We landed in Europe just over a month ago, haven't had more than 2 days to ourselves and it's been great.  After two days in Roma, awh Rome you hold a special place in my heart, we headed south to meet "The Relatives"... in Puglia region.  We spent a week meeting, greeting, eating, kissing (as part of the greeting that is), drinking, eating, eating and being merry with the most gracious family in the World - seriously, we feel like the luckiest people in the world to know, let along be realted to the Caliandro's and Rendini's of Casallini, Italia.  More on them and our time there later.

We then ferried over to Greece to meet friends from Boston - Johnny Divincenzo and Jenn "You" Nunes.  We spent the next week bouncing around the Greek isles...you heard me, just bouncing around the Greek f-ing isles.  We hit Santorini and Crete, combined with some time in Athens and then a side trip to Delphi ... wow - how old is this stuff?  And how delicious is their ho-hum day-to-day food?.. olives, feta, oil, gyros, moussaka.  We sadly said goodbye to JD and Jenn after a great week and were on our own.  For a couple days at least... we headed to the interior to the mountains for a day in Kalabrita - felt more like Tyrol austria - lush green rolling hills, rocky outcroppings, sheep, hearty farmers and husky waitresses.... the good life.


It was short lived as we had plans to meet my folks in Northern Italy, before heading to the Istrian peninsula of Croatia for a week.  Another ferry ride (I think we'd be able to navigate the Adriatic with a spoon, some tinfoil, the wind and the stars at this point) had us in Venice, hopped a train to Trieste and picked the folks up.  We spent a great week with my favorite parents (I mean people) based out of Rovingo, Croatia.  Have you been?  Go!  It's beautiful, old, on the water, near mountains, has great wine, olive oil, fresh seafood, and is supposedly the world's capital of truffles - but my view may be skewed by the company we kept.  More and more and more to write...but now again Annie and I sit here... after dropping of my folks at the airport this AM, on our own.  We're used to it, but it's been different this past month... so now we have to getting planning again!  Doesn't take us too long...

We're now trying to piece together a 25 day itinerary, since at the end of May we're scheduled to meet Annie's aunt and uncle back in venice... so for starters ...we've just booked travel to vienna to catch a band from the Boston we like and to check out one of the most ornate cities in the world, sooooo that should be nice..then we THINK we'll do 10 days of wwoofing (farming) in northern Italia and 15 days of hiking/biking from the Dolomites down to venice... that's the current plan, but hey...who knows.  what do you think?

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