Camper van and Albania adventure (Part 1: Slovenia)

 Since our first summer here in Germany (May 2009) we had the idea to drive down to Albania, but the circumstances seemed to never allow it.  This spring though Mike and I decided to go ahead and purchase a camper van. As you can see, it is not a normal camper, it's prettty hilarious. At first, I didn't even wanted to consider buying it, it was too crazy looking for my taste, but one day we decided to go and take a look and see if we liked it. Actually, we feel in love with it, can you believe it? The camper is a Mercedes Benz, 1979, 2 years older than me so I don't like when people say: Man, your camper is so old!!!!!!
The previous owners loved it, they had it for 25 years and actually the guy had built everything inside it. They painted it because of their kids, to make it more fun for them. (We will show some pictures in another post). We just felt good about it and purchased it. Since then, we have loved it, it has been a fun project for Mike and he keeps changing the look of it!!!

 But because we decided to drive down to Albania this summer, we didn't wanted to draw to much attention in the Eastern country so we decided to go plain and boring. I would have never thought that it would have been so hard to see those french cartoon characters(Asterix and Obelix) fade and at the end dissapear.

 This was the final look.

 Just before we left, Mike had to pick up some cherries for the trip. Our first stop was Lake Bled, Slovenia. A beautiful, serene place.

 We took the taxi boat which takes you up to the castle and enjoyed the ride. Up there, there were some famous steps and I will tell you why. Apparently, when people get married in Slovenia, the groom has to carry his bride up these 99 steps or the marriage is not valid.

 After a nice break, we had to leave Slovenia and this beautiful place for another adventure in another country. Stay in tune!

And...we are back!!!!!

Dear family and friends,

welcome to our new blog!!!! This is exciting for us and we will try to keep you up to date with our life here  in beautiful Germany!!!!

Let's start!!!

Two weeks ago we were getting ready for our trip in Rosolina Mare Italy. We spent 5 beautiful sunny days with my cousin's family and we loved every minute of it.

On our way there, as always, we had to stop in Switzerland. We have discovered that the best month to be there is August.

Our friends Jessica and Gage (mostly Jessica:) found this great hostel in Murren where we were going to spend the night. Is always an adventure with them.

As we arrived around 9.30 pm, we had to take the gondola up to Murren and from there to our hostel we took a taxi. Wish I had taken pictures. You would not believe the narrow roads. It was so awesome. As it was dark we really couln't see a lot, but we woke up to the most breathtaking, gorgeous, amazing, beautiful view. We were speachless. This hostel is located in the middle of nowhere, sorrounded by the most  beautiful green rolling hills that your eyes have ever seen, and beautiful swiss Alps.

We kept taking pictures after pictures!!! 

Had delicious breakfast...by the way, now I can say that the swiss bread is the best! 

After breakfast, we had to go on our ways. Jessica and Gage hiked the Schilthorn and we were on our way to Italy...but of course went on a hike first.

This was one of the most amazing hikes. You just want to stop, take a breath, close your eyes, and listen to the cow bells and the birds. Was the most peaceful moment! (Check out the video at the bottom of the page)

On our way to Italy we had to go through the mountain pass and it is scary beautiful, if that makes sense. There were bikers racing. Crazy, or at least I thought was crazy, Mike loved it!

We finally made it to Milano around 3 pm and left to go to Rosolina Mare around 7 pm. Rosolina Mare is a small resort town, 40 minutes outside of Venice.  We were able to go to church the next morning and met friends of our friends. This world is so small.

The greatest thing was to be with family! We love talking to them, be with them, eating Vali's delicious food...by the way, we had fresh fish 4 days in a row and we LOVED it! Mike fell in love all over again with the watermelon.

The weather was great, unlike Germany, we got burned and tanned! Mike thought I was going to fry myself!!!! This was a typical day: Klara and I would go for our morning run (didn't I tell you all that I've started a running program? We will see how far I'll go), Vali would prepare lunch, Berti would set up the ombrella's...well, not every morning:) Mike would prepare us breakfast and we would go on our way to the beach which is only 3 minutes walk. We would sit in our chairs from 10 am-6 pm talking, swimming, eating, laughing, sleeping, burning/tanning etc etc...It was great! We already miss the family. Thank you so much Berti, Vali, Brixhi, Klara and Greta for having us with you! It was such a great treat!

We had to be on our way back to Germany by Thursday and on the way we finished our trip with a short stop in Innsbruck, Austria!!!! 

Love, Mike and Soni