Our Trip to Europe

I have tried 3 times to get this blog done and have been having nothing but trouble with the website. If it doesn't work this time, I give up. Darcy and I, together with our wonderful Toronto friends, Trevor and Brenda Green, left for London September 3 and that was the beginning of a very hectic 21 days. We got up early every morning and went until late every night, trying to see everything we could. The first thing we did when we arrived was go to Abbey Road. So now Darcy can cross that off his bucket list. We spent the next 3 days trying to see all the famous tourist sites - Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace (I have attached a picture of that), Thames River cruise, Tower Bridge and Tower of London and Billy Elliott. My favorite was seeing the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. We also took the train to Windsor to see the castle. Unfortunately the Queen was not there to receive us so we had lunch at a wonderful pub (like we did every day) where we always tried their meat pies and banger.

Then we took the Eurostar under the channel to Paris. What a great surprise we had when we arrived at our hotel so find we had a view of Eiffel Tower. So every night we had our nightcap on the balcony watching the lit Tower. We did all the usual tourist things while in Paris - Notre Dame, Montmarre, the left bank, Musee d'Oursay, Champs Elysee, l'Arche de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur and, of course, the Louvre. Two hightlights was seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and doing a bike tour of Versaille. The tour involved riding bikes to the metro in Paris, getting them on the train in 7 seconds, riding to Versaille, buying lunch at the outdoor market and then eating on the banks of the Grand Canal. I have included the picture of Darcy with the baguettes in his backpack. (Please excuse my terrible french spelling.)

After 4 wonderful days in Paris our tour bus picked us up and took us to Trier, Germany to start our river cruise. We spent 7 days cruising the Moselle, Rein and Main Rivers. We toured many quaint towns along the rivers and saw lots of vineyards, churches and castles and ate sausages and drank beer at every one.

We docked at Nuremberg and we were taken by bus to Prague for the last 3 days of our trip. Prague was wonderful and one place, besides Paris, that we want to come back to some day. There is so much history, architecture, music, shopping and food. We just scratched the surface. I have included a picture of the astronomical clock in one of the squares. We sat at one of the outdoor cafes, having goulash, watching the clock as it struck the hour. What a spectacle.

We had such a great time with Brenda and Trevor and are already planning our next trip together.