I stumbled onto Capri in the 90s in a serendipitous moment during my low budget, university graduation backpacking trip. Those days on the island were an unexpected bolt of lightning, its profound beauty, striking fast and deep. Meanwhile, I blinked, and it was 25 years later. The day Pablo and I set out for Capri I felt nervous at breakfast. Had it really been as beautiful as I remembered, or was it all a figment of my imagination that grew with the decades? We fidgeted aro

Four years ago Pablo and I embarked on our inaugural European vacation together. To compound that even further, it was our first trip since the start of the pandemic. We, like much of the world, had been sitting in our house for a year and half. That alone made it epic. The world suddenly felt huge. Those were strange times. Pablo was jet-lagged on our arrival in Rome and I hadn't felt the wind in his sails on the train to Naples. Would he love Italy the way I do? We emer

The first post about Rhodes spoke more to our arrival, and the small apartment we rented. I didn't dive into our actual adventures on the Island. Note that two of our major adventures were off the Island - to Symi and to Marmaris, Turkey which I wrote about separately. The old town of Rhodes, a labyrinth of narrow streets that flow into plazas, is both a walled medieval city and a UNESCO world heritage site. The centre piece of interest is the Palace of the Grand Master bu

This weekend my youngest kiddo and I went on road trip to Perth, Ontario about an hour from home. The town of Perth, which is split by the Tay River, was founded in 1816, and has a population of about 7000 people. Like much of tiny Ontario it has a bustling Main Street, an impressive Town Hall, and a thoughtfully planned out park. Walking up the main street we noticed the entrance to Stewart Park, which happened to be hosting the Stewart Park Festival, and wandered in. The p

It's been an atrocious spring for weather - wet and cold. The sun hasn't peered out in ages and it rains constantly. We are waterlogged and grey. People are afraid to leave their nursery plants outside as the temperatures are still in the single digits, at night, and sometimes even in the day. It is miserable. Yesterday in a dry moment we went out for a long walk around town before the sun set. As we walked across the swing bridge toward the town dock, I saw my town town

On our recent trip to Rhodes, we took several days trips in addition to exploring the Old Town. One of those day trips was to a neighbouring island, Symi. With a reputation as being one of the prettiest islands in Greece, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to Island hop for the day. Symi reached the height of its prosperity in the mid-nineteenth century, under Ottoman rule, mostly for its prevalence, of all things, sea sponge diving. During its hay day, beautiful brightly

I recently visited Costa Rica for the first time. I've always heard how much people love Costa Rica, while quickly citing the catch phrase 'pura vida'. And whenever I look up best places to travel or retire, Costa Rica is often highlighted on the short list. With that said, I have to admit that when I have researched taking a holiday in Costa Rica over the years, it wasn't obvious what the nitty gritty of that holiday would look like. Normally, one of my superpowers is t

As a life long lover of coffee (even though I have recently given up caffeine) I was always intrigued to see how coffee is produced. On my recent trip to Costa Rica we had the opportunity to visit Hacienda Doka, a small production fair trade, coffee farm. Costa Rica produces 100% robusta coffee, a premium type of coffee, as differentiated to arabica coffee which is larger, and grows more quickly. They guided us through the process from seed to cup. The baby plants are kept

In another lifetime, when my children were little, we had the opportunity to travel to Finland over Christmas to visit family. Truth be told, I don't like to travel at Christmastime. It's expensive, crowded and people tend to be a in bad mood. My stance is that, for the most part, little kids want to wake up in their own beds on Christmas Day. But this was travelling to the mothership of Christmas. I was in. We would be staying in downtown Helsinki for the majority of the

While I'm not a huge fan of winter, autumn is a fleeting gift. Living in South Eastern Ontario we are blessed with rural landscapes,...

My closets will never be more organized than they were partway through the pandemic. I had the joy of coming across my old journal that I...