Europe - April 2024

April 19, 2024
Departed JFK on Brussels Airways on the redeye Thursday night. Flight was a little bit late and a little bit crowded but overall pretty pleasant.

Nobody slept very well. Landed in Brussels, grabbed a couple of croissants and a coffee, and then a train to Bruges. Weather is rainy and a little chilly, but Bruges is beautiful. Ate at a restaurant on the main Square, total mistake, expensive food that was terrible, but the view was good.

Hustled back to the train station and cobbled together a trip to Amsterdam, stopping in Gent and Antwerp. We had a really tight connection in Gent, but we hustled and made it. Antwerp train station was oddly a highlight of the day, architecturally, beautiful, and layered, the trains are stacked on top of each other instead of spread out.

No seats on the Eurostar so we are taking the slower train to Amsterdam hoping to get in around 6:30 PM in time for a little dinner before we all pass out. Our train is PACKED - mostly had to stand the whole trip.

Arrived in Amsterdam, it is packed. We somehow did not realize it was going to be 420 when we were here. Our hotel, the Highland house, is amazing. We are staying in the wine cellar a basement room with two big huge comfy beds and a great shower right in the middle of everything.

We walked around the center for a while, it’s overwhelming in an awesome way, brings back lots of memories for both Karen and me. Met a guy from Massachusetts who now lives here with his wife outside of Zocalo pizza, which was excellent pizza and a great way to finish off our first very long day of travel. Everyone slept well, we moved to our Airbnb.

April 20

Rolled out a bit late and checked out of the Hoghland House. Made a quick pit stop at Primark to get a layer for Finn and Enzo. Packed around the town looking for breakfast and ended up at Pancake House for banana pancakes. Lots of intermittent rain and even small bursts of hail. The town is busy for 420.

Made our way over to the Attic Monkey House - our Airbnb.

The attic monkey house is a top floor, extremely cozy and snug place. Maybe 200 ft.² total but it has everything we need, it’s centrally located, and surprisingly nice given how cramped the quarters are. The stairs are appropriately treacherous.

We explored the city on foot, arrange tickets for the Keukenhof Gardens and a canal cruise (tomorrow) and then crash and nap late afternoon. As evening hits we find a pun and play some board games and cards before venturing out to gawk at the windows in the red light district.

The kids were more excited by the fresh churros than the prostitutes so I guess that’s a good sign. Finished the night with a stroll home and crashed out

April 21

Finn and JD threatened to go running this morning but didn’t manage to get out of bed. We walk back into the fray of tourist town and find a great breakfast spot with fresh scones, French toast and croissants. Enzo learned he likes almond pastries and lemon curd.

We meet our tour bus and make the hour long drive to Kuekenhof for the must see tulip. Not really a flower person but hard not to be amazed by the gardens and massive arrive of flowers. Crowds were huge but worth spending a couple of hours.

We nap on the bus back and then head back to the Attic Monkey airbnb to chill and regroup. After we venture back out for excellent burgers at Burger N Wings. After walking around (it’s very quiet and chill now that the weekend crush is over) we finish the night back at the room.

April 22

JD and Finn find the motivation to roll out and run 3.5 miles along the canals first thing this morning. It’s quiet and feels a bit like a Monday morning in park slope with people commuting and parents walking kids to school.

Back home we all shower and pack up to check out. Joris, our host, meets us and lets us store bags at the building. We have baked goods and coffee at a local cafe and drop off laundry before meeting our canal tour for an hour tool around the waterways of Amsterdam. It’s an underwhelming canal tour but we make the best of it. Afterward we trek back to pick up laundry and find a big flea market where Finn shops for a bit and scores a pair of jeans. We have lunch back at the Zocolo pizza place and head to the Rijksmueum for our last big to do in town.

We spend about 2 hours at the museum which is perfect for our museum stamina. We see the highlights plus some cool armor and arms.

And then it’s back to the train station (via Primark and the bakery) where we have slightly fancy dinner at the Grand Cafe and climb aboard our European Sleeper.

APRIL 23

Our overnight is a very basic train, older and not luxurious at all. But everyone sleeps well. We run about 45 mins late getting into Prague.

Karen sorts out tram 15 and we make our way to old town where we find out rental (booking.com). This is one of those amazing finds - 2 bedrooms 2 baths and a big kitchen and dining room. A proper full apartment literally under the massive arch of the Charles Bridge. One of the best stays we’ve had. We like it so much we decide to push back our flight to Florence and stay here an extra day.

We venture out across the Charles Bridge and over to the old town square. Prague is a striking and beautiful city.

We grab a mediocre pizza and watch the astronomical clock hit 3pm (Underwhelming). Afterward we trek home and do some grocery shopping.
Finn and Karen make pasta for the family and we enjoy our first home cooked meal of the trip.

Later finn, Karen and JD venture back out after dark for a “haunted Prague” walking tour which turns out to be pretty lame. So we ghost he ghost tour and come home to watch Shogun and head to bed.

April 24
JD is up early and the town is super quiet. Hard to overstate how amazing the location of our apartment is and how good the view is. Mostecka 3/55. Once everyone is up, we go to the massive Prague castle on the hill, quite a hike up but well worth it. We visit the cathedral, the best stained glass in all of Europe IMO and climb the tower to the top for a sprawling panoramic view of Prague.

After a quick regroup at the apartment, we decide to do some thing a little less medieval and grab an Uber out to the Aqua Palace, where the kids spend a couple hours enjoying an indoor waterpark park. We shop at the little grocery on the street near the apartment and make dinner at home again. The WiFi doesn’t cooperate so we can’t finish Shogun so we settle in for the night.

April 26th
It’s a quick morning and into an Uber to Vaclav Havel airport for our flight to Milan. Easy Jet is actually pretty nice as discount airlines go. It’s a smooth flight to Milan and then multiple trains to Florence. The trip is uneventful but the day is a long one by the time we get to Florence at 5:30pm.

We find it way to the Carrozze restaurant and Finn finally get an excellent home made pasta. We crash out after an episode of Shogun.

APRIL 27th

We make good use of our only full day I. Florence. We start with a pancake breakfast at Rooster and then wind our way over to three always impressive Duomo.

The line is huge but Karen stakes out a spot and we all good explore for a bit. The line moves quicker than expected and we get inside in about 90 mins. The inside is sparse but stunning. We light a candle for Phil and explore for a bit.

After some more exploring of the town we head back to our our Airbnb. Karen and I venture back out and visit the Basilica Croce where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried. There’s a big French market place setup in the square outside the church. We hike over the Arno and down a ways to another bridge and back.

April 28th

Not gonna lie, this part of the trip was pretty boring. We trained up from Florence and into Switzerland. The big lesson on this trip was that saving $600 on flights by picking cities to fly in/out of might not be the best idea. What we remember about Switzerland is a beautiful train ride, a sketchy hotel, and a $130 dinner at 5 Guys. So...