I’m back from our two week European adventure! I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out where to start and trying to plan my content but something hit me about the last two weeks. The best parts of our trip were the ones that were unplanned and spontaneous. So that is what I’m here to share today! My favorite unplanned moments of Italy and Bosnia.
Before we left for Europe, I did what I always do before a big trip: I planned the sh*t out of it. I made my usual full fledged multi-tabbed spreadsheet with our hotel, rental car, and travel info along with beach club, tour, and restaurant reservations, and, obviously, confirmation numbers for all of it.
And then we got there.
The heat was oppressive. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Plans got cancelled due to things out of our control. The kids had zero interest in seeing half the things I thought they would love! We spent way more time submerged in water than we did inside museums and wineries.
And it was one of the best trips of my entire life!
The moments I keep thinking about now that we’re home aren’t the ones I planned months in advance. They’re watching my kids play in the water fountains in Rome. Sitting around a card table with Anel’s family in Bosnia. Late-night gelato stops. And the things that went completely wrong yet became the stories we’ll tell forever.
(Which, now that I think about it, feels a lot like parenting in general!)
Some of my favorite memories from our trip were unplanned:
1. Pizza in a Medieval Castle
This was absolutely not on our itinerary, but once the kids learned there was a pizza restaurant inside of a medieval castle, there was no going back. Obviously, we had no choice but to eat there!
And it ended up being one of my favorite meals of the entire trip. Not because it was the fanciest or even necessarily the best food we ate (although it was incredible), but because the kids were so happy. They thought eating pizza in an actual castle was the coolest thing that had ever happened to them, and watching their little minds explode over it made the whole night feel magical.
It was one of my first reminders on this trip that sometimes the things that sound the least exciting to me are the things they’ll remember forever.
2. The Beach Day We Never Planned
We only had one beach day planned in Tuscany because, in my pre-trip fantasy, we were obviously going to spend our days exploring adorable Italian towns.
We quickly realized that sightseeing with two hot, sweaty kids was absolutely not the vibe, so we asked our hotel for a beach recommendation and booked another beach club at the last minute.
It ended up being one of the best days of the trip. The food was incredible, the setting was beautiful, and my kids laughed and splashed together in the water for FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS without fighting a single time.
A true Italian miracle.
3. An Afternoon on Anel’s Family Farm
The day we arrived in Bosnia, we were just sitting around a card table on Anel’s family farm in Bosnia, chatting with his family while Luca kicked a soccer ball around and Amalia played with the farm dog.
Most of Anel’s family there doesn’t speak English, and I obviously don’t speak Bosnian, but it didn’t matter. We ate grapes fresh off the vine and drank Turkish coffee and laughed and figured out ways to communicate through translations and also hand gestures. The kids needed even less language than we did! They ran around and played like they’d been there a hundred times before.
There was something surreal about watching my kids feel so completely at home in a place so far from our actual home, surrounded by family they had never met in person. It was one of the simplest afternoons of the entire trip and one of the ones I know I’ll remember the most fondly.
4. The Boat Day that Almost Didn’t Happen
On our honeymoon in Amalfi (14 years ago!) I surprised Anel with a boat day and all these years later we still think of it as one of our favorite days ever. So obviously I planned something similar for this trip. But a few days before we were supposed to go, we found out the boat’s engine had broken. Our hotel tried to find us another one but everything was booked, and I had accepted that it wasn’t going to happen.
Except, apparently, I’m not very good at accepting defeat when I’m jet-lagged.
One night I stayed up until 2am finding dozens of small boat companies in the area and started calling all of them the next morning. Only one picked up, and they had a cancellation that evening for a sunset cruise.
Because we booked so last minute, there was no time for them to prepare food, so we stopped at the grocery store and grabbed pizza, sandwiches, snacks, and drinks to bring with us. And it ended up being the most perfect night. The couple who ran the boat were two of the kindest people we met on the entire trip, the kids had a blast, and our very unfancy grocery-store lunch was incredible.
The fancy boat day I had meticulously planned never happened… but the one I threw together in a mild panic at the eleventh hour was so much better!
Activities That Saved Us:
Products That Saved Me:
Magnesi-Om Powder for sleep and…regularity
Bug Balm to prevent and soothe bug bites
Vacuum Seal Bags to fit more in our suitcases
Packing Cubes to keep us organized
Hair Styling Stick to slick back my hair on 100 degree days
My Most Worn Items of Clothing:
Sézane Henley Tank Top looks good with everything, it’s been my go-to for years now
Travel Backpack perfect size and shape
Striped Midi Dress I bought this on a whim the day before we left and lived in it!
🫶🏻 Thanks for hanging out here! If this post made you smile, laugh, gasp, or nod in agreement, go ahead and like it, share it, or leave a comment. It helps us charm the algorithm gods. Thanks for stopping by!
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Great article !
oh my gosh, my first thought when i saw your email come through my inbox was, "Welcome back!!!!" Thanks for sharing about your trip!!!