Wave 2: Italy tour, Southern France, Ireland

WAVE 2 (Europe: Portugal, France, Italy, Ireland) – We returned to Europe, via San Francisco, for 9 months of 2022. After spending some time at home in Portugal, with side trips to Nazaré and Comporta, we hit the road for France and Italy for almost three months.

In France, we began in Lyon then traveled south to Avignon, Gordes and Aix-en-Provence before heading further south to the Cote D’Azur where we visited Antibes, Nice, Eze Village and the country of Monaco.

Italy. From there, we moved east into Italy. We began in Genoa from which we visited Portofino. We trained south to Rome for a little over a week and then rolled down to the Amalfi Coast.

We started our Amalfi time in Naples, visited the islands of Ischia and Capri, stayed in Positano and Sorrento and visited Pompeii and Amalfi.

From Campania/the Amalfi Coast, we headed north into Umbria which we short changed with only a few nights in Assisi. From there, we headed into Tuscany where we stayed more than a week in Florence and visited San Gimignano and Lucca.

We visited the Cinque Terre region and then turned east towards Venice with stops in Parma, Modena and Ravenna and a day trip to San Marino. We closed out this grand tour in Venice where we reflected on our favorite things about our three months on the road.

Returning home to Portugal for a summer of hosting guests we visited Lisbon on Saint Anthony’s Day, returned to the Cascais Mercado (multiple times) after a hiatus during COVID and re-visited Évora, Porto, Douro Valley, Obidos, Nazare and Herdade do Sobroso in Alentejo.

We wrapped up summer with a gorgeous three weeks in Ireland. We skipped Dublin, having been there before only a couple of years ago, and headed north to Belfast. Most of our trip was spent exploring the remote landscapes of Ireland, starting in Northern Ireland then heading into rugged and remote Donegal County. We landed in Galway and spent two nights on a houseboat Airbnb (one of our top Airbnbs anywhere) then spent several nights in Kerry County, more specifically in Dingle, before exploring the Ring of Kerry and heading over to Cork County to close out our journey. There were so many things we loved about this trip and about Ireland itself.