August 26 - Shiltorn Hike

Today we set out with the goal of climbing to the top of a 10,000 foot tall mountain called Schilthorn. We started off at Murren which is 5381 feet tall and started climbing upward. At about 3.5 hours into our hike up we came across a restaurant on our map called Schilthornhutte and popped inside to use their WC. However it was just so cute once we got there that we decided to stay for soup and gluvine (spiced red wine served hot).

This little hut was just just a gem and is by far the highlight of our day! A man outside in 'traditional' swiss (like something you would see in the movies) clothes was working on winterizing the wood shed. Inside his wife took our orders and made our food. We were the only people in the entire place, which I assume must be more busy during the winter when it stands in the middle of a large and popular ski run.

After our lunch we continued 1.5 more hours up to the top of Schilthorn. And by top I mean "almost" the top. As we grew closer and closer to the rotating restaurant and lift the clouds became thicker and thicker, the path grew more and more narrow, the rocks became more and more loose, and the cliff markers were making us nervous, so we turned around about 100' from the top because we really couldn't see where we were going.

We came back into Murren and Sean made a tasty spaghetti for dinner, we went to our hotel bar (listed under "nightlife" in Rick Steves) for a beer and dessert.

August 25 - Gimmelwald and Murren

This is the view we started with from the door to the little chalet we are staying in in Murren, Switzerland. Today we decided to go on a hike through some of the nearby villages. We stopped first at the local grocery store to pick up some things to make lunch with, and then headed down hill to the very small village of Gimmelwald.

Rick Steves raves about Gimmelwald like no other, Sean and I have to dissagree, it is possible to visit a place that is TOO small. So despite his ravings, Sean and I are quite happy with our choice of Murren. Murren is a resort town like whistler, but about 1/10th the size, and is everything charming, nothing stuffy like Whistler. We enjoyed a lunch on a quiet bench overlooking the Berner Oberland Valley, and then continued on hiking.









We are in love with this stop on our trip. The only sounds around are the quiet crunch of gravel under our feet, the distant roaring of glacial waterfalls, and the occasional cacophony of a herd of cow or sheep and their bells in the hillsides (ironically better sounding than some bell choirs we have heard!). The air smells clean, with just the slightest scent of grass. Everywhere we look we are awed at the beauty of the mountains, and the meadows.

On our way back into Murren (in picture) we stop by the grocery store again and get everything we need to make chilli for dinner (we thought chili would be good as it has just started raining and is a bit cool). After a tasty dinner we are so tired from our travels the day before that we hit the sack!

August 23 and 24 - Longest Travel Day Ever

Today began the longest travel day that we have had thus far on our trip. For those of you wondering how long it takes to get from the middle of the Serengeti to a little village nestled in the alps, the answer is about 36 hours:

Here is our adventure:
8:30 – Land Cruiser, Lodge to the Grumeti Airstrip (dirt runway...watch out for the wildebeest and baboons)
10:30 – 12-seat Sesna Airplane
11:35 – Land Cruiser, Arusha airport to lunch
14:00 – Land Cruiser, lunch to afternoon day lodge – REI scheduled about 3 hours of down time for all of us at the day lodge in case of early flights out or late flights into the local airports
17:30 – Land Cruiser, day lodge to Kilimanjaro airport
19:45 – ATR 72, Kilimanjaro to Nairobi – say good bye to all our new friends...quite interesting, this plane took off 40 minutes early, good thing we were there early. Upon inquiry found that it's normal for this flight to leave that early
22:20 – 747, Nairobi to Amsterdam – Sat next to funny Dutchman
6:03 – Starbucks at Amsterdam airport...ahh a mocha, a taste of home
6:44 – Train, Amsterdam to Utrecht
7:29 – Train, Utrecht to Frankfurt – free chocolate
10:54 – Train, Frankfurt to Mannheim
11:36 – Train, Mannheim to Interlaken – So cool that they have Belgian beer for sale ON the train, also more free chocolate...We like German trains!
16:00 – Train, Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen
16:30 – Cable Car, Lautebrunnen to Grutschalp
16:45 – Train, Grutschalp to Murren
17:30 – Laundry in a real laundry machine (woot).
19:00 – Fondue made with swiss cheese by swiss people...yum!
21:00 – Sleep

August 22 - Serengeti

Today was a full day with two game drives in the western corridor of the Serengeti. The morning drive took us to the Grumeti River, famous for it's many freshwater crocodiles. But along the way we were delayed by an encouter with a newborn Topi which had stumbled into the road. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes old -- the umbilical was still attached and bright red, and it could just barely walk (our guides told us they take 10-15 minutes to learn to run and keep up with Mom). We were pretty worried that the baby would become Hyena chow, because Mom was nowhere to be seen, but there was nothing we could do about it; that's just the way life goes in the wild.

At the river we saw dosens of crocodiles. We even saw one move :p. The crocodiles were large, but some were hiding in the tall grasses of the riverbank, so we had fun competing to spot the most (we topped out at 11). A couple of them look fierce with their mouths open, but it turns they were asleep and that's just how they cool off. We had a real treat when we saw four black and white Colobus monkeys, which our guides told us really only live in that area and tend to be more elusive than they were today. They were beautiful, with shiny black coats, white stripes, and a long black tail with a puffy white end. It was fun to watch them eat and move around the trees.

On our way back to the lodge, we had our eyes peeled searching for the baby Topi, hoping beyond hoe that it hadn't become Hyena chow. Incredibly enough, we saw an adult Topi in the treeline near the road, and baby was right there alongside her! As our cars approached, they trotted away from the road, but we were happy to see that they had been reunited.

We had a nice lunch back at the lodge, and some time to explore the grounds and send a few emails. Yep...satellite internet service deep in the Serengeti.

Our afternoon game drive was all about finding a leopard. One hour forty minutes into the drive, our truck hadn't seen any leopards, but we had seen quite a few elephants, zebras, warthogs, wildebeest, ostrich, buffalo, baboon...the usual but exquisite fare :) Then we heard the radio call from the other driver, and they had found the leopards. We sped along "I-5", the less-bumpy main road of the western Serengeti, until we met the other truck. Then, at 5:41pm (credit to Margaret for writing down times!), our drivers switched and we took off even faster. After 40 more minutes we were at the spot of the leopard sighting, and sure enough a leopard was asleep in a tree branch about 200 meters from the road. Even the bazookas had a hard time getting recognizable pictures. We caught a glimpse of another leopard, long enough to snap off a picture or two, but then it hid from us in a culvert under the road.

So, during the final moments of our final drive, we completed the "big five" animals of safari fame. The term comes from classic hunting safaris (Englishmen with muskets, not assault rifles) and describes the five animals which, if you attack, but don't kill, will without a doubt kill you.

We were maybe just a tad behind schedule after seeing the leopard...so Ndasekoi gave us a really fun, white knuckle, rally-race-winning demonstration of the land cruiser's high-speed dirt road cornering capabilities. The Serengeti rangers are pretty strict about returning to the lodges by nightfall, so we were in a hurry. It was fun to see the animals sort of "heading to bed" along the ride back, and made for a very memorable end to a very memorable week.

Tonight at dinner we had the treat of eating with our guides once again. We learned a little more about their lives and shared some about our own. At one point Ndasekoi was telling us about the way the Maasai hunt lions as retribution for taking the easy kills of Maasai cattle. He was giving a lot of detail about the tactics of hunting. For example, when you are encircling the lioness you have to keep eye contact (stare her down), because if you glance away she will think of you as prey and attack; when you throw your spear, you run immediately behind the person to your right. So Margaret asks him "have you done this?" and he responds with this "yeah, of course!" like it was silly to ask at all -- as if we had asked "Is the sky blue?". We were pretty stunned that this was part of his upbringing as a Maasai warrior.

August 21 - Transit to Serengeti

This day was a very long drive, punctuated by three of the best experiences of the whole trip.
In the morning, we toured a Maasai village (they must rake in the dough for this, at $20 US/pp) and joined them in their warrior dance (basically, it's quasi-rhythmic throat singing and a high-jumping competition; I didn't win). Margaret joined the ladies for their welcome dance. Video's will be posted on You Tube.

By just after 3 pm we had entered the Serengeti. It is clearly the inspiration for the movie 'lion king' complete with the 'pride rock' where the lions like to hang out. We drive out around a popular water whole to see if we can find any lions. We saw two females with about 5 cubs hiding in the tall grass so we decided to stop and watch a while. Then we realized that there was a big male lion, and another female. All of a sudden another male appears out of no where and starts walking towards us, clearly the 'let's go' signal, as two other male lions, his brothers, approximately 5 female lions, and 7 cubs start moving in the grass, and passing our vehicle both in front and in back to congregate on the other side of the road (the cubs stayed hidden in the grass). It was incredible being surrounded by lions!

In the afternoon, just as we were giving up on seeing a cheetah or leopard while transiting the central Serengeti, we came upon a couple trucks who were watching a leopard chew on a gazelle up in a tree (leopard drags his kill up into the tree before eating). We saw the leopard run down the tree just as we approached, and hide in the tall grasses and scrub nearby. We waited and waited, and searched with our binoculars. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a troupe of baboons wandered into the area. They immediately checked out the fresh kill, then spread out in a slowly expanding circle, searching for the leopard, hooting and hollering their status. It took the baboons as long as it took me to find the leopard, about 10 minutes. When they found it, all the big male baboons chased the leopard out and down a creek bed. The leopard was visible and gone in such a flash that nobody captured a picture, though we all saw it flash by. It is very rare to see the baboons team up on a leopard, and our guides were so excited to see this rare occurrence that they jumped up and down in their seats while waving their arms and shouting fragmented exclamations! We watched the baboons track the leopard for another 15 minutes or so (we never saw the leopard again – probably hiding under another bush), before leaving out of necessity to reach our lodge by nightfall (85km distant).

The rest of the drive was beautiful. We drove through grassland and forest, full of zebra, baboon, elephant, giraffe, gazelle, topi, waterbuck, wildebeest, impala, and various birds.

We arrived at our lodge just before 7 pm, it is the Best. Lodge. Ever. Seriously, it's the nicest 'hotel' I have ever stayed in. Imagine from an old Indiana Jones movie, or Tomb Rader movlie the 'rustic' safari tents that they stayed in, complete with lanters, book cases, four poster bed, etc. Our lodge was kind of like that. We had our own chalet in the Serengeti park, two of the walls were canvas with mesh windows. The lights were old english style lanterns with modern light bulbs in them, wood floors, gigantic bathroom with old claw foot style tub, it was incredibly luxiourious (in the middle of the Serengeti, go figure).

After dinner we were walking back to our chalet and we shined our flashlights down the hill towards a noise we had heard. A set of BIG eyes about a foot apart from each other stared sparkled in the dark back up towards us. Fear crept over us as we realized that it was a cape buffalo, and that we had no land cruiser to protect us. We didn't dilly dally as we picked up the pace back to our chalet, but we sure did feel better as the cape buffalo went back to eating bushes with his buddy.

August 20 - Ngorongoro Game Drive

This morning we met the rest of our group at 6:30 am so we could have a full day in the Ngorongoro crater. We made box lunches, and piled into the cars and made our way to the gate of the park. The Ngorongoro Conservation area is actually adjacent to the Serengeti, but don't let that fool you, both areas are HUGE. At the gate we learned that we learned that the crater was formed by what used to be a volcano. The volcano erupted, and lost so much mass from inside itself that it collapsed inward, making it technically a 'caldera'. Ngorongoro is the largest fully in-tact, not full of water, caldera in the world. This is t,he area (not the exact park), where the skeleton of Lucy was found, as well as many other very old ancestral human remains.

As we descended into the crater around 8:35 am the biggest thought that went through our heads was “If Jurrasic Park could exist anywhere, it would be here”. There were so many different types of areas to see and explore for animals. There were grass plains which were so thick that a cape buffalo could lie down and be hidden from view. There were jungle like twisted trees and vines along the edge of the crater, a lake inside the crater (with a fun view of some flamingos!). And many marshy areas filled with hippos.

By 8:50 we had seen our first new animal of the day, called a jackal. After lunch we saw a cheetah stalking a group of gazelles (or as Donald likes to call them “Cheetah Chow”). As the cheetah grew closer, the gazelles caught sight of him and all ran away. The cheetah didn't pursue because, according to our guide Ndasikoi he was already a little chubby from already having eatten. However the cheetah experience made us realize that safari's have a lot in common with deep sea fishing. The drivers (sea captains) call each other to let each other know when they have found a unique animal (a place with fish), and then all the drivers (sea captains) go there with their land cruisers (fishing boats) so that their passengers can take pictures (catch fish).

We soon found ourselves at a pool of water with many hippos in it escaping the heat of the day. There was a baby hippo, so tiny...well by that I mean roughly the size of Mom's dog Fea, who was trying to climb up on the momma hippo, it was impossibly cute!

By 4 o'clock we were beginning to be a little disappointed that we hadn't yet seen a rhinoceros. As we approached the rim of the crater our driver spotted one off in the distance. Our camera's couldn't quite take good pictures, but we were all able to see them with our binoculars! We were so excited, we have now seen four of the BIG FIVE. The reason that the lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhinoceros are called the big five, is because if you shoot one and don't kill it...it will kill you. So here is our picture of the rhinoceros, we hope you are able to find him ;).

Today was a great day, and was marked by seeing lions, lots of cape buffalo, herds of wildebeest, and more along with the animals mentioned above. We climbed out of the crater in the evening (I think Sean left permanent dents in the arm rest with his white knuckles) and headed back to our hotel for dinner.

On the road to Ngorongoro - August 19

We started off today by doing a wee bit of shopping en route. The first store we stopped out had all the profits go to support a local orphanage. However the prices were absolutely ridiculous for a third world country, we quickly had trinket overload and ended up getting nothing at all even though we did want to help the orphanage.

After our overload we went to a lodge near where we were staying for our hike. The hike turned out to be more of a mild nature walk led by the head gardener of the lodge/plantation through barley fields (see pictures) and the coffee plantation. Interesting, but not what we expected.

We arrived at coffee plantation where we will be for the next two nights, had some time to relax. Sean and I went on a run, but then got nervous about lions hiding in the grass, decided that we were wimps, two miles were enough, and turned around back through the fields, the lush gardens, and arrived back at our beautiful duplex.

Transit to Lake Manyara and Game Drive - August 18

Today we went for a drive on “Toyota Road” to Lake Manyara built by Toyota to save the company money, the original road was in such bad condition that it would break all the vehicles still under warranty. We made our way along "Toyota Road" through villages, and through the area we would soon be exploring called 'Mosquito Creek'. At first we were a little bit nervous about driving next to 'mosquito creek', but we still didn't see any...beginning to think we won't come home with yellow fever...caused contemplation about why prostitution, and marijuana are legal in the Netherlands, but not Permethrin, a chemical we put on our clothes to protect us from diseases like Malaria.

We had lunch at Serena Lodge atop escarpment of Great Rift Valley, the views were stunning, we could see forever, and our lunch was wonderful. After lunch our drivers picked us up and we headed out on our game drive through Lake Manyara National Park. There were so many white butterflies, about 2 inches big, that in many of our pictures it looks like it's snowing. There were hundreds of them in each picture we took, it was magical! The farther we went along in our day the more we felt like we were in a zoo designed for grown-ups, so many animals, so many birds and plants. The afternoon ended with us arriving at the famous Hippopotamus pool where we watched for 20 minutes as hippo's yawned, entered and exited the water,and played.

After the Hippo Pool we headed to our lodging for the night. We drove through several Maasai villages on the way. Our lodging for the night was also Maasai themed, stunningly beautiful, it's very nice...surprisingly they have a website MaasaiVillage.com. We also had our first good look at the way Maasai people dress. Women have shaved heads and white beaded earrings which go down to their shoulders, and wear more blue than the men. Men wear up to three square pieces of clothing tied in knots over their shoulders, and they have a beaded belt and beaded ankle bracelets, and wear more red than the women. The area of the Great Rift Valley was very lush and tropical compared to the somewhat dry tarangire

Tarangire Game Drives - August 17

We saw so many more animals and wildlife today in beautiful Tarangire Park. During the dry season Tarangire is second only to Ngorongoro in concentration of animals because of the fresh water springs in the park. Today we had our first giraffe sighting. We also saw a Whistling Acacia; a particular type of acacia which has a symbiotic relationship with a type of ant. The tree has large thorns which protect the ants from birds, and the ants keep giraffes from eating the tree (I'm not sure how, that's what the guide said).

We continued to see lots of birds, zebras, impalas and gazelles. We had a special treat seeing an entire pride of lions that just ate a zebra and dragged it under a tree to guard while they snoozed. As the afternoon wore on we saw playing baboons, gigantic cape buffalo, and rounded out the day with a great sunset. We took hundreds of pictures with our 'bazooka camera' as our guide Donald calls it.



One of the best highlights of the day was seeing a baby elephant, approximatly 6 months old, weighing 500 pounds. And yet even with 500 pounds that baby elephant FROLICKED in the grass, just like a puppy or kitten, it was the cutest thing EVER! Our entire Land Cruiser let out as simultaneous sigh as it skipped towards us.

After sunset we headed back to the lodge and had dinner. While we were walking back to the tent tonight, we shined our flashlight down the hill and saw a dozen set of eyes looking back up at us (why did we have to do that?), and after freaking out determined they were the small deer-like animal called dik-dik.

Margaret has self-determined that she is a Tse-Tse fly killing machine. Tse-Tse flies are known to carry Dengue fever, a disease that one of Margaret's co-workers has, and we are determined not to get ourselves. Today's kill list = 9 Tse Tse flies, 1 bee and 1 house fly. Good thing Donald had fly swatters in his Land Crusier!

During the night an elephant went by our tent and woke us up, it trumpeted lightly to find the rest of it's herd. When you are sleeping in only a semi-permenant structure with canvas and mesh sides it can be pretty creepy!

Tarangire Park (August 16)

We met our guides at breakfast this morning, and after some introductions and orientation we left the Moivaro Coffee Plantation (the lodge) and drove about an hour before stopping at a roadside trinket shop. The items here cost about twice what we would have expected western prices to be.

After another hour or so of driving, we entered Tarangire National Park and arrived at our home for the next two nights, Tarangire Safari Lodge.

Along the way we saw our first Zebra, Wildebeest, Elephant, Impala, and an Ostrich. We ate lunch and had some time to unpack our bags and get a feel for the place. The lodge sat on the rim of the river canyon, overlooking a small plain and part of the river across which elephants, wildebeest, and troupes of baboons constantly wandered. This was one of our "tent" lodges, and apparently Africa has a different definition of tent than we are used to -- a semi-permanent wood structure with canvas walls, real furniture, and a concrete bathroom enclosure.

Around 4:00 we left for our first game drive. We saw some new animals this afternoon: cheetah, lion, vulture, marabou stork, dik-dik, hyrex, and waterbuck (a type of antelope with a marking on the back that looks like a toilet seat). We also saw our first troupe of baboons, compelte with grooming adults, playful youth, and even some discovery channel, if you know what I mean. We saw a zebra carcass being cleaned by vultures and marabou storks (recently killed by a lioness), and soon found the pride of lions sleeping off their meal. The lion wasn't around, but the lionesses and cubs were fun to watch.

We were so amazed to have seen more animals in the first two hours of game drive than we expected to see during the whole trip. I guess we are accustomed to the sparse populations of deer in Washington, that we didn't understand that all of the parks would be teeming with so much wildlife. We were just blown away that we didn't have to drive hours to find baboons or ostrich or hyenas -- they walked right through the 'camp' at all hours!

We had a nice dinner at the lodge, shared pictures, and got to know our tour-mates a little better. We were with a really great group of people, everyone got along well enough to talk and laugh and tell stories. We finally headed for our tents around 10:30 to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's drives.

Arrival in Africa (August 15)

We arrived in Arusha, Tanzania at about 7:45 tonight after the long but bearable KLM flight. Thanks Joel for checking us in with your gold flyer card! We met most of the other tour group members on the tarmac, and we all seemed to get along from the start. Some didn't have visas yet, so the arrival coordinator expedited the process for them, and they were actually through immigration faster than those of us who obtained visas ahead of time!

Our drive to the lodge took about 45 minutes, during which one of our guides, Donald, gave us a quick overview of the structure of Tanzania's people. There are 40 million people, and 126 tribes in 4 groups (of which the Maasai, the predominant tribe in the areas we visited, is #2 by population). We arrived at the lodge by 10:00, had a welcome drink, and crashed.

Friday - August 14 - Amsterdam Part II - A Toast to Mom and Dad

We started off the day by enjoying a delicious latte and panini. That's right, we had a panini for breakfast, turns out that so many people party so late here that we couldn't actually find a place for breakfast, so we had lunch food at breakfast time instead and then headed to the Rijksmuseum and enjoyed the beautiful Dutch art. The Netherlands had a golden era while having the Dutch East India Trading Company and the Dutch West India Trading Company, bringing prosperity, and spices to the Dutch people.

After the museum we went back to our Wok spot for lunch and then went and ran some errands that we needed to wrap up before heading to Tanzania tomorrow. Sean's parents saved our bacons with regards to Expedia, and so we toasted to the West at our pre-canal cruise pub stop. THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!

We enjoyed a long canal cruise learning more about the history of the city and canals. We've enjoyed our time in Amsterdam and are looking forward to our dinner reservations tonight at the "Blue Dutchman".

We don't expect to have internet while in Africa, so we will plan on joining you all again in about two weeks! Prost!

August 13 - Amsterdam

Today we began by doing errands, and doing all our laundry in the bath tub (an adventure in itself). We joined Joel for lunch at a Wok restaurant and wandered through the many canal-side streets until we found the cutest little Dutch pub that has ever existed. The bar-tender was characteristically Dutch, tall and very friendly. She even liked, and was playing Johnny cash, so we knew we had to stop. After a beer we headed to the red light district to see what all the hype was about. Margaret was particularly surprised at how not-pretty many of the women were, and as Sean pointed out, if they were prettier they probably wouldn't be dancing in windows in their underwear. We rounded out the afternoon with a much enjoyed scoop of ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's by our hotel.

We wandered all through the city, past Anne Franke's house, and on towards an Indonesian restaurant for dinner. Margaret and Joel had never had Indonesian food before, and Sean was excited to try it again, we were not dissapointed.

After dinner we went back to the cutest little Dutch pub ever and had a pint while listening to the evening live music.

August 12 - Lindemann's and Choco-Crawl

After a short metro ride we found ourselves at Lindemann's brewery. Sean's Aunt Julie had arranged a tour of the brewery for us at this small family run institution. Two cousins are currently running the brewery, the seventh generation of Lindemann's to be there. We were greeted by one of the cousins, and then shown around the brewery with a guide. Lindeman's is a "Lambic" beer which means that the fermentation is done by yeast which just lives in the air, naturally. In most beer the yeast is added separately so that the specializations of the beer can be better controlled. Lindeman's only makes their lambic beer during the winter, when only a few different types of wild yeast are active. Lambic beer is naturally very sour, so they typically add fruit juice to it. Joel argues that according to German purity laws this makes it 'not beer', but Margaret likes it anyway and doesn't care if it's really beer or not =). Their most popular flavor is cherry, followed by raspberry. Margaret bought a cookbook and is looking forward to going to Red House and picking up this beer for some tasty dinner time treats.

We took the metro back into the city and had lunch at a small natural food store (with wi-fi). Then something beautiful happened (suggested by rick steves) which we will call a choco-crawl. Basically it's the same idea as a pub crawl, but you do it with chocolate truffles instead. Four chocolatiers later we were convinced that we couldn't possibly eat any more truffles, headed back to our hotel, collected our bags, and headed to the train station for our three hour journey to Amsterdam.

August 11 - Magical Orval

Today was absolutely magical. We woke up early and took three different trains and finally arrived in the small village of Florenville in Belgium. We waited for the bus to come and take us to Orval...and waited, and waited... until a troop of boy scouts came by who could actually read the schedule. They told us that there were no buses to Orval on Tuesdays...so we walked 2km in the rain to downtown Florenville where we hired a taxi for the remaining 8km. The rain was a lovely Seattle like rain, and it felt just like a big cozy Northwest blanket, the kind that just makes you long for a cup of Ivars clam chowder....yummm....Ivar's clam chowder...well, back to Orval. We arrived an hour late, but lucky for us so did the preceding tour group of Belgians.

Francois finished up his tour in French, and then took us on a lovely tour of the brewery. Because of other tours we have been on, Sean learning from Lance about brewing, and Joel being a home brewer himself, Francois didn't spend much time explaining the brewing process and instead dove into the beautiful and rich history of the region, monastery, and brewery. After the tour Francois shared a lovely lunch with us at the monastery's tourist pub. Most items on the menu were made with Orval cheese, bread, or beer. We toured the beautiful ruins (the French DESTROYED this beautiful place, and hundreds of years later it was rebuilt), and then Francois personally drove us back to the train station. We ate dinner back in Brussels, and then hit the sack.

August 10 - Low Key Day

Today we wrapped up all the little things that we wanted to make sure to do in Brugge before heading to the big city. We posted a box of souvenirs home and visited a small quaint chocolate shop called Dumon. Ladies and Gentleman, let me just state that this is truly the next to the best chocolate truffles I have EVER had. The best would be made by Wicked Chocolates in Seattle (www.wickedchocolates.com I think is the website). This chocolate is SO good, that it makes Godiva look like the ugly red headed step child with braces. The shop keeper is the daugher of the woman who stgarted the shop, and sister to the current chocolatier. She was so excited to talk with us about the history of their company, how much they care about chocolate, how they are able to grow, what each of the chocolates were, etc. We bought a small mixed box, and as we left we noticed the personaly signed Christmas card from Rick Steves and his family on the cupboard. After chocolate we ate fries with tarter sauce and ketchup in the town square, and went for a walk to see the town's remaining windmills. After a light lunch of tapas and beer (beer, chocolate and cheese all before noon!) we caught the train to Brussels.

August 9 - Margaret's Birthday

Well one of these years I may be too embarresed to post my age, but it hasn't happened quite yet. Today was my 29th birthday =). We began the day by waking up at 4:30 am (ughhhh!) and heading to the train station to get to Brugges in Belgium, we arrived around 11 am. After a bit of laundry we headed into the main market square for lunch and sat on the square, people watching and enjoying the tasty local brew and a latte.

We walked to the Church of Our Lady and saw a beautiful sculpture created by Michelangeo, one of his only sculptures to leave Italy during his lifetime. It was a beautiful Madonna and baby Jesus statue, and powerful too, leaving the whole area of the church where it is kept in quiet contemplation.

After the Church of our Lady we began to eat locally made chocolate We still haven't stopped eatting chocolate, but I'll probably be sad when it's all over. It's much cheaper, and much much tastier than Godiva, I am in chocolate heaven. It's impossible to pick a favorite, because they are ALL my favorite, I am so glad that Rick Steves has a 'chocolate' section in his book on Brugges.

We took a cruise of the canal in the evening and learned about the history of this port town. Sean and I find it interesting that it had it's hayday about the same time as Hoi An in Vietnam, and the same thing happened to both cities, the entrances to their harbors silted in and the cities were left like perfectly preserved time capsules.

For dinner we went to a lovely restaurant where we had a GIGANTIC bucket of mussels with a garlic/onion/celery/wine/mustard sauce, their special of the night. Sean and I shared, and Joel still had to help us finish it! We also tried more localy made beer (you will notice that this will be the theme for the next few days!). As a perfect way to end a birthday we went in search of a place where we could get some chocolate mousse for dessert. We walked by this lovely old tavern, and went in to look at their dessert menu. Unfortunatly they had NO chocolate on their dessert menu so we handed back the menu and told the hostess that we needed chocolate for dessert and would have to look elsewhere. And then she informed us that they just happened to have some extra chocolate mousse left over from their lunch menu and that she could give it to us at a discounted price (CHA CHING!). So I ate mousse with my right hand, and drank my super-girly, super-tasty raspberry ale with my left! Sean and Joel both had more local brew of a different variety than we had had before.

In short, here was the theme of the day = Cheese + Chocolate + Beer

August 8 - Versailles

Today we woke up and found a lovely little pastry shop where we grabbed some yummy things for breakfast and then we walked to the palace of Versailles where the french court used to live. The palace was beautiful! I think we will need to re-watch Marie Antionette that recently came out to see if they did the sets just like the palace.

After the palace we went on a walk through the beautiful gardens. The fountains were not working while we were there, but the flowers and the grounds were very beautiful and we enjoyed them just the same.

We then walked to Domaine Marie Antionette. We hadn't realized how out-right wierd their little world was. So Marie Antionette has this entire little village built called the Hamlet, and everything was maintained for her there, but she could still 'tend to the sheet' (which people kept not only clean but perfumed for her), or go and cut some flowers (in the perfectly weeded and maintained flower beds). It was like her own personal fantasy world, very strange, and it's where she spent alot of her time.

We walked back to our hotel and put our feet up for a while before heading into Paris for the evening. We took a lot of pictures of the eifel tower, had dinner at a lovely little outdoor cafe and people-watched, and then took some more pictures of the eifel tower. We took the train back to Versailles and crashed. A side note on our hotel in Versailles - it is actually the old stable for the palace, they converted the upstairs old servants quarters into hotel rooms! It was pretty neat!

August 7 - Paris Museums

We woke up early in our Paris hotel today and took the tube to the Louvre museum. Margaret has wanted to go to the Louvre for years and was joyful at having the opportunity to see all the paintings that she had only seen in books for so long! Sean and Margaret were also very pleasantly surprised to see their favorite spot for breakfast just happened to have a location INSIDE the Louve, someone had let Starbucks set up there (whoo-hoo).

After the Louvre we walked to Nortre Dame cathedral. We enjoyed walking around the cathedral and sitting inside for a few moments of peace in the busy Paris afternoon. The rose windows were beatiful, and soft music was playing while we were inside. I think my favorite thing about this cathedral is that it wasn't as overly ornate as some of the others we have seen, but was still absolutly stunning and beautiful.

After a bite to eat, and getting our train tickets for the next part of our journey we headed to the Orangerie Museum. This is where the Monet 'rooms' are, entire rooms surrounded with waterlilies, it was so beautiful.

August 6 - Avignon and Pont Du Gard

We left Vaison La Romaine this morning and headed to Pont Du Gard to see the roman ruins. Pont Du Gard is the famous aqueduct , part of a 30 mile canal, delivering 100 gallons of water per second to Nimes, an ancient big city.

We had lunch at Pont Du Gard and then headed to Avignon where we turned in the rental car, and hopped on the TGV bound for Paris!

August 5 - Ride around Provence

Sean and I rented bicycles today and went on a tour of Provence. We thought it was pretty funny that we had such hi-tech bike gear, but the bikes we rented were very big slow and heavy, but we had such a great time! We went on a loop for about 25 kilometers through fields, vineyards, and orchards. Joel met us in a small town named Falcon for lunch, and then met us at the bike shop a few hours later.

After returning our bikes we went back into Vaison La Romaine to experience the city without all the people there for the big Tuesday market. We found an internet cafe, and then had dinner at a fabulous spot called Bistro du'O.

August 4 - Market Day!

In the early 16th century the pope gave Vaison la Romaine market status, and so every Tuesday for the past 500 years, the city has it's market. Sounds cute doesn't it. It was a total zoo. We were expecting something between the Renton Farmers Market and Pike Place Market because it's such a tiny town, only 6000 people live there. However on Market Day, every cute little street in this town was an absolute wall of people, every parking lot full of stalls of fresh produce, lavender, spices, cheese, meats, hand made crafts.

We bought lovely lovely things to make our own lunch and dinner for tonight. After about 3 hours in the market we headed back to our rented apartment and had fresh chevre on olive baggete with fresh sliced tomatoes, basil coated olives, and sun-dried tomatoes.

After lunch we took a drive on the 'Cote du Rhone' scenic loop.

August 3

August 2

August 1

Friday July 31st - Breakfast in Venice, Lunch in Florence, Dinner in Cinque Terra

We rose bright and early, walked to the Rialto vaporatto dock, and floated on down to the train station for our 9:01 train (it was scheduled for 8:43...Viva Italia!). The train was the nice fast Eurostar Italia, which spirited us off to Florence just in time for lunch.

The word "lunch" is too terse and pedestrian to properly describe the best Italian food we have had since our honeymoon. Sean and Joel each got a pasta dish followed by a bowl of the world's best ministone. Margaret got a salad, and tasted the other dishes (still not feeling so well today).

After lunch the three of us walked to the Duomo, which is the large gothic cathedral (built between 1300 and 1435) that is pretty much every picture of Florence. After lighting a candle in the cathedral and, of course, stopping for a cone of gelato, we headed back to the train station and boarded the most dilapitated/graffititied train we have ever seen...no wonder the Cinque Terra is less-traveled!

We arrived in Vernazza about 2 hours later, which is the fourth of the five towns here. We had dinner on a cliff overlooking the Italian Riviera, and quickly decided that this place needs to be on our short list of places to come back to. It is a UNESCO site, and as such can not have any further development, so there are no big hotel chains and you probably can't book anything here on expedia, the combination of which scares away pretty much all the obnoxious Americans. The streets are full of...guess what...Italians!, and also some Germans, French, and all the American's are easy to spot because they have a Rick Steves book. We kid you not, 4 of 5 English speakers visibly have his book, the other 1 of 5 either have it in their backpacks or found their way here by some other means.

Saturday August 1st - Now This is What Vacation is All About

Today could be described as the perfect vacation day, the stuff that dreams and legends are made of. We started off the morning in our little town and walked SE to Corniglia, the next town down the coast. The walk wound through olive groves, vineyards, and steep cliffs plunging into the Mediteranean.

In Corniglia ("Cornelia") we stopped for breakfast and a Cappacino and went on walking SE to the next town of Manarola. When we got to Manarola we decided that we were feeling so energetic from breakfast we walked on down to the 1st town, Riomaggiore. In Riomaggiore we went into a 'snack' shop and got excellent 'to go' Itlaian food which we ate at the rocky cove.

We hopped on the train back to Vernazza and headed to the beach for a little R&R. Sean and Joel joined in on some informal water polo in the Meditterean for two hours with the locals, and Margaret tried to pretend that she was tanning on the beach (as opposed to burning...which is really what happened).

For dinner this evening we went to the local stores and picked up the best local ingredients for a Panzanella salad, which we ate on the terrace of our apartment overlooking the main street. Cinque Terra is credited with the invention of Pesto, so of course we had some of that too! We paired this fine meal with the Moravian wine that we purchased in Hlohovec (Czech Republic), drawn straight from the barrel. Such a fresh meal!

While we were eating, a Catholic procession went by (we are guessing first communion). It was wonderful, and incredible to see this local tradition. First in the procession was the priest,a man carrying an empty cross, followed by a marching band, followed by about 100 locals, followed by about 30 kids all dressed in white with black capes, and canes with handkerchiefs tied to them, followed by another priest (this one chanting), then a crucifix, and about 200 more locals, all on their way to the local church. What a treat to see some local traditions!

Thursday July 30th - Vomit in Venezia

Today we got an early start in the breakfast area of our hotel,and then headed to the Clock Tower in Saint Mark's square to watch statues ring the bell. We went throuh our guidebook so we knew what all the different buildings were, and then hopped onto a ferry to the island of Murano.


When you hear the term 'venetian' glass, it is likely handmade on this beautiful and historical little island. But the history can't be found on a building or a posted plaque, but rather in each piece of glass in each shop. The island has a plethora of hot shops ("fornace": furnace, in ITalian), all making their own unique version of Venetian glass, with history and methods that have been passed down for over a thousand years. Sean and I were amazed with each and every technique, and I think the shop keepers had fun too explaining the techniques to people that understood what they were.

We ate lunch at a small cafe in Murano, and then took the boat back to Saint Mark's square. Once we were up in our room to put our feet up I got sick. We tried to get ready to go to St Marks Basilica which I really wanted to see, but I got sick again so Sean went with Joel instead, leaving me to the sound of the gondaliers and the laptop to update(but not post) our blog, internet here is expensive, so these posts will have to wait for another day.

Wednesday July 29th - Rendezvous in Venice

We rode the overnight train from Budapest to Venice, with a change in Vienna. Joel met us at Santa Lucia Station in Venice, after taking a three hour early-morning photo safari while waiting for us. We hopped the vaporatto to our hotel and checked in early.

Tuesday July 28th - Explored Budapest

Walked around Budapest today. Took great photos of their Parliment building.

Monday July 27th - Arrival into Budapest

Woke up early and hit the road on our bikes, visited UNESCO monestary Pannonhalma in Hungary...stunning. Then made our way by van to our hotel in Budapest. We really enjoyed the pools and the natural thermal baths which just happened to be co-located with our hotel. We had a nice last dinner out with our bike crew, we really were blessed with such a wonderful group of folks to enjoy our time in this part of the world with.

Sunday July 26th - Gyor

Rode with bike crew into Gyor, Margaret got another flat tire, ran over a tack this time...doh! A local was convinced that Margaret would not be OK unless he offered his personal assistance, so Tomas the guide fixed the flat, while Margaret, Sean and the Hospitable Hungarian all watched.