told me when we got home from Italy I'd be back there 7 months later I would have told you that is insane. However, my work had other plans.

I returned from our Italy trip and 2 weeks later I was called into a meeting with HR that my position at my company was being eliminated. I wasn't shocked, the writing had been on the wall. Luckily there was another position in the company that needed someone with my type of experience. I took the weekend to think about but really there wasn't much to think about, I gladly took the new position.

A few weeks in my boss approach and told me it would be beneficial if I went and visited our sister companies that I will be dealing with on a daily basis. Lucky for me they are located in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. Let the planning begin! He suggested two full weeks away but really didn't set any further perimeters other than a daily budget on hotels. At first, it was going to be solo, which was scary but at the same time spending two weeks with someone I didn't know was scarier! BUT as luck would have it my good friend Amanda who I've known and worked with for probably 20 years heard I was going and she was planning on going this year too so we planned it to go together!

It was May 2024 when we left for two weeks.

Obligatory airline food photo.

Ya know, just flying over the Swiss Alps.

Only comfort movies on flights for me! (Her face, haha)

We had planned to fly into Italy first and on a Friday so we would have the weekend to explore. And boy did we explore! We fly into Milan and stayed in Mantua, close to work. On Saturday we drove to Venice. It was gorgeous. We ate, shopped, just took in all the wonderfulness. I know going for one day you don't get quite enough but we were maximizing our time and I am truly glad that we went.

A beautiful city and I can't wait to go back someday.
On Sunday, Mothers day, we drove to Florence. I'd been to Florence on the previous trip but just drove though it and didn't get to see anything. We walked around for hours, ate, shopped, etc. Another absolutely beautiful city but I didn't appreciate all the traffic tickets once I got home... that's a story for another day but FYI do not drive in Florence.

On Monday it was work work work! It was great to see my Italian counterparts and I learned a lot.

After work we took a trip up to Verona to look around and have some dinner. It was the most gorgeous city and I definitely need to go back. There was an opera that night in the colosseum and listening to it from outside was magical, I can only imagine what it is like inside.

We tried to see Juliets balcony but it was closed for the night. I was able to zoom in to her statue though.

Unfortunately the place we chose for dinner was pretty bad so on our way back to the hotel I got some takeout pizza, bruschetta, cannoli and some beer and had a great dinner in my room. I did not however have utensils and that made this difficult to eat.

While were talking about the hotel, I LOVED this hotel. Ca' Uberti in Mantua. Everything about it was fabulous! It was huge, very clean and the vibes were allllll Italy.

I wish I could describe this breakfast, I'll set the scene. I was sitting alone, a window open behind me, a gentle May breeze drifting and a soft Italian song was playing in the distance. Perfection.

My room.

And it is in this moment I realized this blog post is going to take me all day.

Mantua, where we stayed in another city I'd love to go back to. I loved everything about it... except the parking.

This local wine was amazing!

After 4 nights in Italy it was time to move to the next destination - Germany!

We took a short flight , missed a connection but arrived late in the evening in Stuttgart where we were staying. The hotel Zur Weinsteige was great and I loved it.

We were starving when we arrived but with the late hour we asked the concierge where we should go and they suggested their sister restaurant and it ended up being fantastic. Although our waitress didn't speak English and the menu was in German, to be expected and I loved it more! Thank goodness for Google translate though.

We worked through the remainder of the week and enjoyed a little break from travel. Not to last long though! As soon as Friday after work hit we hit the ground running. Off to Munich for the weekend.

Our hotel was adorable. Look at this teeny room. I loved it! The Splendid Dolman.

Our first stop for dinner was of course HofBrauhaus. We walked around a while looking for a table and finally found a nice one outside. It was packed, lively, loud and super touristy just as expected. The food was good (except the disappointing pretzel) and the beer was oh my lordy so good.

We walked to Marienplatz and there was a show on the Glockenspiel building and it was super neat. But we couldn't hang out too long because we had an all day tour scheduled for tomorrow to see Bavaria and Neuschwanstein castle!

Diet coke and beer.

We took a tour with Mike's Bike Tours out of Munich and I couldn't recommend enough. We took a very nice bus to the castle and even though my short legs struggled the bike ride was very awesome. We took breaks every once in a while, we got some ice cream and beer and had an oppurtunity to swim in Swan Lake (no thank you).

Got a coke light.

I'll let the pictures do the talking. Surreal, gorgeous, amazing!

Sunday was a travel day and we were off to the Netherlands!

Sunday night we had dinner with one of our old co-workers and his family. They cooked a great meal for us and it was nice to see them.

Monday was actually a holiday (unbeknownst to us) so we worked from our hotel and caught up on emails and then met a friend from the company that took us to the Haag and Scheveningen beach. It was a chilly day so we didn't do much but I imagine in the heat of summer this place would be so cool.

We shopped and did some sightseeing about Den Haag.

That night at about midnight I got the dreaded call from home. Our dog Max had been attacked by our neighbors dogs. He was torn up pretty bad and needed stitches, I felt pretty helpless but you better believe I called the police, animal control and anyone I could.

Graphic photo warning!

Stitches.

I was mad. They did quarantine the dogs for ten days but ultimately, they were released back to the neighbors. They have done better about keeping them contained, as they should.
Back to our regularly scheduled travel blog post!

So Tuesday was a work day. We were very very busy at this location because this is where the majority of our international communication happens. The days flew and at night we just ate dinner at the hotel and crashed. Our hotel, the Golden Tulip was nice and I loved the location in Helmond.

We worked Wednesday and at the end of the day we checked out of our hotel, took the car to the airport and took a bus to our hotel in Amsterdam. We both decided to take a vacation day to spend the day in Amsterdam before our travel day Friday.

Our hotel was Hotel Aalders and another teeny room! But again, I loved it. Side note, I love all our hotels because I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching, reading reviews, looking at photos, so each hotel was pretty vetted going in.

I'm also posting a photo of Amanda's room because it was much cooler!!

We explored Amsterdam the next day, such a cool city! We went to the Van Gogh museum, toured the Anne Frank house, took a boat tour, ate some local food, it was a full day and I enjoyed it all.

This is the only photo I took at Anne Frank - it was very crowded and lot of school children. Not the experience I had hoped for but important to remember.