I had some unfortunate business travel timing, causing me to be on the road for 4 weeks in a row, so we called in the big guns from Vegas: Grandma! Grandma came into town for the last week of my travel and stayed for 3 weeks. While she was here she conducted "Grandma School," celebrated her 70th birthday (over and over again), and enjoyed a few trips to nearby countries along the way. It was such a great visit and we cannot wait to have her back (hopefully with Grandpa next time!)
Some favorites from Belgrade include dinner at Dva Jelena (2 deer) a bohemian restaurant in a really cool area of Belgrade called Skadarlija, walking around the fortress and eating at Ambar, a modern Balkan restaurant.
Dinner at Dva Jelena
Don dancing it out to "My Way"
Poor Grandma didn't get much sleep while in town...)
Sampling Salto pivo at Nordeus
Grandma school!
Ambar!
Don, Grandma and the kids took a 3 night trip to Umag, Croatia, a beautiful seaside town where they celebrated her 70th birthday with a lot of swimming, exploring and a neat glass-bottom boat ride.
Birthday iced coffee
There's a new captain in town!
Next it was a day trip to Novi Sad, a beautiful and colorful town about an hour north of Belgrade. They walked around and enjoyed a lunch in a local restaurant, where the wait staff went out of their way to make sure it was a special meal.
Enjoying a traditional Serbian lunch in Novi Sad
To cap off Grandma's visit, we took a trip to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Ljubljana is an absolutely beautiful city that has rivers running through it and much of the city prohibits cars. There were tons of markets, little shops and delicious restaurants. We LOVED it.
After Ljubljana we continued on for about 2.5 hours to our favorite city: Venice, Italy. It was Grandma's first time in Venice and we enjoyed just wandering through the streets, taking in the sites and of course, all the delicious food. Except for getting stopped in Austria because we had Serbian plates (they quickly let us go with a laugh when they discovered we were American, but left us wondering what they would have asked us if we were Serbian) and stopped again in Slovenia for not buying a vignette to drive through the country (that little mistake cost us $175...), it was a pretty smooth and relaxing vacation.
Future Gondolier!
Checking out San Marco Basilica
Climbing where we shouldn't (not pictured: getting yelled at by Italian Police)
