True story: I once called Walker ‘Walk-Dawg’ before we were dating. He took it well. I’m wrapping up our latest Europe trip here today, so I thought I'd throw a little snoop-dawg into our Europe trip. So, then. Here's something you don't know about me. I love hotels. I mean, I really love staying in hotels, reading about hotels, and wheeling my suitcase into a fresh hotel. I love the smell of the hallways, and pulling back crisp sheets. I love not making the bed and reading the flavors of soap cubes and flipping through the TV channels (especially in Austria). I'm notorious for trying not to step on the vacuum lines on the carpet. Sometimes girls go to the bathroom just to see what it looks like, so in full acknowledgment of this post's femininity, here's a snoop inside this trip's hotel rooms.

Hotel Antiche Mura (Sorrento)
A lemon-sorbet coloured villa overlooks the deep, deep gorge of the ancient city wall in Sorrento. I loved this hotel, for its fresh-squeezed tangy orange juice from orange trees surrounding the pool, and for the glass-covered stairwell leading to the roof-top deck with a view of the Mediterranean. Stepping onto this balcony our first morning in Italy and feeling pure sun on my whole body, with no winds, was one of my favorite moments of the trip.

Hotel Berchielli (Florence)
Sadly, I took no photos inside this hotel as we were too preoccupied with leaning out the window with our cameras. The location right on the Arno River was absolutely perfect, and opening the shutters each morning to hear crew boats moving past was bliss. Can't beat this view.

Hotel Barocco (Rome) Wowie-kazowie, our room in Rome came with fresh fruit and flowers and enough wood to panel a 1950's bank. Shiny, clean, and with a bed of clouds, this was one of my favorite hotels of the trip (and it was a lot brighter than these photos show). Plus, at one point it had good vacuum lines (the hotel version of a tan.)

The Toren (Amsterdam)
Stepping into our boutique hotel in Amsterdam, with its silver feathers to the ceiling, its leather and psychedelic wall-papers and its zinger pink, black, and red decor moved us quickly out of the tile-and-yellow theme of Italy into hip-sleek Amsterdam. I love Walker's face in this photo, if you can make it out. Breakfast had everything you could imagine from pastries to yogurts to cheeses, and 5 types of chocolate sprinkles.

Huis 'T Schaep (Bruges)
This hotel was the most authentic, with a medieval fireplace in our room and the 1800's workshop of a stained-glass artist. Bummeroni that we forgot to take photos. Favorite feature? Caramelized apple yogurt for breakfast, a personal bell to ring for service, a quiet street and church bells to sleep by. And, seriously, clean-freaks unite. This is the place for us. Spotless.

And then, our shiny, sunny travels came to an end in the Edinburgh Airport. We came home, and it was good to be back, and it is good as ever still. In sum, here's where you can find the whole Europe series:

Overview of all 9 cities
Sorrento
Pompeii
Amalfi Coast
Mozzarella factory
Florence and Tuscany
Rome
Keukenhof Gardens, Netherlands
Amsterdam
Bruges
(and a couple in-betweeners here and here.)

It is nice to have shared, but good to be blogging about here and now again. The next two months will be a mania, a puzzle with pieces that are missing right now, with days smooshed on top of each other that don’t seem to fit. There will be international flights, and international trains, and city after town to visit. There will be an apartment to rent in a different country, and stuff to move across the ocean, and other stuff to move across half of America.