Italy's Original Capital, Turin

When planning this trip, we made the decision to go visit Turin, because Bryan's favorite soccer team, Juventus, plays in this city. Plus, it is the original capital of Italy and has a lot of great history here as well. It was also home to the 2006 Winter Olympics. Yet, our favorite part about planning this was everyone asking where Turin is. :) For the record, Turin is in northern Italy, in the Piedmont region. It's about a 45 minute train ride, south and west of Milan.

About two weeks before we left, we went to purchase soccer tickets (that's when they become available) and had a hard time finding a reasonably priced ticket. Then, we came across the unfortunate news that the game had been rescheduled. Yup, we (mostly) planned this entire trip around that game, and now it was no longer. Since Juventus (had) been doing good earlier in the season, there was a chance they would have another game close to this one, so they changed the schedule and we missed out. We contemplated not going to Turin at all because of this change, but thought it would still be fun to visit this town since most people typically don't.

Hard to find this hotel

After getting off the train from Rome, we had about a 10 minute walk to our hotel. Well, it would have been 10 minutes if we could figure out where we were going. Again, I'll post more about the hotels later, but this one was a bit tricky to find. Nevertheless, we found our way and settled into our room. After cleaning up, we headed to dinner at one of our fave restaurants of the entire trip, Bottega Baretti. More to come about restaurants too, but just add this one to your list. Following dinner, we called it an early night. This was our first full night in Italy and after having gone to the Colosseum earlier in the day, we needed some sleep!

The next morning, we hit the streets of Turin. Since we were no longer going to the soccer game, we had the day to do what we wanted. A few blocks down from the hotel, we found a great cafe where I ordered my first Italian coffee and nutella-filled pastry. Trip made. We were staying in the San Salvario neighborhood, and just across the street from the cafe was an open air market. It was fun to wander through and see lots of local and handmade items for sale.

Mole Antonelliana

From there, we made our way through town, first visiting Mole Antonelliana. Mole in Italian is a building of monumental proportions, and this place is believed to be the largest museum in the world. What was once used as a synagogue, now houses the National Museum of Cinema.

Next we found our way to the Royal Palace of Turin, the former palace of the House of Savoy. The House of Savoy, led the unification of Italy and ruled the Kingdom of Italy until 1946. Their palace was then turned into a museum and became a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997. The Royal Palace also is home to the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, which is believed to have the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud of Turin is believed to be the cloth that was used for the burial of Jesus. We chose not to go 'see' the Shroud of Turin, because it is buried in a thick wall with nothing to actually see. Instead we wandered the palace grounds and the public garden in the back. 

In the square of the Royal Palace (Palazzo Reale), is the Palazzo Madama. This housed the first Senate of the Italian Kingdom and is now home to a museum of ancient art of Turin. Heading south from here, we stopped in Piazza San Carlo, one of the more famous piazzas of Turin. Here, we finally had our first gelato of Italy. I know, I know, it took us this long to get some. But well worth the stop. :) And THEN we had lunch. Priorities!

Apreol spritz in the park

Following lunch, we went to Parco del Valentino, a giant green space. This spot reminded us exactly of Wash Park in Denver. Space to play volleyball, sit with friends, walk your dog, the list goes on. There were even small concession stands where you could order food or drink. It was here we decided we needed to try our first (and what ended up being only) Aperol spritz. Aperol spritz is a drink very popular in Italy, particularly in this part of the country, made of Aperol and prosecco. It was very bitter, so not our favorite thing, but at least we tried it! We sat under these beautiful trees and enjoyed the view of the River Po. 

After the park, we kept walking through town. Since we couldn't go to the Juventus game, we decided to try the next best thing and visit the Juventus store - had to see what we could get!

Following all of this walking, it was time for a drink! Also popular in Italy is called apertivo - basically our version of happy hour. The apertif was made famous in this part of Italy, the state of Piedmont. Most places you can purchase a drink and food comes along with it at no additional cost. We stopped at a place called Del Cambio Pharmacy that came highly recommended and it did not disappoint. We had a great spot outside on the square and relaxed and enjoyed the view. Following apertivo, we made our way back to the hotel so we could start thinking about dinner. We stopped at a variety of stores along the way, to window shop, but found out the hard way that a lot of places were closed since it was Sunday. It actually made our dinner choices that night slim as well.....twist our arm, we went back to Bottega Barretti for a second night. That's how much we loved it. :)
Turin was definitely a great town to explore - we had over 26,000 steps that day - so much to see! While I know it's not anywhere near the top of someone's list of places to visit in Italy, because it's so far off the beaten path and still has so much history, Bryan and I would definitely recommend you try to stop if your path takes you near it!

Rome in Record Time

Like I mentioned in the last post, we chose to only spend a small amount of time in Rome. There is so much to see, that this could be a trip to Italy all on it's own. When planning, we decided we would tour the Colosseum, try to see some other sites, and come back another day. :) (Put it into the universe and it will happen).

Trevi Fountain

We got into Rome on our first night in Europe fairly late, because our flight had been slightly delayed, settled into the hotel (a future blog on our lodging and food later), and fell asleep. Little did
we know, our clocks never set to Italy time. You see, we had flown from Athens to Rome, which is an hour time difference and we thought our phones had reset. The next morning, we woke up to get ready, eat breakfast and head out. Something just felt off. We knew we would be tired, but not this tired. Turns out, we were up an hour earlier than planned because of the phone's not setting - whoops! It actually worked in our favor. Since we were up early, we decided to leave early and try to see the Trevi Fountain, and perhaps some other sites, before being at our Colosseum tour at 9am.

The main event

Because it was early and it was raining, the streets were empty. It was very peaceful. Since most of Europe seems to wake up and get moving at around 11am, this gave us the city to ourselves. It also made it easy to get lost, which we did. Whoops again. By the time we made it to the Trevi Fountain, we had enough time to snap a photo and turn around for the Colosseum. But fortunately, there were only a couple of people at the fountain, so we could take photos by ourselves, and not with a million people. Then it was time to go - we were almost running to the Colosseum because we thought we would be late....nothing like an adventure on day one!

Rest assured, we made it in time to meet our tour guide, Rosana, and make our way in. We had signed up for a tour of the underground chambers, which only 3,000 people a day are allowed to see. Due to the weather and rain, we found out they had closed it for safety purposes. We were pretty devastated but understood their concern. We were told we would get refunded for that portion of the trip and what great customer service, before we got back to Denver we had received it! Extra kudos to our tour guide, Rosana, she was so knowledgeable and kept our tour time filled with great stories and history, despite the glitch in the plan!

Here's what you need to know about the Colosseum and Roman Forum:

The Colosseum is an oval amphitheater that was built for entertainment - mainly executions, animal hunts and most famously, the gladiator contests. Throughout the day, each of these battles would take place, starting with the animals, then criminal executions and finally the gladiator contests. Up to
80,000 people could fit in the arena back in the day, with three levels of seating. These levels were separated based on your societal class, with the lowest class having the highest seats, of course.

Animals were lifted up from below through elevator systems, and you can still see some of the 'rooms' they were kept in. There used to even be mock sea fights that occurred, and today you can see the drainage systems that were used to drain the water following those fights. After a battle, bodies of animals and humans were dragged through one arch called Death Door, and on the opposite side, the winners were paraded out another arch called Victory Door.

Death Door

The depth of the earthquake destruction

After the period of time that the Colosseum was used for contests, there was a giant cross in the middle of the arena. During the prime of the Colosseum, Christians were martyrs and it is believed that this cross today, is kept to represent those killed for their beliefs. It has since been moved to the side and is used as part of Good Friday and Easter celebrations. Unfortunately, due to earthquakes and other elements, the Colosseum has lost a good part of its structure, which is what we see today. Restoration is ongoing to maintain the structure and you can see which pieces are original, and which have been restored. When the earthquake took place, many people took the rock and created other buildings throughout Rome with it. On some walls, you can see holes where people carved out stone or marble and 'recycled' it (aka, stole) for use in other buildings.

From the Colosseum, you can see the Arch of Constantine. It sits nicely between here and Palatine Hill and is a symbol of victory over Maxentius, and the largest triumphal arch in Rome.

Arch of Constantine

Cremation site of Caesar

West of the Colosseum, is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. According to Rosana, Forum means outside; easy enough definition. This is where day to day life and meetings took place, and so much more. Too much more - ha! It was hard to keep up with the history of the Forum, but simply just take it in and you can feel the history. The road that Caesar rode for his triumps. The cremation site of Julius Caesar (but not his burial site). The temple of Romulus, the founder of Rome. This temple has been kept in great shape because it is also home to one of the 900 (yes, you read that right) churches in Rome. Just two doors down is another church, dedicated to pharmacists. Why pharmacists? Even Rosana didn't know, she just said there are enough churches in Rome for everyone to have their own. :)

The views of Rome

Our tour ended climbing the hill and getting beautiful pictures of Rome......and a big desire to come back! We were thankful we got to see the Trevi Fountain in the morning, because our tour ran a bit long and it was time to go. We made our way back to the hotel, grabbed our first slice of Italian pizza, bought a bottle of wine and headed to the train station.....to Turin we go!

Take the Damn Trip!

For about as long as I can remember, Bryan and I have talked about wanting to go to Europe - Italy in particular. Like many of us, we've always come up with an excuse: We don't have the time, don't have the money, etc. In spring of 2018, just about everyone we knew was headed to Europe, because flights were so cheap.....and about half of those people were going to Italy. With all of the conversation we were having with everyone about when and where they were going, it got us SO excited and jealous, so finally we said we just need to take the damn trip!

The planner in me got to work. In order to make it happen, I wanted to make sure we could save enough money to do what we wanted to do. My first order of business was to order travel books - because why not?! In the process of thinking about this trip, I decided we should also go to Greece. That has also been high on my bucket list and in the grand scheme of things, it's not that far from Italy. So, I asked my friends for their Italy budgets, and I started reading about the various areas in each country to figure out what we wanted to see most and could actually make work.

Based on our interests, we were able to narrow down our trip to the spring of 2019, so we could try to catch a soccer game of Bryan's favorite team, and the following cities: In Greece, Santorini and Athens, in Italy; Rome, Florence and Turin (home of Juventus, Bryan's fave soccer team, and the first capitol of Italy). Now some of you are going to get all judgy here - why aren't you going to Venice, Amalfi, Mykonos, etc. But let's just clear something up - it's okay to not want to do the same thing as everyone else. We have always been the kind of people that want to combine the super touristy thing, with the off the beaten path option, so that's what you can expect with future posts about our trip!

Now, since this is our first international trip, clearly we're not experts. But I'm going to run through the things that we found helpful to make our trip easier to manage......and more affordable!

1. Travel books. I prefer Frommer's. I wanted to do some research on the countries we were visiting to make sure we really saw what was important to us. From that research, we decided Venice was not important to us, and Rome has too much to see, that it really needs to be it's own trip....so the cities we chose above were the route we were going. I like the Frommer's books because they tell you about every part of the country, not just the popular places. Many people like Rick Steves, and while I hear he's great for food recommendations, I didn't like his book because he didn't even mention some cities if they weren't his favorite. To me, I want to educate myself, not have someone else tell me what to see.

2. Sign up for Scott's Cheap Flights! When we signed up, it cost $40/year (it's now gone up) and with that, we could select which departure airports we wanted to fly out of. From there, ANY deal related to those airports, gets sent to our inbox. After a few weeks, I added the NYC airports to increase our deals....within days we had a deal RT to Athens from Newark for $400/person on Emirates airline. Get ourselves to Newark on points and we just scored a heck of a price....makes up for the subscription service for years to come.

3. Lodging. While reading about the various cities, we could also read about the neighborhoods and what sounded neat. Want to be near the tourist sites, or far enough away? The up and coming neighborhood? We looked at all of these things. Then we started searching hotels and AirBnb for the best prices. Compare everything....booking our hotel for Santorini directly on their website gave us 10% off and a complimentary airport pickup. The Turin hotel we found through our United credit card partners - great reviews, up and coming neighborhood and incredible price. Rome? We looked for great reviews and close to the action. It's more than we planned to spend, but it's one night. And if we show them the Rick Steves book, we can get 10% off. Florence and Athens? We're in AirBnbs for these two. We wanted a SuperHost with great reviews and loved the look of the homes. We booked them EARLY because we knew they would be gone, and both are under budget. Add to it, the neighborhoods they are in are off the beaten path enough to give us a better vibe of the cities.

4. Tours. Some things require tours, some things are just easier to book them. With one day in Rome, we needed to do a skip the line option for the Colosseum. We knew we wanted to wine tour in Tuscany but knew the cost and logistics of doing it on our own might be a nightmare. Enter Viator. You'll pay a premium versus if you waited in line or did things on your own, but to have peace of mind that you know you'll enter the Colosseum on time is worth it to us. In total, we have five tours we booked. We planned the days and bought them all at once. By being a first time customer, we also saved 10% on the total purchase price. You can either print the voucher, or use your app when you arrive for the tour. This is where Rick Steves also WILL come in handy. He has several walking tours where you can download the map and audio for free!

5. TripIt. I love this app. I have used it for work for years, and started using it for our personal use also. This has been extra helpful since we're booking everything on our own, not through a tour or travel agent. As soon as you get any travel confirmation, forward the email to TripIt and they load it all into one itinerary for you. I can share that with our families so they know where we are, dig into it to find our confirmation codes for an activity, or see what travel arrangements we still need to book. Plus, it has a countdown to do the math for us. :)

6. All of the accessories! We want to pack light and easy. We have free checked bags with our flights, but we want the option to carry on and not lug a suitcase, so we ordered some great backpacks that can also double as camping packs! Of course, you should also plan for a universal charger, ours has tons of USB plug ins which is helpful these days. And as much as we wanted to deny it, we ordered the hidden money belts that will hide our personal belongings so we don't get pick-pocketed. You can't beat hands free anyway! Since we're going to the greatest wine country in the world (in my opinion) we needed to plan for the great wine. I found wine skins online for under $3/piece. Just wrap up the bottle and it should survive the trip! However, wine is still heavy.....so at the last minute we also purchased a portable luggage scale. This thing is so light and easy to use, it will be great to make sure we haven't exceeded our luggage limit!

What are your favorite travel hacks? I know as we get moving along on this trip, we'll come up with so many more ideas to make our lives easier. But I must say, for our first overseas trip, I'm pretty proud of our creativity to make it an unforgettable one! Thanks for following our journey....my next post will be all about our first day in Italy!!!!

To Wine Country We Go!

In the fall of 2018, it was time to plan another trip to Colorado wine country. After (sort of) planning a weekend getaway with friends, we decided we needed to make it an annual event. And this time, Bryan took a Saturday off of work so we could go out with our friends and not by ourselves.

There were six of us again this time. Julie and Kyle, Jonathan and Katie, and Bryan and I. We got up early Saturday morning and took the puppies to daycare, before picking up Jonathan and Katie and heading west. Each of us had our own bikes, and luckily, Jonathan had a bike rack that could hold all four. Once again, we rolled into town and parked at the Wine Country Inn, where we would be staying for the night. When we arrived, we had beat Julie and Kyle by a few minutes, so rode our bikes over to Grande River to do our first tasting.

While at the tasting, Julie and Kyle had arrived and met us, so we were all able to toast away and then head downtown for lunch. We went to a new spot for lunch called 357 Grill and while we sat there, we noticed they have karaoke on Saturday nights! Well we had made our plans for later....more to come on that.

After lunch we started the day and hit the usual spots: DeBeque Canyon, Plum Creek, Maison la belle Vie and a great place Bryan and I hadn't been before, Red Fox Cellars. At about six, Red Fox closed down and sent us home, so we made our way back to the hotel, freshened up and then back downtown for dinner and more drinks. First up was the brewery and then down to main street for karaoke! We walked in at about 9:15 (karaoke was to start at 9) and no one was in there....it threw us off for sure. We saw the karaoke screen, but everyone looked at us like we didn't belong. Ha! Maybe we didn't! We had come from another bar where we had all got a solo cup filled with water. Not thinking about it, someone brought the cup inside with them and the bar managers were NOT okay with this. They didn't even take the time to confirm that it was actually water - just kicked us out and told us not to come back. To say we were ticked and would not be going back to that place anytime soon? Understatement.

So we went next door, where they thought we actually had come from, and had some drinks, enjoyed our night and made fun of the fact that we got kicked out of a bar for water. First time for everything!

Glenwood Canyon

As always, it was a rowdy day and night, but an incredibly fun one! The next morning, we packed up our gear and headed home. There was still bad weather that was hitting the mountains on Sunday, that actually shut down I-70 for a bit. That gave us the perfect reason to stop in Idaho Springs and eat at the infamous BeauJo's pizza. The perfect amount of time to wait out the road closure, and end our fun weekend getaway!

Camping in Colorful Colorado

Colorado activities always leave you with a long list of options. The most common, of course, being skiing/snowboarding in the winter and our favorite in the summer: camping. What I love most about camping is that we can spend a weekend away, for relatively cheap, see the beautiful state we live in and bring the puppies with us!

Chapman Reservoir

A couple of summers ago, we made a last minute decision to go camping, and essentially picked our spot based on what was available for a reservation. That led us to the White River National Forest and Chapman Campground. This great little spot is a long haul from Denver, five hours to be exact. (Head west to Glenwood Springs, south to Basalt, than an hour east from there) Eek! I know, it's a long drive. But what we found that we love about it is the trail options within the campsite, the small reservoir where we can paddle board, a lot of shade and the privacy. I get absolutely no cell phone service out here, which I love! To me, if I can still scroll Facebook and people can text me, then I haven't gone far enough to really cut myself off from the outside world.

In 2018, we made plans to head back out to this campground, and this time recruited our friends Adam and Allison to join us. The first time we camped here, we had walked around scouting out all of the campsites, and had made our reservation early enough to pick the one we wanted. It's very remote and has a lot of shade options. In fact, someone came by to tell us they were bummed we beat them to it - apparently everyone agrees it's the best spot in town!

I had a work event that brought me to the campsite one day later than everyone else. By the time I arrived, we all packed right up again and headed to the reservoir to do some paddle boarding. Bryan and I had gotten an inflatable paddle board for Christmas and were excited to finally test it out. We all took turns on it, including the dogs! Our youngest pup, Moose, was only about five months old at the time, and he had a great time going out with dad, and was very calm. Koda, on the other hand, was just worried about what dad was doing - why are you leaving us?! And Adam and Allison's pup, Nelson? He wanted to race mom and dad back to shore! He loved sitting on the board, but took advantage of his opportunity to jump off and swim in the cool water.

Cheetos seasoning!

When we headed back to camp, we started on dinner. As a snack, Allison had brought some popcorn that is meant to be made over the campfire, and you just add seasoning. I told her we had some, because I had just prepared them for our trip, and they didn't need to bring anything. When it came time to do the seasoning, I could not find them ANYWHERE. I tore apart every single tote we had and they were nowhere to be found. So we pulled out our camping resourcefulness heads and made our own seasoning. What's you ask? Cheetos crumbs. We had a bag of Cheetos we crushed up and dumped on the popcorn? New favorite snack? Not so much.....but not the worst thing I've ever ate! (In case you're wondering, the seasonings were found in preparing for our NEXT camping trip. Packed nicely away in a small box meant to hold eggs, right where I left them.) 

The next morning, Adam and Allison packed up, but Bryan and the pups and I stayed one more night. Again, we went to the reservoir to paddle board, took long walks around the campground, and just enjoyed the peacefulness of outdoors. Well, most of us did. As much as little Moose LOVED being in the water and on the paddle board as soon as the sun started to go down and the fire was on, he was NOT a fan of camping. We still aren't sure what spooks him, he gets very shaky and wants to go in the tent to bed immediately. We think it might be the cackle of the fire. Regardless, because he was so small we were able to hold him in our lap - can't beat those snuggles!

The next morning we called it a day and headed back to Denver. This trip is always our favorite, despite how long the drive is. And one that is already on the books for 2019!

They really do love camping!

Salmon Fishing, Round 2!

After experiencing my first attempt at salmon fishing - I was hooked. (Ha! See what I did there?) While we were fishing the first time, I learned about the differences between fishing in the fall and the spring. In the spring, the boat is anchored and just sits still in the water until you have a fish on the reel. Even more relaxing! :)

We had some flexibility in May of 2018, so decided we should head back to give salmon fishing another go. As always, when we arrived in Portland, we made the drive to Monroe to see Bryan's grandma again. She always feeds us a delicious lunch and dessert so why would we pass that up?!

View from the tasting room

After lunch, we knew we had the rest of the day free so we casually made our way down to Winchester Bay by doing, what else? More wine tasting! One of our favorite things about wine tasting in Oregon is that there are so many great places to go to, we can just drive and run right into a place. Near where his grandma lives, in Monroe, there are quite a few you can access. We saw our first sign referencing some wineries ahead, so we turned off to find them. As we got closer, we missed a turn, so ended up going to the 'wrong' winery......the best kind of mistake!


Just past the missed turn was Brigadoon Wine Company. It had this long winding driveway that led up this hill to the winery, with the best views and beautiful little cabin and tasting room. We were able to try four different wines for $5, including a Pinot Noir, which is what Oregon is known for. While drinking this one, I kept admiring the glasses and the way they curved. When I mentioned it, the server said that it is a specific glass for Oregon Pinot Noir. Not just Pinot Noir......OREGON Pinot Noir. I had no idea that was a thing! I instantly started googling to see if I could find them online to order. :)

When we were getting ready to leave, we asked our server where we should head next and she said without a doubt, Walnut Ridge. This seems to be a popular choice, again with a looooooong winding road up to the facilities! Walnut Ridge, in my opinion didn't have quite the views of Brigadoon, but had a beautiful patio to sit on and enjoy the weather. Again, $5 for four wines to taste! And then we were on our way to Winchester Bay!

When arriving in town, we got settled into our motel and headed straight to our favorite restaurant - Bedrocks on the Bay! You can't come salmon fishing and NOT eat here. :) The next morning, we had to get up early again to fish. In addition, though, we had to drive a bit of a ways to meet Bryan's dad. You may recall, in the fall we were fishing right at the edge of the ocean. During springtime, you're on the river but inland quite a bit further - it was about a 35 minute drive. Once there, we met Bryan's dad, loaded onto the boat, and headed to our spot. Because the boat doesn't need to constantly be in motion, it stay throughout the night, so his dad sleeps on the boat. Yup, sleeps on it. I made him show me a picture of his bed. :) 

We got settled into the boat, and enjoyed the beautiful weather while we waited. Bryan's dad was a bit nervous if we would catch any fish this year. He told us that the salmon meant for this season from the hatchery, had been killed by a temperature issue - about 500,000 fish! He had even contemplated telling us not to come. Lucky for us, a couple of hours into day one, we had a fish on! Bryan reeled this one in and 17 pounds later, we pulled out the konk can! We could rest easy, because we could take some home with us. And thank goodness too....that was so early on day one that the rest of that day, and all of day two, was a little slow - nothing for us! I did catch a steelhead while on the boat, but it was a native, so we had to throw it back. We had enough time that on our last morning in Oregon, we decided to go out for a couple of hours before heading back to Portland. And again, good thing we did because we got a second. This one was only a 10-pounder, but salmon is salmon - we'll take it!

After that catch, we decided we needed to hit the road. Bryan's dad decided to stay out a bit longer, he felt like the water was lucky that day. We joked that we would probably be gone for about 45 minutes before he would catch one on his own. We were wrong, it took 50 minutes! So we all got some fish that weekend. :)

As we headed out of town, we realized we still had a bit of time before we needed to hit the airport. As it turns out, Bryan's sister, Sassy, was in Oregon spending the summer with her dad. There was a winery we wanted to visit, Willamette Valley Vineyards, right off of the Interstate, so we told her to meet us there for some drinks. This one is a bit more expensive, $15 a tasting, but the views are breathtaking, and still cheaper than northern California from what I hear. If you are ever driving south of Portland, you can't miss this place, it's huge. After our drinks, it was time to head home. Always a sad day to end vacation, but we were once again heading home with some salmon for the freezer - job well done!