travel

Text by Gabrielle. Photos by Gabrielle and Ben Blair.

[ UPDATED with a full report. ]

Here it is! A report on our trip to Venice. I’ve been promising this for months and now it’s ready to share.

Here’s the thing about Venice. It’s not like Rome. Or Florence. In Rome and Florence, there are specific things you want to see, and that you stand in line to buy tickets for — like the Colosseum, or the David. In Venice, the thing that you want to see? Is Venice. Yes, there are museums, and yes there are ruins, but if that’s what you’re looking for, pick another city. You can go island hopping, you can walk 30 minutes to visit a church, but the alley around the corner might be just as cool, or cooler.

Venice is the attraction in Venice.

You can’t take a bad photo. If you’re looking for photos opps, choose Venice. There is no bad light, there is no bad angle. It’s just photo after photo of heaven. And we tooks hundreds of photos, and I included way too many of them after the jump. (I need to beg your forgiveness in advance.)

When you’re there, it almost feels pretend. As if it’s a stereotype of Venice. As if Disney had created Venice as an amusement park for grownups, and they had staged all the texture and exposed brick — no detail too small. I had to keep reminding myself that people really live there. There are grocery stores and schools. Venice is all about texture. It’s like a city in constant decay, but the decay is beautiful, it’s what draws us in.

And if you visit over New Year’s, Venice is COLD. We bundled up like crazy. As long as it was dry, we spent the day outside and explored… But we did have one rainy day. On that day, we visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, then spent the rest of the day in our hotel room having a movie party — it was too cold and wet to be tourists.

As I’ve written before, traveling in the off season has worked great for us. No lines, no waiting at restaurants. But there are some disadvantages. An example in this case: the most recommended gelato shop was closed! You can even see a photo below of Maude trying the locked door. Sad face.

I’m going to write up a list of what we did, but really, just show up and walk around and take photos. Walk until you’re hungry. Then eat. Then repeat. That’s all it takes to have a grand time in Venice.

To see about one million photos of our trip, and find a list of what we did, click here.

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Images and text by Gabrielle.

Two years ago we made our first trip to Amsterdam. On that trip, we saw the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, took a Canal tour, ate the best-rated Frites in town, rented bikes, spent a day in Vondelpark, visited the Floating Flower Market, did lots of window shopping in the Nine Streets district, ate amazing Indonesian food, and had an extended visit to HEMA. Plus visited the tulips, too — we caught the very tail end of the season. You can read about that trip here, here, here and here.

But this trip was totally different. With the exception of  a return visit to Vondelpark, it was all new! From this trip, there are 5 things I want to pass on for those of you planning your own visits to Amsterdam.

Keep reading! 5 tips plus tons of photos ahead.

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Image and text by Gabrielle.

Remember the 2-week school break my kids had in February? Well, they have another one happening right now. (Sidenote: I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I love the French school schedule. It’s something like six weeks on, 2 weeks off, which is ideal for fitting in roadtrips without missing school. We’ll miss this schedule when we’re gone!)

This is the last break we have before we move back to the U.S., so you can bet that we have big plans to make the most of it. Yesterday, we said goodbye to our house guests at the train station, then hopped in the van and drove to Amsterdam. We’re here to see the tulips — and we’re filming an Olive Us episode too!

Amsterdam was one of the first places we visited when we moved here over 2 years ago. It’s such a cool city! (You can see my posts about that trip here and here and here and here.) On that visit, we caught the very tail end of the tulips, but we’re hoping we’ve timed it better this year and will get to see them in all their glory this time around.

Also, I want to eat a dozen servings of poffertjes too!

Tell me, friends: is Amsterdam on your travel wishlist? Or have you already been?

P.S. — With astroralph, mimiblair, oliveblair, blairben and designmomblog (that’s me) all snapping away, I’m pretty sure every inch of this trip will be covered on Instagram. : ) Feel free to join us.

P.P.S. — Ben Blair found our hotel (pictured at top) on Hotwire, and I’m really digging it. It’s called Lloyd Hotel and has rooms that range from 1 star to 5 stars — something for everyone!

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Text and images by Gabrielle.

I find prepping for road trips less stressful than prepping for plane trips.

For starters, packing is easier. There are no weight restrictions and no checked vs. carry on bag decisions. You can stuff last minute items into the trunk and deal with them later. You can bring extra coats and boots that would take up too much room in luggage.

Plus, you get to skip the airport! I find airports in general to be stressful places, and with a big family, the stress is multiplied. The getting there early, but not so early that you’ve used up all your boredom fighters before boarding. Making it through security with your kids — with all the jackets, boarding passes, shoes, passports, belts, and teddy bears intact. And hoping the kids will behave well on the airplane and be mindful of other passengers. (In the car, if they throw a tantrum, oh well.) Going to the airport sometimes feels like we’re adding extra hours to our trip before it really starts.

Ultimately, roadtrips lend themselves to our family’s last-minute tendencies. We decided on Ireland about 2 days before we went. We decided on Switzerland about 2 hours before we left!

In contrast, plane trips require more planning for a big family — last-minute plane trips for 8 just aren’t very realistic. And yet. Plane trips cover so much ground so quickly! (And we already have our next family plane trip scheduled for May. Hah!)

For Ireland, in theory we could have flown, but because we were putting the trip together last-minute, driving made the most sense. And it turns out it was a good thing. Because our particular trip definitely required a car!

Highlights of our trip ahead…

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