Torino, Italy! We arrived here a few days ago and we are settling in nicely. I’m actually surprised that only one person guessed Italy (you are the winner, Emily!). But we took a meandering 6 days of road-tripping to get here, so I’ll tell you that story first.

Day 1…Český Krumlov, Czechia

We drove out of Leipzig and we were bound for the Czech Republic. We skirted past Dresden and Prague, since we’ve visted both before, and ended up in the tiny town of Český Krumlov. It’s got an enormous castle on top of a hill and the Vltava River does a huge bend through the city, almost creating an island of the old part of town. We stayed up on a hill in a little apartment and spent the evening walking the hills around town and enjoying the charming and quiet streets. We ate at a little place that felt like it was run by one, maybe two people. After a day of being in the car and a chilly afternoon of walking around, the goulash and hearty fare was most welcome. We will probably return to this town in the future, as the castle and main attractions are only open in the summer. One thing that I would like to see is their baroque theater.

Day 2…Berchtesgaden, Germany

We stopped for a wander around Linz, Austria around lunchtime. It’s a nice city on the Danube. We stumbled on the school where Doppler studied and defined the Doppler Effect. We had a tasty lunch and hopped back in the car. It might seem weird, but our next stop was to be back in Germany…Berchtesgaden. It’s a gorgeous mountain town with an infamous claim to fame, as this is where Hitler’s famed “Eagle’s Nest” was built high above the town. But it’s been a popular place for visitors long before the war and we wanted to see it. However, the weather was not on our side and we really couldn’t see the mountains past the rain and mist and clouds. But we really enjoyed our walk through the town. There was a trail along one side of the valley that leads to the salt mine and we walked part of that. We had a yummy dinner and hiked back across the river to our hotel. Again, we will probably return someday in a more favorable season.

Day 3…Austria, Bled, and Ljubljana, Slovenia

We enjoyed the lavish continental breakfast at our hotel and then hit the road. In an effort to avoid some of the (outlandish) tolls on the autobahn in Austria, we wandered our way south in and out of mountain towns. I’m glad we did, since those were some of the best views of the Alps that we had. We drove through ski areas and little towns. We saw the lake town of Zell am See and then we took the impressive Karawankentunnel through the Julian Alps into Slovenia. We made sure to stop in the stunning town of Bled, but again the clouds were working against us. We had nice views of the town and landmarks as we strolled around the lake, but the mind-blowing backdrop of the mountains was missing due to the cloud-cover. After that, it was a quick trip into the capital. We stopped to drop our things at our hotel in Ljubljana and set out to explore the city. It’s a charming place with a wonderful pedestrianized old city. We toured through the squares, up to the castle, and across the multiple bridges over the Ljubljanica River. We weren’t feeling too adventurous food-wise, so we ate at a nice Irish pub and turned in so that we could hit the road early the next morning.

Day 4…Zagreb, Croatia

We left Ljubljana early because we had booked a walking tour with an art historian in the capital city of Zagreb, Croatia. We met her in one of the main squares, but not before we had a very funny conversation with a random Croatian guy at the train station. It’s always interesting to see the degrees of extroversion/introversion in different cultures. The people were definitely loosening up as we moved south! Our tour guide was nice and took us on an informative walk through the beautiful city of Zagreb. She was young during the war in the 90s, so she shared some of her experiences with that. We also saw the effects of an earthquake that the city suffered in 2020 that damaged many of the history buildings in the city. But lots of things are still in tact and we enjoyed our time wandering up and down the hills, riding the tiny funicular, and walking through the tunnels. We had a local dish called Štrukli, which is like a lasagna without the tomato sauce and meat. It’s just dough and cream and cheesy goodness. Then we had Indian food for dinner 😀. We had a nice day and the weather was drier and warmer, which we were pretty excited about.

Day 5…Trieste, Italy

We slowly made our way out of the Monday morning traffic of Zagreb and onto the highway. We drove back through Slovenia because we had our sights set on Trieste, Italy. It’s a port city on the Adriatic Sea and we were happy to be in Italy. The town spills down the hills to the port and the narrow, winding roads were an adventure for Nathan to drive through. Luckily, the room we booked had a reserved spot for us in a garage, so we tucked the car into it and set out to explore the town. This was the day we did the most walking…like 30,000 steps. We peppered the walking with historical places and stops for pastries and drinks. Trieste was a Roman port and also became the main port for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so it has a rich tradition of cafés and food. It’s also one of those delightful places where different peoples have collided repeatedly over the centuries, so it has deep and interesting culture. They have four official languages: Italian, German, Slovenian, and a regional romantic language called Friulian. It has a gorgeous main piazza facing the sea and lots of areas to explore. We had to stop in for our first real Italian dinner and we ended the day watching the sunset over the sea. The day felt like spring and it was so pleasant!

Day 6…Padova and Torino, Italy

We were happy to wake up on our last travel day knowing that we just had a few more hours to go before we could stop moving for a bit. However, we wanted to stop in Padova (Padua) to see if we could visit the Cappella degli Scrovegni to see the frescoes that Giotto painted there and changed the world of art. We didn’t book tickets ahead of time, so there was a chance we wouldn’t be able to get in. We made a beeline through the arcaded streets for the ticket office and learned that they had room for us at 1:15. Perfect! That gave us time to wander around the museum for a bit, see some of the town, have a bite of lunch, see the chapel, and then get back on the road for our last leg of driving. The town is nice, but would have been more pleasant had the center been closed to cars. But the real star of the show is the chapel. Those frescoes are gorgeous. Giotto revolutionized painting by using perspective and more natural human poses in his cycle painted over the entirety of the chapel interior. It was recently restored and the colors are beautiful. They only allow 25 people at a time into the space to better control the temperature to preserve the paintings. It was well worth the stop, but it was time to drive west. We raced across Italy to end up just outside the gorgeous mountain town of Torino (Turin). The mountains are a bit further away from the city than in Salt Lake, but it very much has a similar vibe. We are staying in the mother-in-law apartment in a big family home/compound near a former royal palace called Venaria Reale. It was a relief to unpack, pick up some groceries, and sink into our bed.

We took a day to recover and then we rode the bus into the city to check it out. The city has dozens of beautiful baroque buildings and lovely piazzas. It was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy starting in the 16th century and then became the first capital of Italy after unification. The churches and palaces are very well-cared-for and there are museums everywhere. Torino is also famous for chocolate, coffee, and gianduja (which is the proto-Nutella, which also comes from here). There are cafés and sweets shops everywhere. We spent an delicious springlike day walking around the city and sampling the wares.

More adventures to come…

This weeked has been cooler and rainy, but we are thinking this is our last taste of winter weather for awhile. This week we are heading out on a big trip. We will road trip to Genoa and Siena on our way to Rome. Nathan visited Rome when he was a teenager and we took the kids there back in 2006. We will spend a few nights before we embark on a Mediterranean cruise to various ports in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. We are excited to see some new sights, have some warm weather, and let someone else do the driving (so to speak). Then we will drive from Rome to Switzerland to see Nathan’s uncle’s family and meet up with his sister, Shelley, her husband, Tom, and their kids for a few days. That should be a lot of fun!