The Naylors in Germany & Beyond

My sister and I were long overdue for a sister trip so we knew we couldn't pass up an opportunity to travel together! Why Malta, you ask? Well, my sister has been to almost 100 countries (that is her goal!) and she wanted to go somewhere new. We have a slight difference in traveling taste (lol) so it was a little difficult trying to choose a spot. Honestly, when Sarah mentioned Malta, I had never even heard of it. A quick google search led me to beautiful, bright blue waters and beaches. I was in!! Along with the beaches, Malta has a ton of history and lots to do. I was very surprised at how "big" this super small country was. We stayed in the St. Julian's Bay area, which I highly recommend. Do you see how small Malta is? You can barely see it on the map! The view of the city from our hotel rooftop! Our first full day in Malta we spent on a 3 island boat tour. It was SO much fun and really cool to see the 3 different islands that make up the country of...

To kick off my sister and Glenn coming to Europe, Drew, Tex, and I drove to Switzerland for the weekend!  (It was about a 3.5 hour drive! Oh, and Drew had a lot of fun driving in parts of Germany because there are no speed limits!) We met up in Zurich and did a night there. After that, we drove to Lucerne and spent the whole day there. I must say Lucerne is absolutely beautiful!! The drive up to the gondola. Breakfast time! We had a lovely breakfast outside at Gugelhupf Cafe and then started driving through the winding streets up towards Mt. Pilatus. Mt. Pilatus is a huge mountain where they have tons of outdoor activities. They have hiking, biking, ropes courses, tree camping, and the world's longest summer toboggan. Check out their website here ! You can take the world's steepest cogwheel railway to the very top or take a gondola. We took a small gondola about halfway up and then did a 45 minute hike. Once we reached that point, there were tons of activities and fo...

The last part of this Italian adventure was Rome! This was my third time to Rome and Drew's first. I was excited to dig deeper into the history of the city and appreciate the food that Rome has to offer. We arrived on Sunday and we had a few hours until our Colosseum and Roman Forum tour so we walked around and saw some of the sights. Let me just say this... The amount of tourists and people trying to sell you things was really overwhelming, especially right next to the major sights. It was quite unnerving and really spoils the historic sights. Anyway, we saw the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum and then grabbed a bite to eat before our tour. We definitely recommend buying your tour tickets ahead of time for the Colosseum and Roman Forum. This way you get to skip the line and get information about the sights that you otherwise might not know. Drew and I love doing tours... Can you tell yet? :) The Colosseum was built around AD 72 (that's really old!) and could hold around 5...

Florence We jumped on a two hour train to Florence from Venice early in the morning on Friday. I have been to Florence several times and was SO excited to take Drew there! Once we arrived, we walked to our hotel from the train station and dropped off our bags. We went and grabbed a panini for lunch and then headed to our first activity for the day - Climbing to the top of the Duomo. The duomo is a part of a huge church (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) in the center of Florence and we got to go to the very top of the dome. I 100% recommend buying tickets in advance for this and even then you must get there about 30 minutes before your time slot. Once inside the cathedral, we had to climb 463 steps up winding staircases in very small corridors. This was the only way up and down. It was a really cool experience and the views at the top were incredible. After all those stairs, we worked up an appetite and went to get gelato. We ate so much gelato on our trip I actually los...