Kona Coffee

The best part of visiting Kona, was getting to tour the Mountain Thunder coffee farm. Mountain Thunder is a family run, organic coffee farm in the hills of Kona, Hawaii.



Kona coffee is some of the most expensive coffee in the world and is grown organically. Once you try the coffee and see the extensive process of creating it, you'll understand why it's so expensive. The coffee is absolutely amazing and the best coffee I have ever tried in my life. Normal coffee usually gives an after taste and after a while that after taste does not taste too well. Kona coffee has a refreshing taste that doesn't leave any kind of after taste.



The coffee trees are grown in higher altitude mountains and take longer to mature than normal coffee beans. That is what gives the coffee its different taste. After the cherries are matured and ripe, they turn a nice red color. Then, farmers go through the fields and begin handpicking the ripened cherries from each tree. Some farmers can pick off a few hundred pounds of beans a day! The bean inside the cherry is much stronger in caffeine than the actual coffee when it is brewed. I tried one on our nature walk and was bright eyed and bushy tailed for hours afterwards.



Another type of coffee the farm produces is called Peaberry coffee. The coffee is made from undeveloped coffee beans. When a cherry doesn't develop all of the way, the bean still continues to grow inside the cherry and creates an egg shaped coffee bean. The taste is said to have a very intense flavor and is extremely rare. Less than 4% of the crops that are picked grow peaberries. Like all of their coffee, it is a high quality coffee once produced.



Each product made by Mountain Thunder goes through rigorous quality testing and are tested several times a week internally and externally. Each machine used by the company allows the company to use the highest quality coffee beans that are produced by the farm. There are hardly any imperfect beans used when making and sorting the coffee beans, which you can definitely tell when drinking this delicious coffee.



While I didn't purchase any of the coffee myself, it is well worth the price. The coffee takes more months to mature than regular coffee, it's handpicked, goes through extensive quality sorting and testing and then sealed with care.

Photo of the Week: Innsbruck, Austria

Innsbruck is a small but gorgeous town in Austria. Our group just did a couple of hours stop over in the town and I wish we'd had more time. While there, we visited Swarovski and some other small shops. We came on a Sunday and the majority of shops were closed, but walking around the town was nice. There was also a carriage ride you could take around. For lunch, I stopped at Der Backer Ruetz and had a delicious fresh made sandwich.

Photo of the Week: The Lion of Lucerne

The Lion of Lucerne was a brief but welcome stop for our group while we were on our way to Mt. Pilatus. It was my first time hearing of this monument and the story behind it. While the story is rather depressing, it speaks of bravery and courage of the Swiss Army.

During the early 17th century, a regiment of Swiss mercenaries served as part of the Royal Household of France. In October 1789, King Louis XVI was forced from the Palace of Versailles to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. In August 1792 revolutionaries attacked the palace. Fighting broke out and the Swiss began running low on ammunition. The army was overwhelmed by the mass amount of revolutionaries and many Swiss mercenaries lost their lives.

During the fight, more than 600 mercenaries were killed and even more were murdered afterwards in the massacres that followed. A note written by the King has survived, which had ordered the Swiss to retire and return to their barracks, but the Swiss only followed the orders after their position was no longer needed. They had stayed to protect the King at all costs, which costs them over 700 hundred lives of the Swiss army.

Written above the lion is Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti which means "To the Loyalty and Bravery of the Swiss." The inscription below lists the names of the officers and the numbers of men who died and survived. Only about 350 men survived.

Venice in 7 Hours

First of all seven hours is NOT enough time to explore Venice thoroughly. But that is all the time we had in the city built on water and we packed in as much as we could.

Second of all, Venice is extremely crowded during season, which may seem like a "duh, of course" observation for most. I had heard that it was crowded and there would be a lot of people there, but it's different when you actually see it.

I would suggest going in the shoulder season or off season if you're looking when to go to Venice. I visited in August 2013; not only was it teeming with people but it was sweltering hot with high humidity. While these may seem like negatives, it did not take away from how much fun I had while there.

My visit was with a tour group for other people my age and the small group I hung out with enjoyed ourselves, getting "lost" in the city (you can't really get lost because there are signs that point you in the direction you need to get to), exploring the touristy areas and holding pigeons.

Here is my guide to how I spent my seven short hours in Italy.

Vecchia Murano Glass Factory



While I'm sure the tour group gets nice commission for anything that the group purchases, the Vecchia Murano Glass Factory is actually pretty interesting. They started us off by showing us a glass blowing demonstration and a worker there fashioned a rearing horse right in front of us in about ten minutes. It was amazing how much detail he got into the piece of art in such a short time.

After the short demonstration, we got to walk around the huge store. Almost everything is made of glass, which is my nightmare because I'm extremely accident prone, but I managed to make it out without breaking anything! A small and insignificant triumph for most people, but I assure you, it's no small triumph for me.

Anyways, the store held all kinds of trinkets, from jewelry to masquerade masks to kitchen ware and glass made animals. There was no shortage. I managed to escape the store only purchasing a beautiful necklace for my mother. Watch out for the sales people; they are very persuasive (as most are, but people tend to get more easily trapped when they are on vacation).

Walk through the City with a Guide



While I would probably recommend this for a good bit of cities, I'm not sure I would recommend it for this one for the only reason that there are so many people and you can barely hear what the guide is saying.

After the glass factory, we were met by a sweet lady that was going to guide us around the city and point out the major sites and give us background information on everything. Headsets and maps were passed around to everyone in our group and we set off.

I liked this because the guide spoke through a microphone, which we could listen through our headsets. Had I been able to hear our guide, I may have actually enjoyed this walk more. The headset piece wouldn't stay stay in my ear and the volume didn't go up hardly at all, so I couldn't hear a word of what she was saying. I tried to stay as close to her as I could but ended up constantly falling behind, wanting to take pictures of what she was showing us. It's also very loud in the city due to all of the tourists but when we got to the less crowded areas, hearing the guide wasn't an issue.



If you plan to do a walk through of the city with a guide, stay close, ask questions, try to be in a small group and strike up a conversation with the guide. You'll be amazed at what you can learn from them.

Doges Palace

I'm sad to say that while I did go inside and got to see some amazing art, we only got about 30 minutes to walk through the palace. Which meant we pretty much walked at a steady pace the entire way through the palace because it's HUGE and we ended up not stopping very much to enjoy the history of it.



My advice if you want to spend some time in here, don't spend time walking through the gorgeous alleyways of Venice, unless you plan to spend more than one day there. Use your short time to walk through and learn all about the history of the Palace. If I ever go back to Venice, I will probably spend a quarter of my day in the place.

It's astounding how big and amazing this palace is and I am glad I just got the opportunity to visit it.

Gelato Stop!



Gelato is a must in Italy. Don't be stupid like me and only order one flavor the entire time (ahem, chocolate). Ask for recommendations from the seller of the gelato. My friends did and the orange flavor the guy recommended was amazing compared to my plain old chocolate (which mostly just tasted like ice cream from back home).

Gondola Ride

This was an added bonus for us while we were there and the reason we only got thirty minutes at Doges. The gondola ride was very nice. While we weren't serenaded in any way by our guide (super bummer), we got to float along through the canals and see what a sinking city looks like.



Taking the Gondola ride was also a nice break from the sweltering humidity and sun since most of the ride was in the shade. It cost about $25 per person because we added champagne to the ride, but you can do it cheaper than we did; we just decided we wanted to try and be classy.

St. Mark's Campanile



At the end of the day, our group enjoyed a trip to the top of St. Mark's Campanile. It was discounted for our group since we had so many people going up and it only cost $5 per person. It's usually $8 per person but the views are well worth it.

You can see all of St. Mark's Square and much of the city. The breeze up there is a sweet relief from the heat as well.





We stayed up at the top for as long as we could and shuffled our way to the line waiting for the elevator back down.



I really didn't want to leave. Much of the city was unexplored and we just had too little time there. When I go back, I will be spending time re-exploring Doges Palace, visiting St. Mark's Basilica (which is said to make you richer by just walking in because of all the gold you breath in) and getting "lost" throughout the city and exploring the shops.

Venice is a gorgeous city with many different sites to explore that require your attention. Take the time the city deserves to be explored and learn about the history of what's there. I wish I had the time and one day I will go back to visit again and explore all of the places I missed.

Best of Road to Hana in Maui

The Road to Hana and the Napali Coast line on the Green Isle were my favorite parts of Hawaii. Although all of Hawaii is gorgeous, these two topped it all. Next time I visit though, I'll be renting my own car and driving around. So many gorgeous spots were driven passed and missed since it was a tour we booked from the cruise liner. Still, we got to see many gorgeous areas of the island.

Maui is the second largest island in Hawaii and home to a diverse climate region, just as all of Hawaii is, except it's even more apparent when traveling the Road to Hana. From gorgeous white and black sand beaches, breathtaking waterfalls and lush tropical forest to empty, sun dried canyons and dusty, old lava fields. It was incredible to go from one region so full of green and life to the dried up and dead like region.

The first stop on our Road to Hana led us to Hookipa Beach. This beach is most famous for being the perfect area to windsurf and just surf in general due to the location of the reef system. We got a few minutes to take some photos, but unfortunately we didn't get to walk on the beach or participate in the surfing :(.



Kaumahina State Wayside Park is mostly just for a quick pit stop along the Road to Hana but is open to gorgeous views of the coastline and black sand beaches.



By far my favorite stop along the highway was Wai'anapanapa State Park. This state park is home to a calm and uncrowded black sand beach and lush greenery along with some interesting sea caves. The beach is captivating alone, but the caves give the beach a little something extra. The Park also has sea arches, lava tubes and a blow hole. We didn't have time to do all the exploring I would have liked to have done since I was super fascinated with the caves.



The beautiful black sand beach of Wai'anapanapa State Park.



A view from the cave.

The caves hold a dark and sad legend. Its a tale of a Hawaiian Princess named Popoalaea. Princess Popoalaea was tired of her husband's cruelties and fled from him, hiding just inside the caves in Wai'anapanapa. One of Princess Popoalaea's faithful maids ran away with her and stayed with her in hiding. One day her husband, Chief Kakae, went down to drink some water and saw Popoalaea's reflection. So angered at her for running and hiding from him, Chief Kakae killed Princess Popoalaea and her maid. At certain times of the year, the pool fills up with red shrimp and it's said that it is a reminder of how Chief Kakae slayed his wife.



While there are many waterfalls along the Road to Hana, we only stopped at one, Wailua Falls. I have a major obsession with waterfalls, so only stopping at this one was kind of a bummer but Wailua Falls definitely didn't disappoint. Set off to the side of the road, the 80' waterfall plunges into a pool where you can go and take a little dip. We didn't have time to go down that path and try it out, but I heard it is a lot less crowded as most people just pull over for a quick snapshot of the falls.



For lunch, we stopped at St. Joseph Catholic Church, built in 1862. It's a tiny church that seems to be in the middle of nowhere and doesn't have much to look at since we had crossed into the dry side of Maui.



After crossing over that invisible line between lush and dry side, there isn't much to look at except the huge expanse of dry, empty land facing the ocean and the side facing Haleakala.



There is apparently an obvious line in this are where you can see where the old lava flow from a past eruption came down the mountain side. Anyone see any obvious line? Because I don't. Everyone was "oohing" and "ahhing" but I just looked at the "beach" instead.



This dry canyon, Manawainui Valley, is much larger than this picture actually shows and has gorgeous waterfalls and steeps walls of lush foliage (so I've been told). I didn't see any of that the day we went but it was still pretty neat to see after staring at green all day.

The Road to Hana is definitely an activity to partake in when visiting Maui. Although I don't suggest taking it with a tour group, it can be beneficial to do so because they give you a lot of information and tips in the area. You can easily look up all the information of the stops you make and get a rental car. By doing that, you can stop at any of the places you find gorgeous and stay until your heart's content. Next time I go, I will definitely be doing that!

Have you ever been to the Road to Hana? Did you enjoy the sites as much as me or see even more?