Coral Club Beach

With over 1700 km (1100 miles) of coastline, you can't visit Croatia without hitting the beach.  I mean, I guess you could, but why would you want to?  Since we were staying smack dab in the center of Old Town, we didn't have a pool with our hotel much less any water so we found a great Beach Club and booked sun chairs for the day.  We arrived early, set up our things and proceeded to relax in the warm sunshine.  We swam, we read, we played cards.  We jumped, we ate and we attempted to paddle board (the board was broken).  But most of all, we had fun!  Just what the Dr. ordered.

 Ok!  To both of those things.

  

Seaside Sunbathing in Aqaba

Since we had gotten shown the door quite early at Wadi Rum, we showed up at our next destination too early for check-in.  Thankfully, I had planned ahead and packed our swimsuits, sunscreen and coverups in a separate beach bag.  So we stored our luggage at our resort, changed into our suits and were lounging at the edge of the Red Sea by 9 am.  And that is where you would have found us (or in the pool) until dinner time.  We figured that we had walked, toured, climbed and hiked enough for the past few days.  It was time to just relax and enjoy the only seaside town in all of Jordan.  We thought about taking a boat tour.  We contemplated snorkeling.  But it all seemed like too much work.  We opted instead to just laze around.  Wise choice indeed!

 The view from my chair.

 My crazy people in the Red Sea.

 Burying Stinkerbell.

She got out!

 Seaside lunch!

 And Ice Cream.

 A final jump in and swim back to our beach...

  

 And another day with another beautiful sunset was under our belts.  This was another first though as it is the first time I could watch the sun set over one country (Isreal) while standing in another (Jordan).

Home for the Holiday's

Bright and early on Saturday morning, we awoke to find Fidget ready to head to the U.S. with us.  We promptly tucked her under our arms and made our way to the airport to begin our long journey to Florida.  But first, we stopped at the airports very own Christkindlmarkt...

 We arrived after an uneventful trip and were greeted by Nana and Grampa at the Orlando airport.  We were exhausted (it takes about 20 hours to get from door to door) but very excited about the surprise passes we had for Disney World for the next day.  Jet lag, schmetlag...You just aren't allowed to be tired at Disney.  We got there early and stayed most of the day wandering around and soaking up everything we missed about the Magic Kingdom (we used to have season passes to the one in Disneyland after all).  The sun was shining, the crowds were thin and the holidays were everywhere we looked.

So, so bright!

 Always our first ride...

We left early that day.  We still had a 3 hour trip back to Nana and Grampa's place but we were not sad as we would be right back again in 2 weeks for the main event.  Stay tuned for those posts...

We spent the next 10 days just lazing around (like the cat in Stinkerbell's suitcase), soaking in the sunshine and watching the gorgeous colors of the winter sunsets.  I don't have many pictures because I feel like I have taken them all before but trust me, it was a lot of fun with a lot more to come.

 

A final day at the beach

We made it! Our final day of vacation was upon us.  We took a short drive across the border into Italy and settled into our hotel in Trieste.  But we didn't get too settled because we had a full day of beach fun planned.  Quickly changed into swimsuits and goggles, we drove a few miles up the coast to the Portopiccolo Beach Resort.  We found our assigned lounge chairs and spent the rest of the day nowhere near them but rather in the sea.  It was the perfect end to the perfect vacation!

Those rocks still hurt our feet though...Next time, water shoes for sure.

Seaside drinks (don't be fooled the kids are right behind us in the pool)

A new favorite activity!

Back in the pool.

And playing with my underwater camera.

One last longing look at the sea before heading home.

 After 12 days, 3 countries and 2500 km driven, I was happy to be home.  It was short lived though as we were USA bound in 2 short days.