Three fifths of the Traveling Anderzoo packed up much smaller carry-on bags bound for America’s Finest City, San Diego, and the Cal State Games, a junior Olympics of sorts, to play a weekend of softball! Tessa has been playing all summer and her and her team’s hard work and NorCal dominance qualified them for this end of season tournament featuring the best of the best from the rest of not just California, but the country. Our hotel is nestled in Little Italy and the kids have enjoyed some local gelato, to which Wyatt has turned his nose down at, I’ve … Continue reading The California State Games in America’s Finest City

It goes without saying that time spent with family, the making of new shared memories, deepening connection, silly stories shared, exposure to languages and cultures, are the huge benefits of world travel. But, let’s be honest, when you’re in Italy and Spain, the food becomes the real star of the show! We ate and drank at some of the very best restaurants in Italy & Spain, thanks Condé Nast and Travel + Leisure, and they did not disappoint. I’ve got to say that eating traditional Roman comfort food was a bit rough in 100 degree/80% humidity weather, but you do … Continue reading Pizza, Pasta, Gelato, Spritz . . . and McDonalds?

Gus! He walked out of his room this morning for the first time in 2 days with a huge smile on his face and said “I feel great!” Yay for Gus and yay for us! And now, we go home. Andiamo e arrivederci. Continue reading Guess who’s back?!?!?

For our hardcore followers (all three of you) I’m coming back to my comfort zone and posting bullet point style about random observations and thoughts. Enjoy! • It’s hot here in Rome! We’ve actually had great weather most of the trip, pretty comfortable everywhere we’ve been. It was fairly hot and humid (~90) in Venice to start the trip but since then pretty comfortable everywhere. Until we got to Rome. It’s been between 95 and 100 every day we’re here. Thank God (or as my Nonna would have said with her accent “tens God”) for the nasones across Rome which … Continue reading Return of the Ramblings

Five years ago the Cinque Terre exceeded decades of expectations and anticipation. This time around, it was still stunning, but being visited after the breathtaking landscape of Lake Como, and the cliffside towns of the Amalfi Coast (both firsts for the Anderzoo), she fell just a bit short. If I can just quickly take up a format employed by Joe; his “Ramblings” of a few years back, for just a moment to compare our visits. Also, you can flip back in time here and read what I wrote about our first impression in 2019. I left envisioning the kids returning … Continue reading The Five Villages, Five Years Later

Hola Majorca (aka Mallorca) we were so happy to see you! After a marathon day in Barcelona we knew we would all be ready for a relaxing beach day. None of us knew much about Mallorca and all of the tour operators were pushing catamaran booze cruises and sunset dinner cruises. We agreed to wing it since so much of our trip was planned to a T. But that all went out the door when I met Debbie & Hugh, cruisers from Miami by way of London at the pool after my water aerobics class. The two of them shared … Continue reading Theo y Matias – The Dynamic Duo of Majorca

Hola! Jose here, checking in again, this time about Barcelona. Sunday was another action packed day. We met our tour guide Irene at the port in the am and headed into the city. First we drove up Montjuic which is the highest point in the city and saw some Olympic related sites. Barcelona hosted the Olympics in 1992 (the year of the dream team) and Irene said they speak of Barcelona as before and after the Olympics – the Olympics really did great things for the city and gave them more global recognition. We then headed to Parc Guell, designed … Continue reading Barcelona

The first stop on our Western Mediterranean cruise (thanks Nomna & Papa) was none other than Napoli! We were all excited to not only get to eat the best pizza in the world in the place where pizza was invented, but we were also thrilled to tour the Amalfi Coast and visit the ancient ruins of Pompeii. The day started early with our guide, Andrea, who had Julius Caesar curls of perfection, and Pietro, our driver, scooping us all up from the port. Our first stop after climbing 1.5 hours through windy, windy hills was at a small village called … Continue reading The best pizza in the world

Lake Como is the place that occupies your dreams. It’s the absolute definition of beauty, and feels as though it was created from a color palette, droplets of paint from the sky brushing variants of green across the pre-Alps, and smatterings of citrus splashed upon luxurious villas, all surrounding a vast sea composed of the richest hues of blue. It is breathtaking, and if I was a professional photographer, it would be my paradise. For a day we lived in this dream, in this place of beauty that repeatedly had us ooooooohing and aaaaaaahing. After taking a one/hour train ride … Continue reading Lake Como, your beauty knows no bounds

Ciao, this is Giuseppe (or as I’m known in America, Joe) jumping in for a post! On Monday (7/1) we rented 2 large vans and traversed the Northern Italian countryside, all 15 of us. Our destination: the two towns in the subject which were the hometowns of my Nonna (grandmother) and Nonno (grandfather) respectively . They’re just across the river from each other about an hour Northwest of Milan. Our first stop was the cemetery in Romagnano where my Nonno’s parents and sister are buried. It also happened to be the 20th anniversary of the day my Nonno died, so … Continue reading Gattinara & Romagnano