We spent some time in Italy for our honeymoon and fell in love, I guess who doesn’t?! So, we knew we wanted to go back but wanted to see some new areas. For our honeymoon we visited Cinque Terre (our most fave Italian towns), Venice, Rome, Milan and Lake Como. Since we didn’t get to Tuscany the first time, that was a must see for this trip (and if you missed the rest of our European trip, you can also read about our stops to Paris, Belgium and Berlin). We decided to stay in Florence as our base city for the 5 days and then do day trips to some of the smaller Tuscan towns. This worked out great for us, but something to keep in mind is that Florence is a very touristy town and crowded! If I was planning a trip back or making suggestions for your trip, I’d recommend staying in Florence for a few nights, then also staying in one of the smaller Tuscan towns – the best of both! :)

Our first day in Florence rained, but luckily Katie (from Ever After Honeymoons) raved about this wine + cheese bar (Il Santino) near our hotel, so we decided to stop in and give it a try. By US standards, this place was tiny (we almost missed it!) but offered really great cheeses + wines for not a lot of money. Totally recommend it. After a few hours, the rain stopped and we decided to explore a bit. On our map, we saw the landmark Piazzale Michelangelo, which promised great views of the city, so we walked up + up a giant hill (it is quite a hike!) but TOTALLY worth it. The most amazing views of Florence. We went at sunset and it was stunning. I was so bummed I didn’t have my good camera, but it is breathtaking.

We loved walking around Florence – but since the streets were so crowded, we decided to take a day trip to the smaller town of Siena. I heard great things about the town and was super excited to check it out for myself. There’s a bus that can take you there direct from Florence (it’s a 1 hour trip) and so worth it!

When we arrived in Siena, we had no idea where to go, but that’s also what made it so fun. We just started walking and then quickly began smelling the most amazing food. We stopped at this tiny restaurant for lunch, Osteria la Piana, and it was one of our fave meals of the trip. Pappardelle with wild boar meat (a Tuscan specialty), gnocchi and red wine –so tasty we had a bit more than we originally planned on having, but we were on vacation :). Delicious. After lunch we walked around the town and soon found the town center. Such a great town center that is was declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site, a must see! (photo above from this site) We took a nap in the sun and just people watched for a while. Then, after a yummy cappuccino, we walked around the town to soak up more of the amazing views of Tuscany – so gorgeous and a perfect day…

And if you love the idea of getting married in Siena – or anywhere in Tuscany – look up Erin from Tuscany Destination! She helps couples who aren’t from Tuscany with their wedding plans for the area. :)

Thanks again to Katie at Ever After Honeymoons for the help with our lodging! The first three nights we stayed at the Hotel Gallery Art. It was right near the famous Ponte Vecchio – so it was nice and central. Awesome modern design + loved the art that was displayed in the hotel. It was fun staying at such a modern hotel in such an historic city.  A great breakfast was also included in the rate.

They had a rad bar and restaurant there also – highly recommend both. We usually ended the night with a drink at the bar where they had the most unusual drinks (see below!). The restaurant is great too, since it is more asian influnced and a nice break from all the Italian food (I know I didn’t think I would need a break, but we did love to mix it up a bit!).

The last two nights we moved away from the center of Florence to the Four Seasons Florence. The Four Seasons is a bit outside the main area of Florence, which provides a nice break from the crowds – it is actually an old palace! Our room was pretty amazing, as were the grounds and the rest of the hotel. We also spoke with the wedding planners there and learned that it’s a popular spot for weddings. Super fun to hear that they share the GWS love of making your wedding day personal as they cater each wedding to the couple – no wedding packages here!  The planners told us a bit about a wedding they were in the middle of planning and it included training birds to fly in and out of the ceremony, it sounded pretty incredible. If you’re planning a wedding in Florence and have even the most extravagant requests, I’m sure this is the place that can deliver.

One of our favorite meals of the trip was at Il Santo Bevitore. They had the most delicious burrata, pasta and steak tartare. It’s owned by the same people as the cheese + wine shop we stopped at a few days before (we actually wanted to go here for dinner that night but they were booked, so recommend a reservation – totally worth it!) Something to also keep in mind when traveling in Italy – most of the best restaurants aren’t in the middle of the tourist areas, so venture away from all the tourists to where the locals ear. Also, don’t go anywhere with tourist menus that have photos (that is a big no for me anywhere, but espcially when travling in Europe).

We also took a day trip to Lucca, which is a walled in city about 2 hours from Florence. We found some great pizza there and had a lovely walk around the city. Another tip to rememeber – we were there on a Sunday and they really do close down most shops and restaurants for the afternoon – something to keep in mind! It was a bit chilly that day, but lots of people were riding bikes around the walls of the town which looked super fun.

All in all we loved our time in Florence + Tuscany! Can’t wait to go back and explore more of the smaller towns around the area. Is anyone planning a trip to Tuscany for their honeymoon? Or have you been and have a tip to leave? Would love to hear in the coments. :)

For the next stop on our European adventure (if you missed the others, check out Paris and Belgium), Jason really wanted to go to Berlin to see the street art, experience the music scene and (of course) taste the beer. I’d been hearing some great stuff about the art community, so I was pretty excited to check it out too.

Berlin is just a quick flight from Belgium.  However, we almost missed our flight because our train was moved to another track, but we couldn’t understand the announcement over the loud speaker.  As such, we got on the wrong train and traveled 30 minutes in the wrong direction before a nice couple told us we were headed away from the airport, not toward it….remember to always leave lots of extra time for travel if you don’t speak the language!

Once we arrived in Berlin, we were welcomed by a much more modern and international city (especially compared to Ghent!) While on the train from the airport to our first hotel, we met a couple from Amsterdam who told us that Berlin is considered by many to be the cultural center of Europe where many fashion and music trends begin. We loved walking around and exploring the different areas of the city, trying lots of delicious food, spotting rad street art and drinking some more beer. :)

Fave Memory. Our first night in Berlin was the last night of Octoberfest. Even though Octoberfest is much bigger in southern Germany, we did stumble upon a big tent in the middle of Berlin (Alexanderplatz to be exact) with lots of beer, roasted nuts, singing and lots of sausages. So we ordered huge beers – Jason was so proud that his German classes in high school paid off!  They thought he was a local :) and then sat down with locals of all ages to drink, sing and dance. Such a fun day and it was pretty amazing to see people of all ages hanging out together and having such a fun time!

Foodie Pick. We were pretty surprised to find such a variety of great food here – we had great Indian, Vietnamese, Asian, Tapas, and of course German! You have to try the currywurst when you are in Berlin. Currywurst is sausage with ketchup and curry sauce – it didn’t sound that good to us, but we quickly learned that it’s super delicious! We still dream of our meal at Monsieur Vuong, a Vietnamese restaurant in Mitte –  the chicken curry there was to die for… Also loved the food and outdoor patio at Pan Asia. And of course the beer! Lots of great options. I even found grapefruit beer one night – so yum! (poster of currywurst above from here)

Don’t Miss all the street art! If you love street art and the culture that surrounds it, Berlin is for you, there is lots + lots here. We had fun spotting some of our favorite artists. Lots of great art in the Mitte area where we stayed our first two nights. We also wandered around the East Side Gallery where you can still see parts of the Berlin Wall. The East Side Gallery is an international memorial for freedom. It’s a 1.3 km long section of the Berlin Wall that offers 105 paintings by a collection of international artists. The paintings at the East Side Gallery document the time of change and express the euphoria and great hopes for a better and free future for all people of the world.

Thanks again to Katie at Ever After Honeymoons for the help with our lodging. We actually ended up staying at two places – we wanted to check out two areas of the city :). First we stayed at The Weinmeister in Mitte. Loved it here. Mitte and The Weinmeister are great for the couple that loves more urban, edgy vibes. The hotel commissioned artists to tag graffiti around the hotel and even on the entrance wall. The design is modern and funky – check out the huge bed in the middle of the room! Instead of a TV, each room has a large iMac to serve as both a TV and a computer. Mitte is a great area with lots of fun shops + restaurants - probably our favorite area of Berlin.

Then we took the subway across town to Potsdammer Platz and spent our last two nights at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin. Totally different type of hotel from The Weinmeister, but we loved it just as much! I would recommend the Ritz-Carlton Berlin for couples that love to be pampered and want a great bar close by – right in the lobby of the hotel actually :). They had a great breakfast buffet and the The Curtain Club bar was one of our favorites. The bartender at The Curtain Club creates some pretty amazing drinks. He offers the special scent drink, where you choose your favorite scent from a box of about 15 and he then creates a drink just for you based on your favorite scent – pretty fun! Since we were celebrating our anniversary the day we were there, we arrived back to our room to find champagne and a bed of rose petals. We had a really great stay here and would recommend this hotel also for honeymooners. It’s also very central to most of Berlin.

Above is a photo of Jason and his new friend, the Beefeater from The Curtain Club.  Every Wednesday – Sunday the Beefeater performs a ceremony at 6:00 PM to signal the opening of the bar and kicks off happy hour for all of the guests.

We really loved our time in Berlin. Lots of street art, good food and drinks. If you love visting New York City, I think you’d love checking out Berlin. Who else has been to Berlin? Do you have any tips or spots of interest to share? I’d love to hear them. Check back in the new year as we’ll be sharing our two stops in Italy next!

 all photos by green wedding shoes with the exception of the exterior Ritz-Carlton photo courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton

Why Belgium? Lots of people asked this when we told them where we were planning as our next stop after Paris. We really wanted to go some where different, some where that we didn’t know much about. Belgium is between Paris and Berlin, so it seemed perfect. It’s a 2.5 hour train ride from Paris with super pretty scenery during the ride – or, it’s a great time to get some reading done as I did! After doing a little research to determine which town we’d stay in, Ghent sounded like the perfect town for us. It was probably one of our favorite parts of our trip! Seriously the cutest town. Much of the town made us feel like we stepped back in time, it was super clean and there were lots of rivers flowing through the town.

One of our favorite memories of Belgium and Ghent was drinking beer at the outdoor cafes along the river. This was the first place we stopped on our first afternoon and we just loved it. We ended up here every night and met some great people from all over the world. I couldn’t stop taking pictures – it was so magical…

Foodie Pick: waffles + beer! We aren’t big waffle fans…I find them too sweet for breakfast, but here they aren’t available for breakfast, but as snacks – perfect! We bought ours from street vendors with powdered sugar and they were probably the best waffles I’ve had! If you love Belgium beer (like we do) there are so many great options – and the beer is super cheap here! :) Some of the other great restaurants we tried and enjoyed were the korenhuis restaurant (amazing sashimi + wild boar filet with crushed hazelnuts) and grand cafe godot. Stir-fries are also popular here and we had some great ones at a cute cafe near the river. We were pretty impressed by the food overall here.

Don’t Miss! The Gravensteen castle in the center of town. Yep, there is a crazy cool castle right in the middle of Ghent originating from the Middle Ages. The name means “castle of the count” in Dutch.

So many bikes in Ghent! Loved that everyone seemed to bike everywhere.

We also took a day trip to Bruges (a nearby town – about a 30 minute train ride from Ghent), but found it a bit more touristy + crowded than Ghent although it was a really pretty town. The photos above are from Bruges.

We loved our room + the decor at the Sandton Grand Hotel Reylof. It is a modern + hip hotel just a few blocks from the center of town and very reasonably priced.

Honeymoon tip! A boat ride for two along the canals with champagne makes for a fun way to start your evening…

As you can see we totally fell in love with Belgium. If you are looking for a relaxed town to enjoy some great beers by the river, dinner and walks along the canals, Ghent is the town for you! I also think it is great paired with Paris as it is so different and gives you a bit of big city and small city. If you are wondering, Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German.  Lucky for us, most people also speak English. The only tricky part of our visit was navigating the train station – we almost missed our train when they switched tracks and we didn’t get the message since it was in Dutch! Luckily we made our flight to Berlin with less than 5 minutes to spare! I’ve never run so fast in an airport!! And next week I’ll be sharing our trip to Berlin so stay tuned! Anyone thinking of traveling to Belgium for their honeymoon or have any other tips to share with brides planning their trip?

all photos by green wedding shoes with the exception of the hotel photos + nighttime photo courtesy of Sandton Grand Hotel Reylof