If you didn’t see my previous post, I am giving a bit of a country play by play on our European family vacation.  Read the post below for the Northern Italy portion.  

Scott and I and his parents left Milan a couple of days earlier than the rest of my family.  We flew to Vilnius, Lithuania to visit the birthplace of Scott’s great grandparents.  We stayed in the Old Town of Vilnius, right in the heart of the city.  It was a truly beautiful city.  We found it easy to find our way around town, walking most of the time we were there.  Lucky for us there was a festival happening right around the corner from our hotel so we got to see some traditional dress and heard a ton of songs.  Also, vendors were selling their wares and food around the festival.   On our first day, the weather was gorgeous and we logged a ton of miles checking out museums, castles and a lot of churches. I can’t remember the exact number of churches in Vilnius but I think it was like 62.   The second full day we had, the weather wasn’t so nice and it rained most of the day.  We decided to fight the weather and take the train out-of-town to visit Trakai.  I didn’t take any pics here because of sideways blowing rains.  We toured an old castle out on an island at the end of town.

Scott and I were really not sure what to expect when we arrived in Vilnius.  Because it was once a Soviet occupied country, we weren’t completely sure what we were getting into and we were more than pleasantly surprised.  The architecture was beautiful, the people friendly and with little or no crime, it was easy to walk the city streets until late in the evening.  Here are a few of the pictures of our first day.

 

Beetroot soup.  A traditional cold soup that we saw on many menus.

 

Zeppelins.  Another traditional dish. A whole potato with meat on the inside.  The consensus was that it sort of tasted like a Kolinski family dish, Lithuanian Kugelis.

Tomorrow….Budapest, Hungary.  In Budapest, we ate well, drank lots of yummy beer and wine and saw some amazing things.

Stay tuned…..

Jennifer

Last weekend we got home from our much-anticipated European family vacation.  My parents so generously took our entire family to Italy and Hungary to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  We enjoyed every minute of it and saw so many beautiful and interesting things.  We started our trip in northern Italy.  We flew into Milan and then drove to Morgex, which sits at the base of Mount Blanc.  We did a couple gorgeous hikes, visited some castles, drove mountain passes and even got a chance to visit Chamonix, France.  We ate really well and enjoyed a bit of wine too:)  I had a blast taking a few (674) pictures.  Here are a few of the shots I got around northern Italy.

 

Mason peeks into an old chapel along the side of the road.

 

 

One of my favorite moments just hanging out in Morgex.  My mom (and dad, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brothers, etc.) had a blast riding on the zip line at the village park.

 

Of course, we had to try the macaroons while we were in France.

 

Chamonix, France

 

Alice and Paige standing in front of our mountain house in Morgex, Italy.

Grandma Peggy and Grandma Marilyn.  Scott’s parents also went along with us on the trip.

 

Celebrating 50 years of wedded bliss:)

 

My brother, Jeff, helping my mom down the steep part of the trail.

 

Mount Blanc and the surrounding mountains.

 

 

Alice and my niece, Madison, having some fun with the prawns.  Our kids actually ate the eyeballs!

Sam hanging out in front of the book store.  Of course.  Where else would he be?  🙂

 

The kids enjoying a park and fields in Cogne, Italy.

So, if you are still with me after all those photos, you got a not so quick glance at some of the beautiful places we visited.  In all their travels, this was one of the places that my parents really loved and wanted us all to experience.  It did not disappoint:) Thanks Mom and Dad for giving us this amazing experience.   Seeing it through our kids eyes was so cool.

Tomorrow……Lithuania.  My parents took our kids and flew to Budapest and Scott and I took his parents to Vilnius, Lithuania for a couple days.  Scott’s great grandparents were born there so we decided that while we were so close it would be great to take Scott’s mom to see where her grandparents lived.  Another super cool place.

Happy Saturday night.

Jennifer