10 days in the wilderness with bears, deers, bisons, and mosquitoes. After 5200 km we are home, ready for showers, wifi and clean clothing. We had a blast!!! First with a great surprised we visited my family in Kelowna, finally I had a chance to play with my 2 furry cousins, and compete with uncle Klaus eating egs. Day after we took off. Every 1000 km we had a team hip hip hurray shout !!!. Jasper and Banff was rather wet and cold, 3 Celsius, felt like in the middle of the summer in Nunavut. We managed to sneak onto a glacier, that was cool and cold. Calgary was special in different way. 😉 We were happy to arrive at the next park which was Dinosaur Provincial Park. Fossils, fossils, fossils was the main word we were using for next 2 days. To see dinosaur bones spread all over was something unreal. Next was Waterton Lakes National Park with a black bear encounter, then Glacier National Park with stunning scenery (unfortunately some on fire) and finally our favourite, Yellowstone with bisons. Ask my mom why her already big eyes got even bigger and the engine had to start Last day was a time travel to Austria/Germany with my favourite Edelweiss from Sound of Music and 46 Celsius.

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Our trip is coming to the end, last chapter on our journey to Vienna to meet with my cousins Yanni, Ewa and Sebastian. They live in Montreal. Thank you Air Canada for keeping the prices higher between Vancouver and Montreal than traveling to Europe. 😉
We had an overnight stop in Germany in Bad Reichenhall to jump to thermal pools, as we didn’t have enough of a heat during the trip 😉 . Thats where “The Creation Of Adam” picture comes from – mine and Yvonka’s shadows.
Salzburg was stormy and rainy, we got soaked in our Austrian outfits and it seems like my mom lost her shoes.
Finally Vienna, even more rainy and cold (it felt good). I was hesitant to meet Yanni as I heard he was taller than me, and being younger that is not acceptable no matter how many sardines he ate. Well he was the same height :). We had a blast all together. We both did some Parkour while watching some real deal Parkour team. Attacking Yvonne was our favourite game.
I miss you all dearly.
Last day before my 4 am wake up call to head to the airport we went for a classical music concert.
Even though it was amazing I fell a sleep after intermission.
Mom woke me up day after at 4am and with a smile I said ” mommy time to go home”
Thank you Yvonka, Ewa, Sebastian and ofcourse Yanni for such a great company!!!

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Venice in 18th century in colour.
We found the perfect easy going place to take some pictures, dress up and have fun. “Why not ” (inside joke). We followed our photographer, dress maker, and her dog. Crowds were following us. Did we feel awkward? Yeeees !!!!! Hot? – only temperature wise. 😉 or not.

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Did I mention before that Florence was hot ?! Right, Venice was horribly hot. An apartment with NO air conditioning didn’t help, but at least we had a garden and sprinkler hose to run around. Yvonka developed a new sport, running after mosquitos and slamming them flat to the walls.

Venice was absolutely stunning. We had to celebrate the stay with another “back to the future event” by dressing up ( in the next post). One day we did island hopping and visited glass blowing places and the local cemetery, which covers the entire island from edge to edge.

I think pictures will say it all, Venice you are too beautiful!!!

BTW in the last post from Italy I forgot to mention about the tilted Pisa tower. It was quite a surrealistic place of hundreds of people doing crazy poses in the air. Well it is contagious we did that too. 😉

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Italy starts in Ancona after an overnight ferry, where we left a piece of clothing so our family could trace us in case we got lost. First stop Assisi, to learn everything about Francis of Assisi. By everything, I mean everything, as every corner, shop or car had some of Francis’s relics; well he was a good man after all.
Meanwhile some lost bikers from Tour the France got in front of our cameras.

Stop number 2 was Perugia, well, drive through I would call it, still nice. Then Siena, and that was something. High medieval buildings, narrow streets and “zebra” cathedral, towers to climb, and more towers to climb. At that point I realized that towers and me are not best friends; well there is still a pair of moms hands available. We stayed there till 7pm, moms had drinks, pizzas and I was feeding pigeons, which shortly after i realized that in Italy “fed pigeon is dead pigeon”.
Florence finally, great apartment and even greater heat. Marathon for 4 days, 12 hours a day for museums, churches, more museums and more churches. We had a private guide as Yvonka knew every story of each painting or sculpture. I learned about every saint, starting from Agatha with cut off breast or gouged eyes of St Lucy, lovely!

The Ufizzi museum took us all day! No comments. Be were Leonardo Da Vinici and Michelangelo was, that is something. Boboli gardens were pleasant, “trip advisor” ice-cream was nice too.
La Spezia, with little Cinque Terre was cute. We took the ferry/train on foot option this time. Pictures will show you more colours than my writing.
Ferrara was a break from tourists, heat. In the lovely country yard (15 min from Ferrara) we were resting, eating and spending evenings visiting places.

Comacchio and the wetlands were some of mom’s favourite places. Hundreds of birds and pink flamingos among them. Nice, quiet and easy place. Next Venice – I will dedicate new chapter for that.

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Europe Epic Trip 2015 Chapter 2
Croatia

Croatia had an interesting start with mixed up accommodation but it ended up even better than we planned. Plitwice National Park was stunning, my very first 5 hour hike with out a single “carry me” cry. We had some foot rescue action but that ended up all under control too. Trigor was sweet and cute with lots of wine for moms, narrow streets and plenty of opportunity for pictures. But that night (or maybe the night before) some monster midges fell in love in Yvonka and left lots of bloody blisters. Somehow we were the mosquitoes best friends for the entire trip. Split is very familiar to us, especially around Manuska Polijana street, driving around in circles to find our accommodation. Our landlord Vesna, who turned out to be a woman, was friendly in her own way. But “Nothing” ( inside joke) will compete with our “back to the future” trip to Bol. Ready to say “Ave Cesar”, we took an overnight ferry to Italy, from Split to Ancona.

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