Summer holidays through Europe 2013

We started planning our summer holidays since my husband's leave application came through. Of course we're Samoan nothing's concrete until closer to the date of travel. Moreover we had the arrival of our second baby before we could fully confirm everything. We did appreciate that in Europe it's summer holidays for schools and work so places get booked out fast. We wanted to avoid hotels and do apartments so we can cook our own food at times and I find this a lot more comfortable than relying on hotel services and food. I found an apartment in Rome through Housetrip.com It's a site where people rent out their apartments and houses. I found us one that was very close to the Vatican City and still easy to reach the Colosseum and other major attractions in Rome. A lovely Agri-tourism place in Tuscany based in a vineyard with 10 apartments was found and our holiday looked promising from there. We got a two bedroom one as our friend was travelling with our family of four. The place had a pool and smack in the heart of Tuscany, 10 minutes drive to the little town for groceries and 15 minutes the other way for bigger necessity shopping. It was just idyllic. We overlooked the famous rolling hills of Tuscany.
The start of our trip we were  going to stay with our relative near Salzburg and we were going to end it in Zurich. We were very excited and just couldn't wait to get going. Praise be baby was born and he's a healthy little snuggler so the trip was looking more and more realistic as the time drew closer.

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