We had a wonderful trip to Europe and I am intimidated to blog it. I only have to choose from 3000 pictures. I'm not sure that I even chose the best ones, but I want to get this done. We were luckily enough to find cheap fares to Paris and found we had the miles to travel for free. So off we went...to visit 5 countries and see our great friends in Germany.
We are so excited to get on the plane
(it was a close call seeing as they overbooked the flight)
After being up for approximately 48 hours straight, we took off running! Straight to the Louvre! Luckily we had the perfect traveling companions to come and join in the fun with us!
After the Louvre we visited the Tuileries, ate escargot, walked along the Seine, climbed to the top of the Arc De Triumph, and went to the Eiffel Tower! Needless to say, we slept great that first night!!
The next morning we woke to cold raining weather, but who cares? We are in Paris! After delicious pastries for breakfast and walking along Rue Cler, we headed to Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, walked along the Seine, visited the Musee d'Orsay, Sacre Couer, and walked and walked and walked. And enjoyed every minute of it. We took in as much of the Parisian atmosphere as we could! We even ate a horrible meal at a quaint adorable cafe!
After an extremely cramped train ride (my feet literally did not touch the ground having been smashed into the train car so tightly I was lifted up and was hanging by the people smashed all around me--I honestly never felt closer to Jennie and Phil!), we rented a car and drove to Belgium. I loved Belgium! Brussels was beautiful, but so sad to see the town shut down because Barack Obama was in town. The saddest was Brian not being able to see the saxophone exhibit he was looking forward to seeing.
We stayed in a quaint bed and breakfast in Brugge, Belgium and loved it. We were spoiled by the hostess and felt right at home. We quickly fell in love with Brugge and wished we had more time there and ate more Belgian waffles and bought more chocolate!
After our day in Belgium we were off to the Netherlands. It was such a surreal experience to ride bikes around the windmills in Holland. It was beautiful and the sun finally came out! Brian was in heaven with all the bird watching! There were thousands of birds everywhere we turned.
We thought it would be fun to find a castle to stay in. So that night we stayed outside of Maastricht, Netherlands in this grand castle. It has quite the history of hiding Jews during WWII and were excited to stay there! However, the proprietors didn't speak English well and we were unable to communicate to us so we could hear all about the castle and it's history. Not to mention the fact that we thought it was haunted and were glad to leave the next morning. Oh well, it was an experience!
We were now on our way to Germany! But not before we stopped to visit the one American cemetery in Holland. It was a very profound and humbling experience for all four of us! We were so glad we were able to spend some time there. There is great comfort in seeing the American flag even when touring Europe!
We stopped and toured Aachen Germany! What a great place! The best part was being about to get my visiting teaching done while we were there. It's such a small world and was fun to hook up with our Bishop's wife, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren on our trip.
We finally made it to Frankfurt and got to see Brian and Kerali. It was a blast staying with them and seeing them in one of their posts -- finally!
They took us into Heidelberg where we took the day touring castle ruins, hiking the philosopher's walk, and taking in the beautiful sites of the city.
We had to get the car back to Paris, so sadly we didn't get to stay long enough with the Reynolds. We left Sunday morning and drove back to Paris, but not before we had a chance to hit our 5th country of the trip. Luxembourg was right on our path back, so we stopped and toured around for a couple of hours. It only took us driving around the airport for an hour to find a gas station to fill up our car to return it. Too bad our credit cards didn't work and we had to rely on the kindness of others to fill up our car for us. Luckily we found a great family willing to help us and we returned the car.
Back to Paris to see more museums, hang out at the Tuileries again, take a boat tour, shop, visit the Luxembourg Gardens, spend time at the Eiffel Tower and go to the top! It was a perfect trip with much laughter, lots of walking, little sleep, thousands of pictures, a lot of eating of crepes, chocolate and pastries. And we would do it all again tomorrow if we could!
Sadly Phil and Jennie left a day early, but that didn't stop Brian and me from still enjoying our trip. We headed off to spend the day at Versailles. We had a relaxing golf cart ride and a romantic boat ride. We then walked the Champs Elysees, walked to Napoleon's tomb, watched the old men play boules in the park and then hang out on Rue Cler and met some new friends who happen to be professional musicians. All in all I would have to say it was an extremely successful trip and we are anxiously looking forward to another trip like this in the near future!!!
