Have you ever made a friend online?   I met my first internet friend Julia from England, on a travel forum when I posted that I was pregnant with twins several years ago. Julia was not only a Mom of twin boys, she was a family-travel enthusiast; we immediately clicked.  What began as a [...]

  She towered in front of us, an intricate shadow against a blindingly bright morning sky. A touristy grin spread from ear to ear, and I squealed to the kids “Look! Look! It’s the Eiffel Tower!” We were standing on the terrace in front of the Palais Chaillot, which not only looks over the Jardins [...]

My favorite meal on a trip is usually a mix of mouth-watering flavor and ideal atmosphere. While visiting Vancouver Island, it was eating fresh Halibut on the patio of a restaurant at sunset while watching planes land on the inlet. In Tuscany we devoured homemade pie made  from local berries  in a quaint trattoria. But [...]

After a morning of quietly wandering through Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle, we rewarded the kids with their first  crepe. Made by a robust and jolly woman, their steaming crepes oozed with hot Nutella. It was a moment they’ll always remember.

We had hill town fatigue. Not only did Aaron’s back still ache from carrying our toddler in the backpack, but those quaint streets and trinket shops began to blur together. We ignored the gathering rain clouds, grabbed our one umbrella and headed off to visit two abbeys: Abbey Di Sant Antimo and Abbey Di Monte Oliveto Maggiore.

I woke up with a sore throat, stuffy nose and clouded head. I slept all morning, Ada continued her shower drumming and Aaron took care of us both. We left the house after lunch, made a quick visit to St. Peter’s square and continued on to the Trevi Fountain (for Ada) and a quest to [...]

Various guidebooks warned that crossing a street in Rome can be dangerous. Drivers drive fast and pedestrians don’t have right of way. We had no problems within the narrow streets of the historical center and this made us a little cocky. But this rainy afternoon, we were soon to be humbled. To return to Via [...]

Our second day of sightseeing began at noon. Not ideal. Traveling with a toddler means small tasks such as eating breakfast, getting dressed, packing the day-bag, take twice as long. By the time we stumbled out of the apartment, the air smelled of imminent rain, I was impatient and annoyed. I soon discovered that these [...]

While buzzed of birra we happily followed Ada through the piazza, while she stalked unsuspecting pigeons and tried todig cigarettes from the cobblestones. Feeling recharged and excited to explore in our final hours of our first day, we continued on and found Rome’s greatest monument. With Ada sleeping in the backpack and Aaron and I [...]

Something funny happens to me when I travel. I get annoyed at all the tourists. Forgetting that, you know, I am one, too. Since I studied the Italian language on flash cards and read history books and studied current events — it made me a local. It made me…okay, I’ll admit it: better then the [...]