2022 was a year full of trips to exciting cities, mainly in Europe this year, after a two-year hiatus due to COVID, so I decided to do a countdown of my favorite cities of the year. 5. Madrid, Spain Coming in at Number 5 is Madrid, Spain. We spent a short three nights here in June of this year, with our two youngest kids. Madrid is amazing because it can be whatever you want it to be. It can be…
My mom always had a dream to go to Vienna at Christmastime for the markets. My dad is not super into traveling, so I really wanted to make this trip happen for her. In 2019, we made it happen! This article is going to take a look back out our week-long outing in Vienna, which was super fun, even if it was super cold! Vienna at Christmastime conjures up all sorts of visions of cozy markets, drinking mulled wine, snow…
We spent 5 nights in Dublin, and this article will be my overview of the highlights of the trip. I’ll include links to my other articles if you are looking for more of a deep dive. We flew direct to Dublin from Chicago, a short 6.5-ish hour flight. Dublin is SO close to the east coast and middle America, it’s easy to simply spend a long weekend here. This was the original plan, but when booking with Marriott points, you…
This is my Ode to Oriole in Chicago. My amazing husband brought me here for my birthday this year. Oriole is a two-star Michelin restaurant on the near north side of Chicago, and for me, it probably deserves a third star. I didn’t really want to do a full review of the place, it was my birthday after all, but I did take a ton of photos of my experience here, and I wanted to document it on my blog…
Dublin has a rich Catholic history, but the two main Cathedrals that you can visit in Dublin are no longer Catholic. This article is going to focus on Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We came to St. Patrick’s Cathedral first, and it cost 8 Euro to get in for adults. There was no line when we arrived, and we didn’t get tickets in advance, but as we were leaving a bus full of tourists arrived and the line…
This is a post dedicated to the primary reason why I enjoy Dublin so much – the parks and the rich literary history coming from here. It really helps to come to Dublin if you enjoy literature, because apart from drinking, literature is the next biggest thing here. Dublin is full of bookstores – both used and new – and has an enormous literary history which continues to develop with modern Irish authors to this day. Dublin is proud of…
Every year, I take Brian out for his birthday to a fancy steakhouse here in Chicago. Chicago is known for its steakhouses, and there are no shortage of restaurants to choose from. GT Prime is one of the only ones we haven’t visited yet, and getting reservations early on a Tuesday evening was easy. The restaurant itself has a very moody, yet bright vibe, with black-brown floors and tables and walls, but bright bronze-gold accents and lighter brown leather chairs…
Some people say you can skip the Guinness Storehouse because it’s touristy and you don’t actually get to see the beer being made. When I was in Dublin in 2012 I did skip it, but I always kind of regretted it. This time, I made a point to be sure we came here. How can you go to Dublin and not pay homage to the most Irish of all beers? I purchased tickets in advance, which I highly recommend, just…
We stayed at the Shelbourne for five nights from October 20-25, 2022. I chose this place for a ton of reasons, but the number one reason was to use up a bunch of Marriott Bonvoy points that had accumulated over the pandemic. Because I was using old travel credits for the flights for this trip, I wanted the trip to be as free as possible, so I cashed out about 250,000 Marriott points to stay at one of the most…
So I love doing a high tea when I go on vacation – especially if there is a fancy one in a fancy hotel that is KNOWN for tea. (I also love a high tea here in Chicago as there are a ton of amazing places for it!) Tea is also a great thing to do on the first day when you arrive in Europe or somewhere else where you may be feeling pretty tired or jet laggy. The 2…