Between getting married, moving to the UK, visiting 8 countries, and celebrating plenty of professional accomplishments, 2021 was, without a doubt, the craziest and busiest year of our lives. We decided pretty early on that we wanted to stay in London for the holidays so that we could finally take a moment to relax, as well as experience the magic of London at Christmas.
A variety of factors suddenly left us with several weekends in a row with nothing planned. We rectified the situation by booking a last-minute trip to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, which is only ~2.5 hours away from London by train. I knew almost nothing about Cardiff (or Wales, for that matter), but some light research suggested that it was a nice place to visit at Christmastime.
For Andy's 30th birthday, we met one of his childhood best friends in Amsterdam for a fantastic three-day weekend of celebrations. Despite The Netherlands suddenly announcing a partial lockdown (basically just bars/restaurants shutting down at 8 PM) the week before our trip, we still had so much fun celebrating Andy's birthday and exploring a new city with an old friend.
One of my travel-related goals while we are living in the UK is to try to visit smaller cities and other places that would be challenging and/or less of a priority to visit from the United States. This well-intentioned mindset is how we ended up spending a weekend in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania and a place I had barely even heard of, last November.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love champagne. When I started thinking about my 30th birthday, celebrating in the Champagne region of France seemed about as perfect (and on-brand) as it could get. We spent a fabulous three-day weekend touring the champagne houses, eating fantastic French food, and drinking as much top-notch bubby as we could handle.
Throughout the pandemic I read several articles that mentioned how incredible Venice has been with such a reduced number of tourists and the dramatic improvement in the canals' water quality, which is due in no small part to the local government (finally) issuing a permanent ban on cruise ships. I was eager to visit Venice without the crowds, and I am so glad we prioritized it as our first continental trip this autumn.
Our first official adventure as expats was a trip to the Lake District over the August bank holiday weekend. Famous for its associations with Beatrix Potter and 'Lake Poets' like William Wordsworth (and for the deep-cut Taylor Swift bonus track, obviously), the area is home to one of the largest and most popular national parks in the United Kingdom, which includes the largest lakes in England and all its land higher than 3,000 feet above sea level.
We decided to celebrate our first official weekend in the UK by taking a last-minute weekend trip to Rye, a coastal town in East Sussex that is only about an hour away from London by train and is famous for its medieval streets and architecture. I had seen it on several "most beautiful places in England"-type of lists, and it definitely lived up to the hype. The idyllic charm and relaxing atmosphere of the town made for a picture-perfect start to our European adventures.
We had always talked about taking a big trip to Greece and, most importantly, one of Andy's friends was getting married at a beach resort in Parga just a few weeks after our wedding...taking our honeymoon in Greece was a no-brainer. We spent time in Athens at the beginning and end of our trip, and then spent five days on the Ionian Sea in Parga for our friends' wedding before celebrating our honeymoon on the islands of Milos, Sifnos, and Santorini.
The trip I get asked about the most is the two weeks we spent with Andy's mother in Italy to celebrate her retirement and the completion of his MBA. It was Andy's mom's first time in Europe and there is also just SO much to see and do in Italy, so I spent a lot more time planning this trip than I typically would...and it paid off! During our 12-day trip to Italy, we spent a few days each in Milan, Vernazza (Cinque Terre), Florence, Montepulciano (Val d'Orcia region of Tuscany), and Rome.
Lindsey in London 