After our adventures in Venice, the Dolomites, Reutte, and Verona, we made our way to Croatia. We first traveled to Split, the 2nd largest city in Croatia after Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.  Split has approximately 300,000 people living in its urban area.  On Monday August 12, we flew from Venice to Split and our Airbnb host picked us up at the Split airport. Since we landed so early, our Airbnb wasn’t quite ready to check in, so we dropped off our luggage with our hosts and explored Split. We loved the location of our Airbnb, it was close to the heart of the city center of Split and our host was extremely responsive and accommodating before and during our stay. Continue reading

After my coworker’s wedding in Reutte, Austria we drove back to Venice, Italy. Picking up and dropping off a rental car in another country is extremely expensive in Europe. We wanted to fly out of Munich, Germany to Split, Croatia, but decided against it because of the cost of dropping off the rental car in Germany.  But, the bright side is we got to see other parts of the Italian countryside and stopped in Verona for the afternoon. If you take the highway, the drive from Reutte, Austria to Verona, Italy is roughly 4 hours.

Verona is a medieval town set on the Adige river and is famous for being the setting of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” We only had a couple of hours to spend in Verona, but I still thought it was plenty of time.

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After arriving in Reutte, Austria from the Dolomites, we only had one full free day. So, we spent the day touring the Neuschwanstein Castle and the Hohenschwangau Castle located in Germany (only 20 minutes away from Reutte). The Bavarian “Mad” King Ludwig II built the Neuschwanstein Castle and he grew up in the Hohenschwangau Castle. Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle inspired Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle and the Cinderella Castle.

The interiors of the castles are not that stunning and the tours were only 30 minutes each, so I would recommend just paying to park and hike up to the famous overlook to see the Neuschwanstein Castle (takes about 45 minutes to get to the top and it is pretty intense uphill).  The Hohenschwangau Castle is close to the parking.  Plus, it’s also extremely overcrowded with tourists.  After visiting the castles we met my other coworker for dinner who also flew in town for the wedding.

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After leaving Venice on Wednesday August 7 we drove to Reutte, Austria for my coworkers wedding on Saturday August 10. On our way we drove through the Dolomites, a part of the Southern Limestone Alps located in northeastern Italy.

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