Lucca and Pisa day trip

First of all, love train travel through Tuscany.  Easy, relaxing, and beautiful.  On one train ride, Sam made friends with the entire car, and sat with some college student the whole time.  Hilarious.  He's seriously the best traveller ever.  Flexible and fun.  Got that from his momma. Right.  

Lucca is a charming little town about an hour outside Florence.  We walked on the city wall, and this is Sam swinging on it.  Cute cute.  We had the best wine ever there.  Weird, right? Good wine in Tuscany? Who would've thunk it.  From there we headed to Pisa.  Sam enjoyed pizza in Pisa.  We ended up having an impromptu dinner by a Keith haring famous painting by the Pisa train station - very cool. 

Florence!

So our apartment in florence was supposed to have wifi and didn't...and that is why we've been delinquent with the posts.  Sheesh, christine. We had a great time in Venice - saw all the major sites and just soaked in the beautiful scenery.  Our apt was gorgeous, the neighborhood (dorsurduro) was cool, it was great.  Phillip got to have a cup of coffee in one of the oldest places - Florian.  Highly recommend.  I had a coke light and hot chocolate.  Bc I am hoping to become diabetic by the end of this trip. 

Florence.  Love.  Our apartment was in the best possible location.  Literally footsteps from the uffizi and ponte vecchio.  Downside to the place was no Internet and possible bedbugs (we all have mystery red spots on our faces ----- ahhhhh) and a constant smell of mildew and the sounds of a bar and dance-offs keeping us up all night...oh and a shower that I had a hard time squeezing into both bc it was not clean and the size of a wrapping paper tube.  But worth it to be in a beautiful place!!  

Favorites:  borga antica restaurant across the bridge in the residential side.  It's where the locals eat and it was the best meal ever.  Prosciutto with melon, risotto with zucchini, sautéed spinach, etc. best. I meant to take a pic but we inhaled the food.  Another fave was the view from piazza de michaelangelo overlooking Florence.  Worth the vertical hike with a stroller.  One more was the San Lorenzo market.  I recommend bringing a baby.  Great accessory in Italy bc you get free stuff.  The cuter the baby, the more swag.  Sam won us free strawberries and cantelope in the market, and a slice of pizza later.  

Love love love Florence.  

Venice, Italy...finally!!

We finally arrived to Venice after 24 hrs of travel. Yikes. We were supposed to fly into Venice at 9:30am, but thunderstorms at Dulles caused our plane to sit on the runway for 90 minutes. Then we missed our connection to Venice from Frankfort (and they lost our stroller)...were re-routed to Rome, and then finally to Venice at 7pm...only to find our one checked bag was (and is still) lost. Worst. Thankfully Sam was an amazing traveller - sleeping well, staying entertained in my lap, etc. And despite all the craziness, WE ARE IN ITALY!!! This is the view from our adorable Venetian apartment.  Hopefully fun stories to come in the days ahead. In case anyone was wondering my mom and my first meal in Italy was tagliatorre bolognese. Phillip had cuttlefish (in an "ink sauce"). Vom. 

Is this picture too cliche?

It's a sad day today. Twelve hours ago I dropped my wife off at Changi International and the Eggoubs Big Adventure officially came to a close. We weren't particularly good about updating our little blog here towards the end, a little bit because we were out having so much fun but also because the blog itself was a reminder that our journey would come to an end. Anyhow, Bali is a wonderful place to escape realities like that, and this is how we managed to forget about the end of our vacation:

We spent three days on the manicured and sanitized beaches of Nusa Dua, enjoying some well deserved (indulge me the bit about being well deserved-we needed a vacation from our vacation!) down time from our hectic schedule of driving tours. Some highlights of our time there included a delicious meal of Balinese grilled Mahi Mahi (accompanied by some not-so-delicious Balinese "white" wine) and watching two tourists collide while para sailing (not to worry they're both fine...we think). With a slight tan (slightly darker tan for Allie) we left the east coast for sunsets on Jimbaran Bay. During the day we visited one last temple where Allie had her Ray Bans held for ransom but spent the bulk of our time scootering between the various southwestern Bali beaches, ending both days eating dinner with our toes in the sand (pictured) and some very cute (if flea ridden) company under our table.

Bali was wonderful to us, we highly recommend it, but make sure you get Ellie's number from us before you go!

We took an early morning flight out of Denpansar back to Singapore and wasted away the last of our time walking through China Town and Little India, managing to get caught in a monsoon with no umbrella in the process. Anyhow, that brings us back to the beginning of the post. I hope that you all have enjoyed reading as much as we've enjoyed writing this little blog, we're looking forward to more adventures to come!

Phillip

Bali - "So cute!" Edition

Hi there!

Yesterday we moved hotels from the vibrant and authentic town of Sanur to the quiet and manicured beaches of Nusa Dua. Prior to arriving in Nusa Dua, Elly (tour guide extraordinaire) took us to see a traditional Balinese Barong dance. The Barong dance represents the fight of good over evil. It was a colorful dance, and the live traditional music was beautiful…although the performers who may have been a little bored doing the same song and dance so often added a little improv to the performance (which included a “cheeky” boar doing some very naughty things that made me feel very uncomfortable). After the dance, we headed into the Denpasar Central Market – where all goods are sold at wholesale prices. I call this place shopping heaven. I bought some souvenirs, and Elly bought me a giant bag full of fresh flowers (they’re gorgeous and smell like gardenia and honeysuckle at the same time). We ended the day by vegging out on the beach in front of our plush Nusa Dua hotel. While in an afternoon beach-induced zonkfest, I felt a soft tap on my shoulder, and opened my eyes to see a teeny tiny PUUUPPPYYYYY! Some locals had a puppy and Phillip asked if he could borrow it for a few minutes, and had the pup wake me up. Couldn’t ask for a better alarm clock than a puppy kiss.

Sticking with the all-things-cute theme, we had quite the exciting afternoon today when we each adopted a BABY SEA TURTLE. A Balinese organization is helping to rebuild the sea turtle population and allows people to adopt one for a small donation and then let it go in the sea. Phillip named his little ninja turtle Leonardo, and I named mine Little Elly in honor of our tour guide who arranged for this event. After kissing Little Elly and feeling his tiny flippers flop on my hand, we let the sea turtles go. Little Elly and Leonardo were buddies – Little Elly guided the way, and Leonardo served as a body guard.

We concluded the day with some yummo gelato - hazelnut for Phillip and CHOCOBAR for me (Wallace girl through and through) – and then hopped in a “taksi” for the slightly terrifying ride back to our hotel. Our taksi driver laughed when another vehicle actually stopped at a red light, called them tourists, and then zoomed through the first of many red lights back to our hotel.

We are absolutely loving Bali and wish you were here with us!!!

XOXO, Allie

Bali - Festivals, Mother Temples, and more suspension bridges

Hey Everybody!

Just a quick post today to bring you up to date-we've been running around the island trying to get in as much as possible while we're in Sanur before we move hotels to Nusa Dua and get some relaxing beach time in. The past two days we spent exploring Sanur and visiting more temples (including the Mother Temple, which while over run with tourists is amazingly beautiful), and we'll upload more pics and stories as we have more time at our new crib.

Just a quick explanation of the picture above-part of the Sanur Village Festival was supposed to be a traditional boat race down the beach. When we arrived conditions were perfect and everyone was ready to go-everyone except the dignitaries. Following what felt like eons but was probably more like an hour and a half of speeches (in Indonesian, of course) the sailors all got set to shove off and race only to find that the tide had run out and they couldn't get passed the reef. The picture was taken when we first got there and by the time the speeches were over the boats had to be pushed another 10-15 feet down the beach to get them to the new waterline. There was another big event scheduled for that morning at the beach that was rescheduled as well, a baby sea turtle release, which of course means that we'll be back in Sanur on Saturday so a certain someone can fawn all over tiny flippers.

Having a great time!

Phillip

Bali – Wet’n’wild Edition

Hey Everybody!

This island really is amazing. We’ve just finished another day with our phenomenal guide Elly, and somehow he managed to top the first. We started off with a drive through the suburbs of Denpasar to get to our first activity of the day-a 9km white water rafting trip. The river where we went rafting was set at the bottom of a deep ravine where the only breaks from the banana trees and vines came from where streams cut through the jungle and poured down into the river in a series of beautiful waterfalls. It was an exciting trip, and would have been the highlight of the day, had our next stop not been the ELEPHANT CONSERVATION PARK!

The Indonesian Government has a program in Bali where they’re breeding Sumatran elephants in Bali as a conservation effort/tourist attraction. And if you’re going to a conservation/tourist attraction in SE Asia it means that you’re going to get up close and personal with some wild animals-SWEET! We went on a 30-45 minute ride on Marcella, a very sweet (but sometimes naughty) elephant with a taste for banana trees and pineapples. Our guide even let us sit up in the “driver’s chair” on her neck-a very cool experience. After the ride we fed Marcella some fruit and sugar cubes to show our appreciation, and she did a series of tricks for us, including but not limited to playing the harmonica, curtseying, and blowing snotty mud all over my leg.

We said goodbye to Marcella but before leaving the park we paid a visit to the two baby elephants that they have on site! They are 6 and 7 years old (respectively) and adorable (if a little rambunctious). We got to feed them as well, but since they’re not fully trained we couldn’t get as close (or risk getting a head-butt or trunk-punch from the not-so-little guy).

Following our adventure on the river and elephant trail we sped off to Tanah Lot to watch the sun set behind an island temple. It’s the quintessential Bali spot-the place that is always pictured whenever a travel magazine or show comes here, and for good reason. Even with all the other tourists standing up in your way to take pictures and vendors trying to sell you giant wooden penises the view is still spectacular (but if the waiter brings you a still-green coconut to drink send it back and ask for a yellow/brown one!).

After the long day we made it back to our hotel and, not quite up to a big meal at one of the fancy restaurants, we walked into a local four table place and had some good local cuisine. One of the owners of the restaurant sat down and talked to us for our entire meal-it was a great time and if any of you are in the market for a hand carved stone bath tub then we can totally hook you up!

Tomorrow is a tour-free day for us, so we’re hitting the beach and checking out the Sanur Village Festival, which just happens to be starting today-what luck!

Phillip