How Our 38-Day Europe Trip Took an Unexpected Turn (And Why It Was the Best Part)

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Well, our big Europe trip is officially over… and it was truly awesome. We spent time in a ton of cities and countries throughout, but somehow we still have so many more we want to visit!

Nothing’s ever perfect, but this trip was pretty darn close, and it checked all the boxes of a fantastic experience for our first time on the continent. All the cards just seemed to fall into place, making for an amazing time.

With this being our first trip to Europe, we did knock out a bunch of touristy stuff. Although these are things we wanted the opportunity to see and do, it was astounding how busy the areas were. I knew the places would have crowds, but holy @#$%, they were packed! And we went during the off-season (though it is a Jubilee year for Rome).

Regardless, the big tourist spots weren’t all this trip was about. Once we pivoted a little bit, that pushed the trip to be worlds better.

I’ll tell you more about what we ended up doing and take you through the highlights of our Europe trip. Wrapping up a week-long trip is one thing, but how do you pull everything together from a 38-day trip? That’s a lot. Imagine the number of photos that were taken on this trip. I’ll tell you the answer to that and our total cost at the end.

I kind of made this read more like a timeline of our trip, mostly with quick notes just because there was just so much. I hope you enjoy!

By the way, this fantastic opportunity of a trip cost us a fraction of what it would normally cost, and that’s why we went on it. You can read more about how this came to be in my post, We Paid $3,200 for an Incredible $25K Europe Trip… Here’s How We Did It.

Note: You can click on any of the images throughout the post to enlarge them.

Kicking off the Europe trip in Italy

Flew to Boston for an overnight stay before our flight to Europe. Nothing exciting here – went to a market and Lisa found some clam chowder to try.

Flew first class on TAP Portugal from Boston to Rome using points… this was the way to do it. The lay-down seat gave me an opportunity to get a few hours of sleep. This was just enough to make it easy to sleep that night at the hotel in Rome and easily adjust to the time difference. The meals were a bonus, too. We had a late dinner and then breakfast while on the flight.

Rome, Frascati, and Civitavecchia, Italy (4 nights)

Walking through the Vatican to the Sistine Chapel was insane. What’s even more interesting is that the walk inside from the Vatican Museums entrance to the Sistine Chapel is about 1.5–2 miles. You go through museum galleries, packed with people throughout. By the time we got to the Sistine Chapel, I lost interest. We looked at it for maybe 5 minutes and then left.

The Colosseum was fascinating to see and to think about what it must have been like to have been there during those times. Again, very busy with people.

The Spanish Steps… meh. They’re steps.

Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain). Uh, nope, not even going to try getting closer.

We were in Rome during the off-season and it was still stupidly busy. Although I loved the city itself, I hated it because all the streets were constantly packed with people. I could only imagine it during the busy season.

In between knocking out some of the touristy stuff, I decided to ask my “AI friends” if there was a day trip we could visit via a short train ride where we could find good, authentic food, have it be a little less touristy, but still be somewhere well-received by travelers. In the end, we ended up going to Frascati. This was a cool place – it was exactly what I wanted. It gave the European feel for Italy that I envisioned with Rome, but without the packed crowds.

We ate gelato a lot while in Italy… like a real lot… ok, pretty much daily. It was delicious. The pasta and pizza were very good as well, but I think I was expecting to be blown away by how different and magnificent they would be, but I wasn’t. No complaints though – it was still great!

Sun Princess Mediterranean Cruise (11 days)

The Europe trip continued with a Mediterranean cruise. The Sun Princess is a beautiful ship. The staff was great (best cruise director we’ve ever had, too) and the food was really good. That said, Princess wasn’t as mind-blowing as we remember it from our last Princess cruises (we’re talking almost 20 years ago). For the regular price of a Princess cruise (though ours was close to free), I would rather book an MSC cruise. You get 90% of the way there with about half the cost.

However, the technology was awesome – mainly the medallion. Instead of a key card, you’re issued a small disc on a lanyard. It’s only about the size of maybe 4 quarters stacked together, but with almost no weight. I don’t know specifically what tech is inside it, but I would guess Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi.

And it does some cool stuff. For instance, when you get within maybe 8 feet of your cabin, it automatically unlocks your door if you’re on the outside. So, if your hands are full with plates of food, for instance, you can just use your elbow to open the door without trying to figure out a way to dig out a key card.

It also shows if you’re in the room or not, so you’ll never have a cabin steward knocking to see if you’re in there to clean.

A cool feature is that you can use the app to locate and get an actual route to trusted people you’ve added to the app. I used it to figure out where Faith and Lisa were at a handful of times throughout the cruise.

Faith and I also went to a talk in the theater and they were giving away prizes just for being there. But you didn’t need to sign in anywhere because they could already track that you were in the room.

And of course, you use the medallion to pay for drinks or anything else to be added to your account.

Naples, Italy

Naples was cool. We went to Herculaneum, where the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed the city and left behind (carbonized) so much of the city, including skeletons. It was a little eerie. We went there instead of Pompeii just because it’s not as busy.

And, of course, you can’t go to Naples on a Europe trip without getting pizza (pizza was invented in Naples)! We went to Pizzeria da Michele, which is extremely popular and had a long line out the door with a guy out front working the door and yelling out instructions to everyone. I’m going to have a hard time conveying this… the pizza was delicious and different than what we think of in the U.S., but it wasn’t necessarily better than some of the pizza places we have here. Bear in mind that I’m no food connoisseur! 

Santorini, Greece

I wanted to walk up the huge, steep path to the top, but it was closed, so we took the gondola up instead. We explored on our own in Santorini. We had a good time but didn’t do anything special here.

Kusadasi, Turkey

We didn’t stray far from the touristy port area in Kusadasi. We weren’t impressed with this area and probably should have done something else. We headed back to the ship pretty quickly.

Becoming part of a stage show…

We went to the theater on the cruise ship that night to watch BMX performer Rob Alton do a show… and then I became part of the show. He pulled me from the crowd and spent 15 minutes making me part of his bit. It was actually fun to be involved in it and pretty funny when I watched it back later (Faith recorded it).

Here’s the video if you’re interested…

Athens, Greece

In Athens, Greece, we decided to try something new and took a hop-on, hop-off bus. That was cool because we’d never done this before, and it gave us a chance to see a lot more of the city. They give you earbuds (new, of course) that you can plug in and listen to the spiel about everything. One of the places we stopped off at was the Acropolis, but we didn’t go in (extra $$$ and big crowds). But nearby, you got a panoramic view of the city, which was awesome to see.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus was under construction, but we saw it (not that impressive when covered with construction scaffolding). And we saw the Arch of Hadrian… meh.

Our bus tour coincidentally gave us a chance to see some of the changing of the guard at the Tomb (or Monument) of the Unknown Soldier, located in front of the Hellenic Parliament. We didn’t get to see the whole thing, but from the second story of the bus, we had a better view than a lot of the crowd watching there!

Crete, Greece

In Crete, Greece, we just got off the ship briefly… nothing exciting on this stop for us.

Messina, Italy (Sicily)

Messina, Italy (Sicily) was beautiful! My AI buddies told me that we should be sure to catch the noon show of the astronomical clock on the bell tower of the Duomo (Cathedral of Messina). We made sure to be there. Not worth our time. Damn you, AI friends!

We also went inside that church (beautiful). Then we took a walk and hiked up to a vantage point that overlooked everything. That was something worth seeing for sure!

We also ate at a restaurant called Rosticceria Famulari that the AIs recommended. We tried different arancini (rice balls stuffed with fillings such as meat ragu). They were delicious! We also gave pidone (a kind of turnover with filling such as anchovies) a shot… it was alright – not as good as the arancini for sure! And we had to try the Nutella arancini… different, but good – very rich!

Most importantly, the cannoli we got at a small bakery was delicious! You can’t do a Europe trip without a cannoli, right?

Palma, Spain

In Palma, Spain, we took an Uber to town and then walked around for a long time. This was such an enjoyable town to just take our time and walk around in.

And, we made sure to stop off for tapas (appetizers) at a local restaurant.

Halloween on a ship in Europe

We dressed up in costumes for Halloween on the ship… along with hundreds of other people. Because we were carry-on only, we went for simplicity with our costumes. I went as Clark Kent (of course!), Lisa as a butterfly, and Faith as a pirate. We didn’t win, but it was still fun and cool to see all the different costumes people dressed up in.

Enjoying some time in Spain

Barcelona, Spain (1 night)

We only spent one night in Barcelona and Faith wasn’t feeling great, so we didn’t really do much. But it seemed like a place we’d like to go back and check out more at some point.

Taking the Iryo train from Barcelona to Madrid

We had reserved a high-speed train ride on Iryo from Barcelona to Madrid… first class. I was really excited about it just because I’d never been on a high-speed train before. And it was fun for a little bit, but then it just becomes like sitting on a plane while you wait to get to point B.

At one point, I saw that we were going 296 kmh (about 183 mph). You don’t feel like you’re going that fast, but you do feel it more than you do on a plane – though you don’t get unexpected turbulence on a train!

The meal was good, too, and the chocolate was even better!

Madrid, Spain (2 nights)

In Madrid, Spain, we stayed at the LATROUPE Prado Hostel Madrid for a few nights. This was like a hostel/hotel hybrid. Although there were shared rooms, we went the conservative route and reserved our own room and private bathroom. We liked the place.

We actually liked Madrid quite a bit in general. We walked to the Parque del Retiro, and, boy, that’s a happening place to be – people everywhere. But the park was huge and it didn’t feel crowded. And it was such a beautiful place that I get why people were all just hanging out there – I would be too if I lived there. We saw a lot of cool birds there, too, including tons of parakeets and beautiful black-billed magpies.

What would Spain on a Europe trip be without a flamenco show? Lisa had bought tickets ahead of time and we went to the Centro Cultural Flamenco De Madrid to see a show. It was really good, but I thought watching the women doing the dancing was a lot more impressive than the singing. The dancing was awesome to see.

Most importantly, we stopped at Chocolat Madrid on our walk back. There were other similar places that are more popular, but everything I read said to skip some of those since they’re a tourist trap rather than places that care about their customers. Chocolat Madrid didn’t disappoint. Why was this so important? Churros and Porras (Spanish fried-dough pastries) with a cup of chocolate (hot and melted) to dip them in. So good. I might fly back there just for those!

Florence, Pisa, and Lucca, Italy (3 nights)

We flew from Madrid to Florence where we stayed for a few nights. We walked to the hotel and Google Maps had us cross a busy highway with our suitcases. We probably could have died, but we wouldn’t have been the only ones – we were right behind another couple doing the same thing. Yikes!

We went and saw the statue of David. Ok, we only saw the replica of Michelangelo’s David. I was told that it wasn’t worth the cost or crowds to go see the original when the replica was, well, a replica. It was a cool area, though, with all sorts of statues everywhere.

Like Rome, Florence is beautiful but just way too busy for me.

On another note, our toilet in the hotel kept spitting up disgusting water over the rim and onto the floor when we’d flush it. That was obviously disgusting and they never fixed it, even after three days of me going to the front desk to try to get it rectified.

I decided not to name the hotel (you can figure it out from my past posts though), but it’s part of a popular chain based in the U.S. With the property refusing to make good on this, I contacted corporate here and they tried to wash their hands of it rather than take responsibility.

Eventually, I got some of my points back, but this really left a bad taste in my mouth for how the company treats its customers (and I’m currently a Diamond member there). It’s rare I ever complain about a hotel, but this whole thing got them an “F” in my gradebook.

Moving on, we made a day-trip to Pisa and did all the stupid tourist stuff with the Leaning Tower in the photos.

As you can tell, we’re not very good at making it look real when shooting the camera (mostly me). 😂 Faith did a nice job on that last one, but it took like a hundred shots to get it right.

But then we looped around to a place called Lucca. My brother had recommended that we check it out. I didn’t know what to expect, but this turned out to be my favorite place from our entire trip… it was beautiful.

Lucca is a small town of about 90,000-94,000 residents in northern Tuscany. It’s known for its preserved Renaissance walls that encircle a charming historic center of medieval streets and Romanesque churches. Inside the walls, there are lively piazzas and a relaxed, “livable” atmosphere that feels less hectic than many other Italian cities.

We rented e-bikes (none of us had ever tried those before – super fun!) and rode on top of the wall. When I first heard “wall”, I had a vision in my head of some medieval castle wall. But, it’s actually about 30′-40′ across and more like a walking/riding trail with people just enjoying nature. Atop the wall, you’re overlooking the beautiful town on the inside and the stunning city and mountain landscape on the outside. It’s simply amazing. I was in awe here.

Rome and Civitavecchia, Italy (1 night)

We then took a train to Rome for one more night. I got my haircut at a barbershop there. I asked if he spoke English, and that was a no-go. Good thing I had what I wanted done already translated for him. He did a great job and I felt like a new man again.

Then we headed to Civitavecchia again to continue our Europe trip with our second cruise. Our time in Civitavecchia was different this time around though because we took a train there (we were pros after so many train rides) versus the private shuttle we had shared with some acquaintances the first time. Because of that, we had a chance to walk through the town, and that was very nice.

Civitavecchia has a nice boardwalk along the sea and just had a really cool vibe to it. I kind of wished we had spent the night before in Civitavecchia instead of Rome just to be able to check it out longer.

Carnival Miracle Transatlantic Cruise (14 days)

This ship was a lot different than Sun Princess. Whereas the Sun Princess is a huge, new ship, the Carnival Miracle is much smaller and about 20 years old. We knew that going in, but that was our transportation going back to the U.S – how bad could it be?

One of the biggest pluses to the Carnival cruise though was that they had various comedians doing stand-up routines regularly. I would take stand-up comedy over most stage shows any day. Just my preference, but this made for a lot of fun nights.

Cartagena, Spain

Cartagena, Spain was another pretty stop to explore. We went and checked out the Teatro Romano de Cartagena, an ancient amphitheater that was discovered in 1988 during an archaeological excavation while planning to build something else.

Then we kept walking to another fantastic panoramic overlook. Other than the great views, there were peafowl walking around everywhere – something I’d never seen outside of the zoo.

And, I’m not too smart – I just learned while writing this that “peafowl” is an encompassing name for a group (male and female), whereas “peacock” is specifically a male peafowl. Who’da thunk it? Am I the only one who didn’t know that?!

Rough waters ahead, Captain!

One of the struggles we had on this cruise was the result of being on an older ship and encountering some big storms with rough water for several days. The Carnival Miracle ship has stabilizers, but the ship is about 20 years old so the technology is older. It’s come a tremendous way over the past couple of decades and we could have used that on this trip.

Combine those old stabilizers with the 20′ swells we had (yes, I said 20′!), that boat was a rockin’… for days.

On the first day of this, we didn’t get seasick (though I’m sure a lot of people did), but we each needed just a little downtime. But after that, we got pretty used to it.

It was crazy, though. Everyone was walking down the halls like they were drunk all the time… though maybe they were!. At brunch one day, we watched Lisa’s glass of water slide across the table!

And if you timed going up the steps right, it was like walking on air for a few seconds. Keep walking a few more seconds and it felt like you were 50 pounds heavier.

It was interesting to say the least. Although we got used to it for the most part, it was still a little annoying.

Ponta Delgada (The Azores), Portugal

This was a little different. Although it wasn’t warm enough for some beach time, one of the things the Azores is known for is pineapples. They’re smaller and sweeter than what we’re used to in the U.S. and they grow them in greenhouses. We went to Plantação Ananases A Arruda, a pineapple plantation, and we walked through the different greenhouses to see the stages of growth… pretty interesting.

Then we went to Plantação de Ananás dos Açores, another pineapple farm, where we tasted some of the pineapple (sweet and tasty and not as acidic!). Lisa had a pineapple beer, I had a pineapple N/A beer, and Faith had pineapple juice.

Definitely something a little different to do!

After the Azores, it was time to see if I really do love sea days… six of them in a row while we crossed the Atlantic!

Becoming part of a stage show… again

Back on the ship, we went to watch a music knowledge game show in the theater. Well, Faith somehow convinced me to volunteer to participate when they couldn’t find enough people for one of the teams. My team lost in the end, but I had one success as the only member left on my team.

This part of the game was to finish singing the song when the music stopped. I missed my chance to step up for Hotel California (that would have been an easy one!), but I got lucky with an oldie but a goodie. The DJ started playing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, and I nailed it. But I’m only giving you a screenshot of that little number…

Just know that I was damn good. 😉

Faith’s turn to become part of the show…

The next night on the ship, Faith got pulled up by one of the comedians and became part of his act.

What the @#$% – does our family have “drag me from the audience” written on our foreheads?! 🙂

We interrupt this post for deliciousness!

I love chocolate… that’s my weakness. And it appears that Carnival is known for its special Carnival chocolate melting cake. Picture this – all chocolate – crusty chocolate on the edges, and gooey chocolate in the center. Add in a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and it’s all yummy for my tummy!

The best news… it’s on the dinner menu every night! I didn’t want to gain 20 pounds on our Europe trip so I only ordered it maybe four nights, but I would have loved to eat it every day. Faith’s still young so she took on the mission of eating it quite a bit more often than I did!

On another note, the burritos at the BlueIguana Cantina were fantastic and became a regular lunch routine for me. Chipotle ain’t got nothing on these!

Enjoying more sea days

Six sea days in a row is a lot… but I enjoyed it. It’s nice not having anything you “need” to do. Yes, vacations should be that way, but even when you’re at a port, if you want to visit it, you have a schedule you need to keep. Not so much during a lot of consecutive sea days.

We had beautiful ocean sunsets and kept busy throughout the sea days. We had our “dress-up” nights and enjoyed our time. There were towel animals, reading, a lot of Rummy games, eating (of course!), shows, poolside time (for Lisa and Faith), reading, working out, and more. We went to lectures from a marine biologist who was fantastic. Faith actually decided she might follow in her footsteps and talked to her after her last day of lecture.

And then, things continued to get warmer as we passed through the Atlantic, moving southwest toward the Bahamas. That made it much nicer to sit out and read out on the balcony, which is my absolute favorite part of cruising.

It’s been over 3 years since I’ve had an alcoholic drink, but this virgin strawberry daiquiri was delicious! The best part… they use sugar straws instead of plastic. A million times better than paper straws. And bamboo straws are good, but you can’t eat those! I’ll vote for sugar straws any day!

Nassau, Bahamas

After 6 sea days in a row, most folks were ready to get off the ship. What was the first thing we did when we got to land in the Bahamas after 6 days of non-stop ocean? That’s right – we went to the beach and got in the ocean. I found that a little amusing.

We decided to just go to the popular Junkanoo Beach near the cruise ship. I didn’t stay in the water too long (too cold for me!), but it was nice to have some sun and enjoy the beach time.

Then we had lunch at the Bearded Clam Sports Bar & Restaurant – look, I didn’t name it, but the reviews were good… and they turned out to be right. The conch fritters and jerk chicken we had were delicious. But it also turned out to be a Browns-backer bar. What are the chances?!

And just like that, the Europe trip was over. We got back to Tampa and then flew home.

Other random thoughts and information…

• We each had one carry-on suitcase and a backpack. For all the hopping around we did (flights, cruises, trains, ride-shares), we wanted to make it manageable. It was crazy tough to pack for such a long trip, but I think it worked extremely well in the end. I know I had exactly the right amount of clothes and used everything I had packed.

• Our plan was to do laundry routinely on the Europe trip. One of the best things we did was to buy Earth Breeze Laundry Detergent Sheets and pack a handful of those along with some dryer sheets. Both of these take up virtually no space and barely weigh anything. These saved us a good chunk of money versus paying the overpriced sticker prices for both at the laundromats.
  
  We only needed to do laundry three times (all on the cruise ships). But surprisingly, we were able to combine loads each time, making it even cheaper.

• Somehow, we actually had wonderful weather throughout our entire Europe trip – it was almost always in the 60s or 70s (and then the 80s once we got down to the Bahamas). Every port day was suspiciously perfect! The only exception to the perfect weather was during our sea days crossing the Atlantic with a couple of hours of rain one time during the day, some rain at night, and a couple of cold weather nights – but all of those came when it didn’t matter to us at all.

• I’m proud to say that I was able to work out on 19 out of our 38 days on this trip – exactly half! I had packed a big heavy-duty exercise band and catered my workouts around that (plus crunches, push-ups, etc.). This was easier for me than going to the different gyms, though Faith and Lisa hit the gyms on the cruise ships several times.

• Additionally, I refused to take any elevators. 25 days on cruise ships and all day going up and down several decks, and it was stairs only.

• We did a lot of trains on this trip… like a real lot. It took a little bit to really get the hang of it, but then it was easy. I like this a whole lot better and wish we had more of that in the U.S.

• We didn’t get money from the ATM and didn’t need any cash (Euros) for our entire Europe trip. I believe every single charge was tap-to-pay, and we were able to just use our phones for that… simple and effective.
  
  Here’s a tip I had already learned from Clark Howard, but to pass it along, a lot of places in Europe ask you if you want the charge done in Euros or your local currency (i.e.,USD). The answer always needs to be Euros. If you select the other, you get charged a pretty hefty fee for the conversion. Let your credit card (hopefully one with no foreign transaction fees like the Chase Sapphire Reserve we used) handle the conversion and save yourself from getting ripped off.

• There were police sirens all the time while in Rome on our Europe trip… and they’re the cool loud sirens you hear in movies like The Bourne Identity. But I was baffled and intrigued because it didn’t seem like a high-crime area. So I dug into it and checked with one of my AI friends (Gemini for this one) and here’s what it said:

To answer your question directly: No, the constant sirens do not mean there is more violent crime or a higher rate of dangerous accidents than you’re used to. In fact, statistics consistently show that Rome—and Italy in general—has a significantly lower violent crime rate than most major US cities.

What you’re hearing is a combination of several factors unique to Rome and many other dense, old European cities:

1. The Sound Itself: The Italian siren (sirena) is culturally very different. Instead of the “wail” or “yelp” common in the US, the Polizia (state police), Carabinieri (military police), and Ambulanza (ambulance) all use a piercing, high-low two-tone (or tri-tone) “hi-lo-hi-lo” sound. This sound is specifically designed to be highly noticeable and cut through city noise, which can make it sound more urgent or alarming to an ear accustomed to American sirens.
2. Urban Acoustics: You are likely in or near the historic center, which is a dense maze of narrow streets flanked by 5- to 7-story buildings. This creates an acoustic “canyon effect” that traps and amplifies sound, making a single siren audible for a much longer distance as it winds through the city.
3. Chronic Traffic (Traffico): Rome is world-famous for its congested, chaotic traffic. For an emergency vehicle to get anywhere, it must use its siren almost continuously just to part the sea of cars and motorini (scooters). In many US cities with grid layouts, a siren might only be used intensely when approaching an intersection. Here, it’s a constant necessity.
4. Official Escorts: As the capital of Italy, Rome is the seat of government (Parliament, Senate) and also hosts the Vatican. A significant percentage of the police sirens you hear are not responding to a crime but are simply escorting politicians, diplomats, or other officials through the traffic.
5. High Call Volume: Rome is a massive, dense city with a large population. Emergency medical services receive thousands of calls per day. Combined with the traffic and acoustics, this high (but normal) volume of calls for a city its size sounds much more intense.

In short, what you’re hearing is a perfect storm of a different, more piercing type of siren, amplified by the city’s ancient layout, and used constantly to navigate legendary traffic and conduct official state business. It is not a sign of rampant crime or unusual danger.

• If you remember from my earlier post, the cost of most of the logistics of this 38-day Europe trip (hotels, flights, cruises, etc.) came to an unfathomable $3,200 for three people. I just went through and figured out what else we spent during our entire Europe trip for restaurants, ride-shares, souvenirs, entertainment (including overpriced tourist attractions), etc. That ended up being just over $2,800.
  
  So, from top to bottom, 38 days in Europe with a first-class flight, an 11-day Mediterranean cruise (with balcony), a 14-day Transatlantic cruise (also with balcony), a first-class high-speed train ride, and everything in between, it cost us just over $6,000 for the three of us. Talk about a deal of a lifetime!

• Between the three of us, we took over an astounding 3,500 photos! Now, that said, I’ll sift through them and delete the garbage and duplicates and probably end up deleting a thousand of them. But even so, that would still leave us with about 2,500 – that’s insane! That can be looked at as a downside to digital photography. “Back in the day”, you might have been able to take 32 careful photos and call it done, unless you bought more film. Good and bad, right? I do feel we were in the moment and also took photos, but when you could only take so many shots decades ago, you had to be pickier with your photos and likely spent a lot more time just taking it all in than we usually do today.

• If you didn’t figure it out, the best part of the Europe trip for me turned out to be the towns outside of the touristy places. Lucca is amazingly beautiful. I would love to spend more time there to check it out further. Maybe that could be the next place we live!
  
  Frascati was great, too. If I had to rank my favorite places we visited on this Europe trip, it would be:
  
  1. Lucca, Italy (without a doubt)
  2. Frascati, Italy / Messina, Sicily (this one’s a tie – they both had different things I loved about them)
  3. Mallorca, Spain
  4. Palma, Spain

I mean, it’s easy to say, “and that’s all”, but I’m telling you, this Europe trip was jam-packed and such a cool experience for all of us. So glad we got to do this… now we need to start planning another trip down the line where we can stay longer at the places we really enjoyed and check out the places we didn’t have time to visit!

Plan well, take action, and live your best life!

Thanks for reading!!

— Jim