Wanderlust

Our flight to Ireland was around 12pm so we had to start getting ready to head out pretty early (you know how airports and air travel goes). We got up and had our last pastry of the trip, so sad... The rain held off thankfully and we made our way to Victoria Station using the Tube. At the train station, we bought our train tickets and then rode the 45 min long train ride down to Gatwick Airport. Very uneventful getting through security and flying to Ireland. It was a short flight of only 1 hour. We landed at Dublin Airport. While using the bathroom, I saw a sign for a 10 euros 24-hour transit card. That was way cheaper than the 12 euro airport bus plus other buses so, after talking to a friendly worker, we bought our transit cards. We rode the bus through Dublin to our hotel. Our hotel is on the Northside of Dublin (still only a 10-minute walk to the River Liffey and the middle of the city). The hotel was fine! Nothing crazy to note about it either good or bad. Lacey started to...

We woke up in our mini-hotel and tried to figure out what to do during the day. This trip more than anyone we've done, Lacey and I had to do some serious research about what to do or eat or whatever in the actual place. Other trips, we have a pretty long list of things that interest us and hold our attention and we're excited about it. Because of the wedding situation, we just didn't have the same level of full prep. While we were walking to the tube station without an actual destination (lol), I had an idea. We grabbed some pastries from a chain called Paul. They're so good. Our destination was an area of London I had never really explored but heard about. It's called Brick Lane. Brick Lane is on the East side of London (all the way across town from where we were staying of course). It's been a hotbed for immigrants since the 1650s. Persecuted Christians came there. Then Jews settled there in the 1800s. Then in the 1970s, it was packed with settlers...

We had walked/hiked almost 23 miles in the last 2 days. Our bodies felt it. Lacey and I both woke up sore. But it was our last day in Malta and we wanted to check out one of the cities across the harbor from Valletta. So we woke up and had our last hotel breakfast. We love pastries for breakfast but the breakfast at The Cumberland was top notch every day. I had pancakes again and Lacey had an omelet (we are creatures of habit haha). We left our bags at the front desk and headed out for a couple hours. The guy at the front desk always thought we were kind of funny (we were the youngest people there by quite a bit plus we are probably goofy). We walked over to the gardens from the first day and then took the elevator down to the waterfront. I have to say, this day would have been a lot harder without that. There's a small ferry company that manages the trips from Valletta over to the 3 cities across the bay. The return trip was only about 5 euros per person. We waited for...

We were pretty exhausted from our hike the day before along the coast of Malta but we were ready for another day. This time our plan was to go to a small island just north of Malta called Comino. In the normal summer time, many people take day cruises to Comino. The boats visit the Blue Lagoon along the coast of Comino. People swim and drink and hang out in this area. Well, it's not summer. So our plan was to take a ferry from the top of Malta to this small island and then hike around. This would require a long bus ride so we wanted to get a decently early start again. We went and got breakfast from the restaurant attached to the hotel again. I got banana and honey pancakes this time. Lacey got the same omelet and toast. The bus was pretty uneventful other than it just takes forever. The buses in Malta cover the whole island nicely but they are not super often and they legit stop at EVERY SINGLE stop. The bus from Valletta up to the ferry terminal listed 55 stops and I ...

As discussed in the previous post, Lacey and I had some indecision and concerns about Malta. We had original plans for staying up the coast and renting a scooter or car and then... plans changed. It's funny how things tend to work themselves out though. After quite a bit of research and a team effort of searching for things to do, we found some walks to do on the official Malta website. Lacey and I really enjoy hiking. We've been to Kentucky and Colorado to hike. Also, we had been in big cities for about 10 days straight so we really craved a change of scenery. We woke up a little early (like 7:30am-ish). Our hotel had an excellent breakfast to choose from. I had apple cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup. Holy smokes they were delicious. Lacey had a ham and cheese omelet with toast that was also really, really good. The breakfast was included with the hotel which was great. The Malta website lists 7 different walks but there was one particular hike that we were ...