The ‘Tops’ of 2022

As we start traveling again, we decided it would be good to recap last year’s journey by listing some of our ‘tops.’ There are endless categories we could list, but the list can’t go on forever so here are the categories we chose:

Food
Parks
Animal Encounters (this one is for Lauren!)
Architecture
Historical Spots
Picnic Spots
Change of Plans
Stumble Upon Finds
Right Place, Right Time
Bonus section!

Greg and I don’t have the same favorite for all categories, so I have listed them in randomized order. Each section contains both of our ‘tops’ and close runner ups for each category. Oh, and the above picture is our favorite breathtaking view! This was atop Chamonix, absolutely incredible.

At any point, click an underlined word and it will take you to the blog link with more information related to that place.

Let’s get to it!

FOOD

We had ALOT of delicious things to eat, so this was particularly hard not to have a never-ending list.

French Baguettes and Cheese

Ahh, the baguettes are fresh, airy, and delicious. On a day to day basis, we consistently picnic’d eating baguettes, cheese, cured meats, and olives so the whole ‘French picnic’ deserves to be awarded. We essentially had a baguette a day.

Oh and I can’t mention France without drooling over their amazing pastries. My favorite was a coffee eclair in Strausburg. Eclairs taste way better in France!

Seabass Feast in Bournemouth, England

This was an amazing feast at West Beach and had to booked 2 days prior. It included roasted seabass accompanied with veggies, shrimp, salad, olives, scallops, rose wine, along with an ocean view. It was a fantastic experience!

Tip: This is only done on Sundays

Italian Food Tours

The pasta and sauces in Italy are absolutely delicious. We did two food tours and highly recommend both. They took us to traditional places and allowed us to taste authentic food without having to hunt for it ourselves. Of course we tried their amazing pastas, but our guides also took us to places to taste their pastries, charcuterie, and other local delights. We were given LOTS of food with these tours. Having traditional ragu (at Ragu) in Bologna was the best pasta of the trip.

Bologna: Book here
Florence: Book here

Cream Tea in the Cotswolds

Cream tea is an experience in England where you have tea, scones, cream, and sometimes butter or jam. Greg loved this; he is a big scone fan. As for me, I prefer softer pastries and coffee, but I had lots of that in England too. All of the tea shops we visited were super charming.

PARKS

Parc de la tete d’or in Lyon, France

We both instantly agreed that this was our favorite one. Between the zoo, rose gardens, botanical gardens, lake (and more!), there is so much to see and do in this park. And it’s all free! Initially we were exploring one rose garden, and then I found out there was another one 10x the size. A unique highlight was seeing venous fly traps in the carnivorous plant garden.

Parque Madrid in Madrid, Spain

This is the best running park for sure. It is massive, offers lots of shade, and has many many paths. But if you’re not looking to run, that’s ok too. There are gardens, sculptures, rowboats, fountains, and many other things to enjoy.

Bute Park in Cardiff, Wales

This one may not offer as many activities as the above two, but it is still quite large and is more nature focused. It is very green and shaded. Some unique features are the sculpture trail and animal wall. There is a lovely walk along the river which ultimately leads you to the Cardiff Castle.

ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS

Alpaca walk in Galway, Ireland

Currhagduff Farm offers daily alpaca walks (and even yoga on some days). The owners were originally nurses from England, moved to Ireland, and bought this farm without any knowledge of alpacas or farming. Well, it’s incredible what they’ve done! They adore these animals and care for them so much. On our tour, we each had our own alpaca to walk with.

Sea turtle spotting in Turks and Caicos

Turks and Caicos is known for their crystal clear water and scuba diving. We didn’t even have to dive to see some incredible marine life though. From the boat deck, we could see sea turtles zooming all over. We couldn’t believe how fast they swim! This was a super cool experience.

Owl holding in Malta

Our guide asked if we wanted to see a rare falcon, we said yes, so we made a fast stop along the Dingli Cliffs. Sometimes, there is a falconeer on the cliffside. On this day, there was. The falcon wasn’t able to be held, but the owl (Nina) was. He encouraged me to hold the owl and he created a memorable slo-mo video of Nina flying towards the camera. He didn’t tell me what was going to happen, just said “stay still, I’m going to do something cool.” And indeed he did! (the video can be found on our awaywemorreau instagram)

ARCHITECTURE

I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves in this category.

Alambra in Granada, Spain

This is by far my favorite. I was in awe during the entire visit. The tilework and details were just insane.

HISTORICAL SPOTS

Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece

Athens has endless amounts of history. We were there for just one day, so we made the most of it by taking a private bike tour which showed us highlights of this ancient city. For me, the best part was seeing the stadium which hosted the first Olympics!

We saw lots of other historical spots in Athens, but can’t list them all! So instead, enjoy some pictures below.

Orange Theater in Orange, France

Greg was very impressed with how many of the Roman features were preserved in southern France. He couldn’t narrow it down to just one, so I chose this specific spot for us. The scale of it was crazy. The admission fee included an audio guide, which was very informative. Totally a must do for 10 euro!

These pictures don’t do it justice at all. In person, it is super super impressive!

Hagar Qim in Malta

This is an ancient site, older than the Pyramids! Before being discovered, it was buried 17 feet from thousands of years of sandstorms and other natural elements. The rocks are massive, with the largest rock being 17 feet tall. It is impressive to imagine how this structure was built. This is a site we had previously never heard of.

At some point, I’ll be posting a list of all of the UNESCO World Heritage sites we have visited together (this is one of them).

PICNIC SPOTS

We travel on a budget, so we picnic ALOT. It’s a great way to enjoy a new view, be outside, and save money.

Basically anywhere in France

We had too many fantastic picnics here to list only one. They were so scenic! We were also there in May, with beautiful weather, which helps make for a perfect picnic. Some specific favorites from France:

Doran refuge: offered amazing views of Mont Blanc after hiking the Doran Trail
Verdon Gorge: stopped in a cave to get out of the rain while hiking the Blanc Martel Trail
Orange: sitting on a hilltop park overlooking the Orange Theater

Brecon Beacon National Park, Wales

Sheep galore! We had panoramic views of the green valleys and hills, with sheep literally at our feet. I didn’t list this under animal encounters, since it is here, but being this close to all of the sheep was definitely an animal highlight of the year! Wales offered many fantastic views.

Jurassic Coast, England

The beauty of this picnic is the incredible view of the Durdle Door (the big arched rock formation in the picture below), along with being seaside and on a cliff. We parked at the Lulworth Cove trail head and walked along the trail until winding up here. Great spot!

CHANGE OF PLANS

Sometimes it is best to live in the moment, venture off course, and change up the plans! Now, we’ll never know what the experience would have been if we had stayed with the initial plan, but these are a couple of times we think it worked out for the best.

Canceling Wales Workaway

This is 100% the best ‘glad we did this instead of that’ situation. We were so happy with our Workaway in Ireland with Dave and Sabina that we decided to extend with them and cancel our next assignment in Wales. They were asking us to extend, so we video-called our Wales host, didn’t get the best vibe, so with that (plus loving them, the area, etc), we agreed to stay. Initally, we were only supposed to stay one week but wound up staying for 2 months!

And prior to this, a change of plans we did not expect at all was leaving our Northern Ireland workaway due to crazy conditions, which led us to this amazing one in Ireland! Crazy blessing.

Staying in Antibes, France

Greg had a hefty list of places for us to visit this specific day. We fought the traffic and made it to Antibes and secured a parking spot right along the beach. It was a lovely day, sailboats were racing, we had a parking spot, we were having a good time, why leave? We were going to go to Nice, which is the next beach over. I proposed staying in Antibes instead of dealing with traffic again. After watching the boats sail away in the morning, we found a rocky nook along the cliff walk and watched them race back in the afternoon. Had we left, we wouldn’t have had this awesome memory.

When traveling, it is tempting to try to see and do everything, but overall, I really think it is better when you take it slower, even if that means seeing less things.

Going straight to Cernobbio, Italy

When we arrived to Italy, we were initially going to stay in Milan for one night. We ultimately decided to cancel that and add one day to our Cernobbio stay. Greg knew it would be stressful driving in the city, plus it was out of our way. Greg’s dad (Jim) flew in that day, so going straight to Lake Como let us be more relaxed and allow him to recover from jet-lag more easily.

Luckily, we did do this because it turned to be one of Jim’s most memorable days in Italy. Through the rain, we ran the streets and cozied into a fancy hotel lobby, Hotel Miralago and had one of those nights we’ll never forget! We enjoyed champagne, fancy cocktails, and caviar. It was mine and Greg’s first (and only) time having caviar. This night really kicked off our Italian trip with a luxurious flair!

As this was not the night we expected, it takes us into our next category…. top stumble-upon finds.

STUMBLE UPON

Brass band in Lyon, France

In the middle of a square in Lyon, we came across a brass band, dancing and playing like a fun pep band. Turns out, they all met in college and kept playing together! There were multiple saxophones and trumpets, a tuba, a drummer, and 2 trombones. This was so unexpected. We got a beer and a wine from the tiny grocery in the square and joined the festivities! It was such a fun stumble-upon!

Pool in Cernobbio, Italy

For our first lunch in Italy, we ate at Lido Di Cernobbio and discovered they also have a pool, which is right on Lake Como. We bought day passes and spent the next day there. It was a surprising discovery learning that swim caps were required (but luckily they sold them there for 5 euro each). I loved that the chairs had sun shades on them!

Medieval Christmas Market

In November and early December, we spent 5 weeks exploring Germany and seeing all of the nearby Christmas markets. One of our favorites was the medieval one in Munich (Munich has 3 Christmas markets!). We didn’t even know about this one, just happened upon it while exploring the city. It was small, but everything was to theme and it had an ambience unlike any other market we visited. The workers were in medieval attire, sausages were cooked over open flames, the live music included a wooden flute, and we even had a drink on fire!

This is also where we had the best cheese sausage ever.

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

I initially had these as part of ‘stumble upon’ because that is really what happened with these experiences, but we classified them into their own category, as these are all annual events that you could plan a trip around in the future. I’ve included the dates for each event from when we went in 2022.

Heart O’ Down Pipeband Championship

Saturday, Aug 6. We were in Newcastle, Northern Ireland on a weekend trip. While exploring, Greg heard bagpipes, I heard drums, so we followed the music and found this free event! There were bagpipers, highland dancers, drummers, and even color guard. This was awesome!

Calcio Storico Fiorentino

Friday, June 10. We happened to be in Florence, Italy for the kickoff of this traditional Florentine game. When an opportunity like that comes up, you embrace it! We only knew about it from our tour guide and thankfully, she told us how to buy tickets. Tickets can only be purchased in person at the box-office. This sport is a combination of rugby and boxing, originating from the 16th century. The pre-show was our favorite part: a medieval parade around the arena, trumpeteers, fans chanting, and rivals letting off blue smoke bombs. It felt surreal to be in Florence during this historic event.

Les Voiles D’Antibes Sailboat Race, Course 1

Thursday, June 2. Since 1996, this race kicks off the Mediterranean yachting season. We were quite lucky to be in Antibes on this specific day. It was so neat seeing all of the different types of boats and sails. We knew something had to be going on when we saw 50+ sailboats racing along. When we had wifi later, we looked it up and discovered this what was really happening. We absolutely loved this day!

Munich Christmas Tree Lighting

Monday, Nov 11. We did not coordinate our Munich stay with the tree lighting. We just happened to go on its’ opening day and see it happen. It was a fun surprise! The best part was the parade of trumpeters.

Krampus

Monday, Dec 5. This was a wild, crazy experience. If someone had told me this was something that really happened, I’d never believe them, but now I’ve seen it for my own eyes and know. We were towards the end of our Germany Christmas market journey and decided to drive to Bad Reichenhall to see a market in the Alps and hopefully see snow again. This was the night that St. Nicholas and Krampus appear. St. Nicholas gave me an apple out of his sack; I had never heard of Krampus.

We didn’t know when Krampus would arrive, but we knew right when it was happening. We heard weird noises and knew ‘he’ had arrived. ‘He’ wound up being a whole crew of furry-horned-devil-like creatures flocking the streets, some wearing cowbells. People followed them in the streets. Krampus would whip the naughty (yes, with a real whip!). It was actually a little scary (we kept our distance), but something definitely to experience. It only happens in the Alps twice a year- December 5th and 6th.

It was hard to get pictures of Krampus, but the video can be seen on our AWM instagram.

Coming soon: A look through our favorite German Christmas markets (or do you want to see them all??)

BONUS

These are a few, quick extra ‘tops’!

Living-like-a-local moments

When I took a city bus by myself in Belfast, went into town, and a saw a movie (Jurassic World Dominion) in a cinema
Going to the Shercock (Ireland) cake bake in the town hall
Spending a Sunday at a mall in Madrid grocery shopping, walking through a pet store, and eating KFC
Getting a library card in Ireland
Having late night barbeques and dancing with locals in Spain

Live Music

Traditional Irish music at the Crane Bar in Galway, Ireland
Dueling pianos at Howl at the Moon aboard our NCL Epic transatlantic cruise
Spontaneous brass band in Lyon, France
Acoustic tunes at a local brewery (St. Cannas) in Cardiff, Wales
Traditional flute music at Leap Castle, Ireland

And let’s end it with……

Breathtaking Views

We had SO many amazing views on our incredible journey last year. Each country has its’ own unique scenery and greatness. Atop Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix does hold our heart and was by far the number one breath-taking view for us; we had never seen anything like it! Some other amazing things we saw:

Panoramic views of the rolling Tuscan hills
Santorini at dusk
Sailing past a volcano on the Celebrity Beyond Cruise
Mont Blanc from the balcony of our Sallanches workaway
and all of the beautiful cliffs and coast lines of Ireland, England, and Wales (too many to name!)

We are so incredibly grateful for these adventures we have had together. We hope to inspire you to travel and explore the world as well!