Lenz Winery We've been members for years, and we love visiting in the summer in the shaded courtyard. Service was great as always across our four visits! On our first visit with our friend Leah, we...
Blog posts from Food & Drink
Long Island Summer 2024: food + restaurants
As usual, we tried out some new-to-us spots while returning to old favorites for things like pizza and bagels. Watershed Kitchen + Bar We ate outside on the back patio as it was a pleasant...
Long Island Summer 2024: overnight in Lancaster, PA
As we've done in previous years, we split our drive to NY with a night in Pennsylvania. The drive up was fine, with typical traffic near DC. Left at 8:45am and pulled into our friend’s driveway just...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencia wine bars (+ one brew pub)
La Patrona We had an hour to kill before our apartment was available and this was one of the only Russafa wine bars open in the later afternoon. It was warm in the sun so we grabbed a table outside...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencian paella
We visited 3 paella-specific restaurants while in Valencia. It's traditionally a leisurely lunch meal with family and friends on weekends but we did have it for dinner once. Important to note that...
Europe Spring 2024: Valencia restaurants
As one can imagine, we visited a lot of restaurants in the month+ we stayed in Valencia, even if we did eat at home most nights. There were many options right outside our door in Rusafa, and we did...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria restaurants
Pazin Peperone - Located just a few blocks from our apartment, we stopped in and made a reservation for dinner on our first night. It's a good thing we did, as a group of ~20 French folks had...
Europe Spring 2024: Istria wineries
Istria has a really interesting wine industry with a mix of international grapes (cabernet sauvignon, merlot) and locally unique varieties (teran, malajvasia). In addition, some spots have a...
Europe Spring 2024: Plitvice food & drink
As it was a 15 minute drive on a rural road into Rakovica, we limited our trips, but still managed to try three places. Bistro Old Shatterhand - We had made a reservation for 8pm, but it was not...
Europe Spring 2024: Driving to Plitvice, Istria, and Zagreb
On this trip we focused on northern Croatia, spending the majority of our time near Plitvice and in Istria. That necessitated a car, and all together, we drove about 800km across small country roads...
Europe Spring 2024: 18 hours in Zagreb
We had less than a day in Zagreb, but we tried to get a feel for the city nonetheless. Our drive from the airport to a downtown parking garage was relatively straightforward, followed by dropping...
European Spring 2024: Madrid Open tennis
Our one full day in Madrid was all about tennis! The morning security line was long, but moved relatively quickly. Staff was very strict on no water bottles and we saw a growing pile of fancy...
European Spring 2024: Madrid, pt 2
Our train ride back to Madrid from Valencia was uneventful, but the Chamartin station was quite busy on Sunday, so topping up our Madrid metro card with a 10-ride pass took longer than expected...
Europe Spring 2024: Palma food and drink
Some of the more popular places in town are difficult to visit on the weekend without reservations, so Leandra booked us both lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday ahead of our trip. El Camino for...
European Spring 2024: Madrid, pt 1
We arrived in Madrid after a turbulent overnight flight in business class. I think Leandra was glad to be off that plane! Even though we had a metro card we could recharge, we decided to take an...
European Spring 2024: 30 hours in Chicago
Our flight to Spain left Chicago O'Hare on Monday, so we decided to position ourselves in the city on Sunday just in case of travel delays. Unfortunately, Southwest only had an early Sunday morning...
Florida’s Sun Coast: overnight in Savannah
For our trip back to NC we decided to spend a night in Savannah - it would break up the trip into two easier driving days, plus we had a free night certificate at an IHG hotel that we needed to use....
Florida’s Sun Coast: restaurants
During our two week stay we tried lots of restaurants, ranging from classic breakfasts to a beach cocktail spot, and from in-restaurant to take-away. Breakfast Original Word of Mouth - Quite busy on...
Our Itinerary
2024 Trips
San Diego, CA (Jan)
Sarasota, FL (Feb)
Madrid, Spain (Mar)
Valencia, Spain (Mar+Apr)
Palma, Mallorca (Apr)
Croatia (May)
Long Island, NY (July)
Faroe Islands (Aug)
London, UK (Sept)
Puglia, Italy (Sept)
Rome, Italy (Oct)
Frankfurt, Germany (Oct)
London, UK (Dec)
Manchester, UK (Dec)
2023 Trips
San Diego (Jan)
Orlando (Feb)
Richmond, VA (Apr)
Northern Italy (Apr)
NC Mountains (May)
Long Island (Jul)
Wisconsin (Aug)
Chicago (Aug)
Oak Island, NC (Sept)
Brooklyn, NY (Sept)
Bordeaux + Rugby World Cup (Sep)
Castilla y León (Sep)
Seychelles (Nov)
Willamette Valley (Dec)
2022 Trips
Florida (Feb)
NC Mountains (Apr)
Washington DC (Apr)
Valencia, Spain (May)
Hilton Head, SC (May)
Pacific NW (Jun)
Long Island (Jul)
Florida (Sept)
Chicago (Sept)
Poland (Sept)
NC Mountains (Nov)
Euro Xmas Markets (Dec)