We don't do the whole sit still over a long weekend thing very well and in Australia both Good Friday and Easter Monday were holidays, so that meant a four day weekend! Yes, Morgan was only five weeks old or so, but that seemed old enough to get her out of the house for a few days. So we planned a short driving trip a couple hours north of Sydney along the coast. There are several different areas to explore, so we decided to book a hotel centrally located so we could spend each day exploring a different area.
We headed out early Friday afternoon after attending a wonderful Good Friday service. Somehow we managed to fit everything needed for three nights away with a 3.5 year old and 5 week old in the back of our new to us hatchback and we were off for the 2.5 hour drive. We expected the heavy holiday weekend traffic or a fussy newborn to be our only delays, but instead found ourselves at a rest stop with a dead battery after not fully turning the key to the off position in the ignition when we stopped to feed Morgan. Lucky for us we found a nice gentleman with jumper cables who helped us start the car (I am not sure he would have volunteered the knowledge that he had jumper cables though if it had not been for his friendly wife)!
So while we had hoped to be able to explore Newcastle, the second largest city in New South Wales, during the late afternoon and early evening our time was quickly gone due to our delay. We did however find a great spot along the ocean for dinner before calling it a night with hopes that Saturday would go more according to plan.
Waiting for dinner.
Someone thought it was funny to test out Morgan's bed and see if she still fit inside!
Saturday could not have been better. While it still took us awhile to get going in the morning (it always seems to be a process to get out the door of a hotel with kids), we found our way to beautiful Port Stephens by mid-morning. Port Stephens is full of several touristy beach towns with plenty of water activities, nice beaches and a variety of outdoor adventure activities. As it was early autumn we didn't know what to expect out of the weather in planning our trip so we didn't count on it being warm enough for the beach. While it ended up being a beautiful day to play at the beach we thoroughly enjoyed the other plans we made. Our first stop was the Tomaree Head Summit Walk. About a one kilometer walk to the summit, it was well worth the effort for gorgeous views of the area. We were very impressed with our little hikers as well. Emma managed her first real hike without being carried at all (especially impressive considering the number of stairs it involved) and Morgan settled right into the ergo for her first hike despite us both being more than a little sweaty by the end.
View from the top of the hike.
Me and my girls.
Gorgeous views over Port Stephens.
Family of four!
After the hike was a well deserved ice cream break before making our way to the Stockton Sand Dunes for Steve and Emma to try their hand at sandboarding. The sand dunes are part of Stockton beach, which stretches for over 30 km in length. It is an impressive sight with sand as far as you can see. Besides sandboarding and 4wd adventures, camel rides are a popular activity, leaving you feeling as if you are in an entirely different part of the world as you take in your surroundings. I had gone sand boarding one time before when I was in New Zealand during college, so I happily enjoyed a picture perfect afternoon enjoying the view with Mwhile Steve and Emma spent a couple hours out in the dunes. Emma has been asking about going sledding for quite awhile so this seemed like a pretty good substitute. And in typical Emma fashion, she hadn't been there long before she found another little girl about her age to become best friends with while they boarded down the dunes.
Sand as far as the eye can see!
What country are we in?
Someone's excited on the 4wd bus drive to the sandboarding hill.
Sand, sand and more sand.
Steve said she walked to the top by herself every time!
Getting ready to go down...
Taking a bow.
We could have done this all day.
We were all more than ready to find a nice spot for dinner by the time the sun was setting. We headed back to the town of Nelson Bay. When traveling with Emma in the past, eating at the best restaurants has never been high on the priority list (due to obvious reasons) and we certainly don't expect that to change anytime in the near future. However, we lucked out that night as we quickly scanned Tripadvisor's top 10 list and found our way to one on the list, Sandpipers. We got one of the only tables available without reservation, had a very friendly waitress and enjoyed a great dinner of fresh fish with a very compliant Emma and an awake, but calm Morgan who sat peacefully in her stroller throughout all of dinner (seriously, who is this child? Emma would never have let that slide as a newborn). By the time we made the 30 minute drive back to our hotel we were all ready to pass out and that's exactly what we did. You can be assured that you amply wore out everyone when no one wakes you up even once prior to 6 am.
Bedtime!
To Emma's delight, the Easter bunny found his way to our hotel on Sunday morning and then we later found him at the Hunter Valley Gardens. Yet, to our delight, Emma for the first time was able to tell us the real reason why we were celebrating Easter as she reminded us several times throughout the day that "Jesus was risen!"
No fear, only hugs!
Hunter Valley was about a 40 minute drive in the opposite direction from where we had gone the previous day. It is a well-known Australian wine region located in New South Wales. Our expectations were low to really enjoy any of the wineries. It was instead about letting Emma enjoy the Easter activities at the Gardens and for us to just enjoy the day as a family in a beautiful area of the country.
Emma thoroughly enjoyed the egg hunt in the "Storybook Gardens," which was a cute area designed for children with statues and characters from all of the most popular nursery rhymes. While our entire visit in the gardens was nice, I do find myself hard-pressed to believe I will cough up the $25+ per adult entry fee just to see some beautiful gardens anytime in the near future again.
Checking the tea party for eggs...
Just holding hands with Mary...
I was a little afraid of the bunny's teeth!
We had a very late lunch in Hunter village before making a stop at one winery. We contemplated for awhile where to go as we wanted it to have a good space for kids to run around. While we were relieved to find out at our earlier stop at the Visitor Centre that no winery would look at us like we were crazy for having kids in tow, there weren't really any that were all that child-friendly. So instead we opted for one with plenty of good outdoor space and a beautiful view of the valley. Audrey Wilkinson winery did not disappoint. And oddly enough of all the wineries we could have chosen, I realized as soon as we pulled up that it was one of three wineries I had visited when I did an internship in Sydney during college. Out of 150+ in Hunter Valley we could have chosen, this was it. While a beautiful setting, we are quickly realizing that Australian wines seem to still have a ways to go to catch up with many other famous wine regions in the world in terms of taste. Unfortunately with that goes the fact that importing alcohol is very expensive and heavily taxed, making it difficult to find a very extensive non-Australian selection at the local store. Oh well, that's not why we moved to Australia. So after the stop at the one winery we made our way back to the hotel at a decent hour, and to Emma's delight she was able to go swimming in the hotel pool before bed.
Monday morning came too quickly and we were sad to know that our short holiday was almost over. However, since we hadn't been able to explore the city of Newcastle on Friday afternoon we made our way back there for the first half of the day. We enjoyed a coffee, finally tried a staple item on the Aussie cafe breakfast menu - an egg & bacon roll (pretty similar to an Egg McMuffin at McDonald') and watching Emma blow bubbles in front of some monster waves at the beach before taking a walk along the popular Memorial Coastal Walk for some beautiful views of the coastline. As always, high on the priority list was a stop at a park for Emma before a lunch at a cafe on the beach (I could really get used to this eating by the beach on a regular basis thing along with this country's love of avocado, smoked salmon, amazing coffee and many other yummy fresh ingredients that you find around every corner at a new cafe or restaurant).
Simple pleasures at the beach.
View looking north on the Memorial Coastal Walk.
View looking back south.
Nobbys Beach near downtown Newcastle. The strong wind, waves and current made swimming inadvisable, but it still made for a great spot for lunch.
The trip home was much quicker and uneventful, and we considered the weekend to be an overall success. You're never going to accomplish everything you set out to do with two little ones in tow, but if at the end of the day most everyone is happy and you got to see and experience something new, then I think it was a good trip. We'll report back after our next long weekend trip in June!
Although it was Emma's second Easter, let's be real, at nine months old last year it pretty much passed her by without too much recognition. This year was different. Emma got to open two Easter baskets compliments of her grandparents and she took part in two Easter egg hunts! With her father's careful supervision of backyard training, she was a pro by the time she arrived at the neighborhood park for her first egg hunt the weekend prior to Easter. Here's a look back at Emma's first "real" Easter.
Modeling her Easter hat...
Someone was pretty excited by all the Easter goodies!
Getting ready for the big hunt at nearby Lindenwood Park.
We all know you don't go to the park without a stop at the swings with balloon in hand...
Don't tell the Easter bunny (or the other kids), Emma may have cheated a little...
here she is standing in front of the starting rope!
There she goes! We were shocked she went out on her own!
Dad went in for a little close supervision...
Success! Mouth full of chocolate and lips to prove it.
Full Easter basket in hand, she wasn't about to let it go on her walk home. In fact, she eventually fell asleep in her stroller with her hand clenched around a chocolate!
By the time we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house a few days later, Emma was a quite the expert egg hunter - take a look for yourself!
We had so much fun not only watching Emma hunt for Easter eggs, but also showing and teaching her a little bit about the true meaning of Easter. Here's to celebrating "Jesus is risen!" for the rest of the year!
We had been looking forward to visiting Cinque Terre since last December when we booked the trip and found an amazing place to rent for the weekend. For those of you not familiar with Cinque Terre it is a region in northwest Italy consisting of five small villages that sit directly on the Mediterranean. All of the villages are car free and many of the homes and buildings in each town are skillfully built on the side of cliffs. The towns are connected by hiking paths that wind along the cliffs and trek through vineyards. In other words the place is BEAUTIFUL. And let's not forget that it has some of the best Italian food around. It's hard to complain when for three days straight our lunches consisted of amazing pasta and seafood and dinner was pizza. Too bad it was cold and rainy most of the time we were there, so we only ate gelato two of the three days...
View from our apartment!
The easiest way to get there from Zurich is by train so we headed out on Thursday afternoon and went halfway to Milan and stayed the night as to break up the trip (about four hours each day). We figured it would give Emma a nice break since it was her first big trip since going back to the U.S. over the holidays and with her ever increasing mobility we weren't sure how much more difficult it would be to travel with her. Lucky for us she continued to impress and keep us all entertained on the train ride.
We arrived in Cinque Terre by midday Friday and had decided to stay in the village of Vernazza after reading many reviews as to which town was best to call home for the weekend. Although there are many similarities they each are distinctly unique and we chose Vernazza based on it's nice harbor and good reviews for atmosphere, restaurants, and shops.
Vernazza Harbor
Exploring Vernazza
Village of Vernazza from the pier
Another angle of Vernazza
Vernazza from above
There really are no hotels in Cinque Terre, just small rooms to rent that are privately owned by families in the village. So upon arrival in Vernazza we were greeted by the very friendly family that owned our apartment and we were whisked away to one of the highest points in the village. Remember how I said these villages are built more or less on the side of cliffs? So yes there are lots and lots of stairs through tiny little passageways. Lucky for me I was just carrying Emma (definitely not a stroller friendly place) and her travel cot, unlucky for Steve he had the bookbag and a very heavy suitcase! While it was quite an effort to get there neither of us could complain once we saw the sweeping views over the Mediterranean and parts of town. Between the rooftop terrace, balcony, and fact that it was built directly into the side of the cliff it was pretty impressive.
The entrance to our apartment was this tiny door on the rooftop terrace!
See that little green door? That was the balcony on our apartment!
Enjoying our balcony
Sunset from our balcony
Family photo on the rooftop
Unfortunately, just like most of the rest of Europe, the majority of Easter weekend in Cinque Terre was rainy and cold. So once we got settled into our place on Friday we decided to keep the rest of the day low key and just enjoy a nice relaxing lunch in Vernazza and take time to explore the town itself. We were hoping to enjoy a boat ride between the villages that afternoon, but the rain and rough waters kept the ferry docked for the entire weekend.
While it was a bit disappointing that we were unable to see a view of the region from the boat, what certainly was not disappointing were the people we met while exploring the town instead! With this now being our third trip to Italy (all post-Emma), I have come to conclude that Italians are some of the best of the bunch, especially if you are traveling with a baby or "little bella" as Emma was referred to countless times! They truly love to spoil, hold, kiss, and just in general love on babies. We had waiters and waitresses ask to hold her and just try to do anything to help us eat a nice meal while keeping Emma content. Especially that first day when Emma was just getting settled in and wasn't in the mood to sit in a high chair by herself one waiter quickly brought sorbet over for her and started dipping her pacifier in it! He said it would calm her down and keep her content, it did in fact do the trick for awhile, and what can I say we were on vacation and eating good food and dessert the whole time so I guess it was only fair that Emma got a few extra treats too!
Beautiful harbor of Portofino full of big sailboats
On Saturday we decided to head outside of Cinque Terre to the small, but upscale fishing village of Portofino. It is known for its beautiful and secluded harbor and rumor has it that it often has celebrity visitors, although we didn't see any when we visited! Funny thing is that I actually visited this tiny town before when I visited Europe after graduating from high school. I am glad that my memory served me correct as Portofino is a beautiful place that was certainly worth the second visit. It took about an hour by train to get there followed by a 20 minute bus ride along a narrow, windy road on the side of a cliff. I don't know why we continue to ride on these buses (we've taken a few in the Alps as well) where it's necessary for the bus to stop and honk it's horn repeatedly while turning the corners because it's too narrow for anyone else to get through at the same time!
Once we survived the bus ride we enjoyed exploring the towns and shops and once again another great Italian meal, this time sampling the pesto that the region is famous for. We also took a short hike to take in some great views of the harbor and the town.
Enjoying another wonderful Italian lunch with a little crazy hat hair!
It was a windy day in Portofino - Emma thought it was so funny when our umbrella broke!
Portofino from above
On our way back to Cinque Terre we unfortunately hit our first delayed Italian train. We had read that this region is particularly infamous for its slow and unreliable trains, and we also found that to be true. On Saturday it meant that our train stopped several times for what seemed like no reason at all and made us all a little grouchy when it arrived back in Vernazza almost an hour late (nearly doubling the time it took us to get back!). On Sunday it meant that the train we were going to take within the Cinque Terre region was completely cancelled for again unknown reasons. And on Monday it meant that our train departing Cinque Terre was running about 20 minutes late! Oh how I appreciate the timeliness and reliability of Swiss trains!
Anyways, come Sunday we were excited that the forecast was again accurate, but this time with sunshine! As a result we were happy to get up early on Easter to enjoy such a beautiful place (we had turned our clocks ahead an hour that night, for some reason daylight savings in Europe takes place a few weeks after daylight savings in North America). We set out ready to hike the trail that connects all five villages of Cinque Terre only to find out that it was closed due to risk of landslides! The area had recently received a lot of rain and we came to find out that it is a relatively common problem. Actually just in the fall of 2011 there was some torrential rains that left parts of the villages extremely flooded and they were concerned that it would never be the same as it was, but luckily everything seems to be back and functioning as it once was before.
Needless to say we were greatly disappointed to not be able to hike along the entire trail but instead we were able to enjoy walking areas around each village and taking the train in between each. It was nice to be able to spend more time in each town, which also meant more good food and wine to drink too! It was fun to see the differences between each and what made each town popular... whether it was a nice beach, beautiful harbor, or beautiful views from the top of the hill - there was something to be said for each.
Village of Riomaggiore... known as the "workaday" town. We heard and saw people doing work on their houses on Easter Sunday! In Switzerland I don't know if it's actually illegal, but it's highly frowned upon to do work on a Sunday, especially Easter!
Family photo in Riomaggiore
Village of Manarola - also popular for it's beautiful harbor area
Big waves in Manarola!
Corniglia is known as the Mountain town... this is the sign you see when you get off the train to warn you about the climb ahead!
Looking down on all the stairs!
Vineyards in Corniglia, they were all over Cinque Terre
View from Corniglia of the Mediterranean
Monterosso al Mare is the beach town!
Emma's first time on the beach!
Family photo in Monterosso
It was certainly a full day getting to all five villages, so by the end we were happy to return to Vernazza and just relax for our last evening. And since it was finally our first nice day we actually got to sit out and enjoy our balcony and the amazing views it offered. It was especially fun to see the people below us wondering how we got there! With the waves crashing right below us there was truly nothing else like it that we have ever experienced.
The next morning it was hard to say good bye to the beautiful views, great food, and wonderful family that owned our apartment but somehow we managed with the hopes that hopefully one day we'll be back again!
Last night on our rooftop terrace - waving bye bye!
