Favorite Vacation

I’m back with another blog hop with the Blended Blog ladies. Today Shelly, Andrea and I are sharing our favorite vacations. If you are coming over from Andrea’s blog, thanks for visiting! Here are my favorite vacations we’ve taken. Most of them involve some sort of travel, although since we live in Florida staycations count too. I’d love to hear what yours are too!

Favorite Vacation

The Beach

Of course this had to be first. I’m originally from Italy (a peninsula) and I’ve been living in Florida for the past 32 years (another peninsula). So even if we don’t GO anywhere for vacation, I can still drive 30 mins and be at the beach. I love the beach so much that my house has a beach cottage feel to it. Some of my favorite beaches are…

Taormina (in Sicily)

My favorite body of water is the Mediterranean Sea. Within the Med are smaller seas. This one is the Ionian Sea which runs along the eastern coast of Sicily. The water is COLD and crystal clear and the beaches in this region are pebbles. No messy sand. It’s just gorgeous.

Citta del Mare (also in Sicily)

This is a resort on the western side of the island of Sicily, past Palermo. I was so sad to hear that it is in decline. We have been to this place many times over the years and it holds such a special place in my heart!  The slides (“toboggan”) were our favorite part!

The Bahamas

We’ve been twice; both times to the Abacos. The beaches there are just lovely and going with my brother-in-law who really knows his way around is the way to go!

The Florida Keys

(Although they are not really known for their beaches but they have wonderful coral reefs so I’m including it here. Hey, it’s not the mountains…) You can read about Key Largo here and Key West here.

Atlantic Beach, FL (basically Jacksonville)

This is the beach in my backyard and I am not minimizing it. We used to live on the west coast of Florida and I do NOT love those beaches, at least not in the summer. I much prefer the east coast and the Atlantic Ocean. The water is cooler and much more refreshing.  The Gulf of Mexico is so warm in the summer that it feels like bathwater. And who wants to swim in bathwater when the air temps are in the high 90s? Not this girl.

The Mountains

Every few years we like to escape the heat of summer in Florida and head for the mountains for a change of scenery and temperatures. I love going for hikes, enjoying the scenic views, finding waterfalls. We usually head for the North Carolina (I love Blowing Rock and Boone) but have also enjoyed the mountains in north Georgia, South Carolina and even Virginia. The Blue Ridge Parkway is my favorite. Sometimes we rent a cabin and sometimes we camp.

Europe

Being from Italy, I love to go back to “the motherland.” (Read here and here)I also studied French in high school and college (and was going to be a French major in college but my first 3000 level class freaked me out and I changed to English) so you can imagine that I love France as well. We’ve been to Provence (and want to go back one day) and more recently to Paris. (You can read about the Paris trip here.)

My husband’s father is from Spain (like my mother’s from Italy – born and raised) but we’ve never visited.  Our son spent a month is Spain this year and now I really have the bug. We are finally going to change that! We just booked our tickets for September! I’ll spend my big number birthday in Spain! Ole’!

Israel

In 2010 we took the whole family on a Shoresh Study Tour with our church family and had an absolutely amazing trip.

My Timehop has been full of pictures from that super special trip! If you’re curious, you can read about it here.

If you’ve every considered going to Israel, I HIGHLY recommend going on a Shoresh trip!

Those are my top vacations! What are yours? I’d love it if you’d share in the comments!