Our Great European Adventure

Our great European Adventure…. Not sure where to start. Maybe from the beginning. We left Texas in the middle of March to come to Minnesota and put our plans into action. We got all our stuff together and packed our bags and flew to Philadelphia on March 27. There we spend a few days hanging out with Kelly. We got to spend an afternoon with Andalusia and Jett. We went to the playground and then found a place to fly some kites that we purchased in Media. It was a lovely afternoon. We went to Chinatown in Philadelphia where we found a few items for Andalusia’s birthday party.

Then on Monday, March 31, we took the commuter train to the Amtrak station where we got on the train to Penn Station. We walked from Penn Station to the cruise terminal and boarded the Norwegian Epic for our transatlantic cruise. We took some amazing nighttime pictures of Manhattan and went to bed. When we woke up, we were still in the harbor so we took some pictures of Manhattan in the morning. Apparently, we needed more fuel for the long voyage. Finally, towards the end of the day, we left the harbor. We were nine days at sea before we finally passed through the Straits of Gibralter.

Manhattan

On the 10th day, we landed at Palma De Majorca, a Spanish Island in the Mediterranean and our European travels commenced. We went on an excursion of “Spectacular Scenery and Tastes” on Majorca. We stopped at Barcelona, Nice, Livorno (Florence), Naples and finally on April 15 at Civitavecchia (Rome) where we disembarked from the ship. We enjoyed a day of walking around Barcelona and seeing sights there. We both came down with an upper respiratory virus and we did a chilly hop-on, hop-off tour in Nice and Naples. That did not help our condition. Don was pretty sick when we got to Florence so we just stayed on the ship. We treated ourselves and slowed down our pace but kept on going. We wore masks in crowded areas and hopefully didn’t spread the virus to too many people. After we disembarked on April 15, we took our first Eurail ride from Civitavecchia to Rome where we found our hotel which was right by Trevi Fountain. We walked to the hotel which was probably not wise as we were both kind of sick. Then we took it easy, doing a Hop on Hop off bus around Rome the following day.

A big beer in Barcelona

The view from Naples

Trevi Fountain

On April 17, we took a high-speed train north to Milan where we changed trains to Zurich and finally to Geneva. We met a young teacher on the train to Zurich and had a wonderful conversation with her about life in Switzerland and shared information with her about the United States. We spent one night in Geneva. We had reservations already made throughout Switzerland so we left the next day for Montreux and then on to Interlaken for 2 nights, and then to Chur for 2 nights. This part of the trip was about the train travel through the Alps and it was breathtaking. Our stay in Montreux was at Hotel Eden Palace du Lac. Our room had a balcony overlooking Lake Geneva and it was amazing. In Chur we took a day to look around the city and while sitting on a park bench in front of a church we met a young woman named Margenna who is a school psychologist in Chur. We visited with her for about an hour and learned much about the city. She directed us to a book store where a local artist had created a children’s book. We found the store and I purchased the book for Andalusia and Jett. Her native language is Romansh, one of four official languages of Switzerland. Besides Romansh, Italian, French and German are also official. Most people also speak English. Switzerland appears to be an amazingly civilized country. All the people appeared to be young, slim, well-dressed and well-groomed. The environment we saw was clean, trimmed and the landscaping was great. There was no litter anywhere except for a lone cigarette butt we observed on a train platform.

Our teacher friend from Zurich

Lake Geneva from our hotel balcony.

A famous painting in Chur.

A gift from a Polish family we met at the train station - chocolate.

From Chur, we took the Bernina Express to Torino, Italy and completed our Swiss Alps tour. We met a couple from Canada on the train and enjoyed a good long conversation. I lost my journal in which I had written some notes and their names so that information is lost. From Torino, we went to Venice where we moved hotels every day due to poor planning on our part. We did a lot of walking through narrow pedestrian streets to get to our first hotel and then figured out how to use the water buses to get around. Venice was crowded and confusing to get around in. We took a gondola ride.

Switzerland from the train

 

The shared kitchen in Trieste

When we left Venice, I said that I wanted to find a place where we could stay for 3 nights and not have to move so I booked a place in Trieste, Italy. A beautiful city on the Adriatic coast on the far eastern edge of Italy, next to Slovenia. We had some adventures in Trieste finding our room, but when we finally found it, we had a very good location near shops and restaurants. On our last day in Trieste, we took a train trip into Slovenia and back.

Our next stop was a night in Vienna. We met an Australian couple, Christine and her husband whose name I lost along with my journal and they invited us to contact them when we come to Australia (we’ll see). They were on their way to Slovenia where he has family living. His parents were refuges following WWII when the Soviets took over Slovenia. I met a young woman on the next train who teaches theatre and English to middle school children. I told her that we had seen my granddaughter in Shrek II at her middle school. She said that was one of her favorite musicals. We got off the train at Vienna Central Train Station and enjoyed the best salad ever at a nearby restaurant. Our server wrote down the recipe on a post-it note and I will post that in my pictures. We were on our way to Auschwitz in Poland so the next day we caught an early train and headed there. We were not able to actually tour Auschwitz though we stood in line with about 5,000 other people who were also trying to get in. We had to be in Budapest the next day to catch our Viking River Cruise so we headed south.

St. Mark's Square, Venice

Hotels were all booked in Budapest and for many stops before so we found a place in Sturovo, Slovakia. That turned out to be a great place to stop. We met a couple of young women, Natalia and Jasmina on the train who were on their way home from work and enjoyed a conversation with them. Natalia is a psychologist. They taught us a lot about Slovakia as I was quite ignorant about their recent history and their country. Natalia was from Sturovo and made a recommendation for a restaurant. The next day we walked to the Danube where we had a great view of the Basilica of Esztergom which is across the river and in Hungary. There we met and visited with two men Milan and Boyan, Serbians who were on along the Danube.

Our room at the top of the stairs in
Sturovo, Slovakia

The view from Viking Gullveig

On May 3, we found our way to Budapest and figured out the buses with a lot of help from other passengers to get to the Viking Cruise dock on the Danube. We were on the ship by 3:00 PM and settled into our cabin. Our ship was the Viking Gullvieg. We spent a day in Budapest and toured the city. We also stopped at Vienna, Krems, Passau and Regensburg, Germany. In Vienna we did a walking tour one day and the next day we took the subway back to the hotel and restaurant we were at previously. We had a little hope that I may have left my journal there and we could recover it. Not to be. The river cruise was like a vacation from our travels. Over 90% of the passengers were from the US and others were from the UK, Australia and Canada. All English speaking. We were fed really good food and went on shore excursions with English speaking guides. It was a soft easy life for a week. We made some friends on the cruise. Wayne from California and Linda from northern Michigan were two who we really enjoyed time with. We also made friends with Carmen and Jim from Little Rock Arkansas and Cheryl and Mark from Boston.

Wayne and Linda

The ship was docked in Ravensburg for 2 nights. The first day we were there, we had a tour of the city. On April 10, we had to leave the ship behind and get back to finding our own way again. We found the train station and headed to Berlin for a couple of days. We met a young man named Leon on his way home to Berlin and spent several hours learning about Germany and talking about what is happening in our own country. We really enjoyed Berlin. We took a train from near our hotel to the Anhalter Train station which was an important hub in Berlin during WWII. When we came out of the station, we walked down the street looking for coffee. We walked by the bunker in which Hitler was hiding out at the end of the war and where he killed himself. We found an exhibit with details about Hitler’s ascent to power, the holocaust and WWII. Then we walked around till we came to Checkpoint Charlie. We took a Hop On Hop Off bus around Berlin and immersed ourself in WWII and Cold War history.

Checkpoint Charlie

History of WWII

The next day we went to Emmerich, Germany, which is the home of the Katjes Licorice. The factory does not allow tours but we were able to spend time at their store and stock up on Don’s favorite Licorice. Emmerich on the Rhine is on the border of the Netherlands. So we headed to Amsterdam for a couple of days. We found a hotel not far from the train station on Dam Square. Here we found a laundromat and were able to replace the suitcase that had blown a wheel on the cobblestone streets. We took a hop on hop off bus tour of Amsterdam and saw the city. We stopped at the Rembrandt Museum and toured the house that he lived in with his wife.

Amsterdam

Our next stop was Rotterdam where we stayed in a place with a beautiful view overlooking the canal but with treacherous stairs. We took the tram to the rivers edge and took a waterbus to Kinderdijk to see the windmills and learn about their development. It was interesting in that they originally used wind power to run their water pumps, then used steam engines and now use electricity to maintain the water levels. Nowadays the land is dotted with big wind turbines that make the electricity to run the pumps.

Kinderdijk

From there, we went to Brussels for 2 nights. We did a hop on hop off tour of Brussels and saw their tourist sites. We missed our stop on the way back to the hotel so we ended up using the city bus to return. We met a couple of gay guys on the bus who explained that the routes had been changed because of the Pride events happening in the city. When we got off the bus we were with about a few thousand others, proudly wearing their rainbow flags, who were pouring down to the square by our hotel. So there we were sitting outside our hotel watching people. We sat near some Belgiums and Frederich explained a little about Belgium culture and their sense of humor.

National Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Brussels

We wanted to cross the English Channel by ferry, so the next day we made our way to Calais, France on the coast across from Dover. We found a lovely hotel on the beach which was affordable because it is the off season. I pondered just staying there until it was time to leave because the beach. But Don wanted to see London so we carried on. The next day we got to the ferry and headed for the UK. On the ferry we met Heinrich and Karen who were taking their RV to England for a tour of Ireland. The have a small motorhome and travel all over Europe.

The White Cliffs - no bluebirds - no clover

I had asked our travel agent for suggestions of places to stay away from the center of the city near a train station. She had suggested St. Albans so we found a place there. We had found a 1-bedroom flat (not apartment) and were able to walk there. It was really nice to have a lot of space. We were able to make easy train ride to London Bridge. On our second day we decided to do a hop on hop off tour of London. That was a mistake. In London traffic was horrible. There were so many city and tour buses that half the time there was a bus between us and any landmarks to see. We tried to get a tour of Westminster Abby but I was not able to make that happen with my device. We finally got off the bus and walked along the Thames stopping at the London Eye where we took a ride. That was the highlight of our London trip. We made our way back to the train station and St. Albans where we picked up some food in the grocery store at the train station and ate in.

 

London Bridge

Parliament

Then we made our way back to France. We took the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris where we found our way to St. Lazare Station and a train to Bayeux in Normandy. I had managed to book our room wrong so when we showed up at our hotel, there was no room at the inn. The very nice hotel clerk who spoke English fairly well helped find us a more expensive place across town so we called our taxi back and made our way there. She had only one night available but our original place had a room the next night so we went back there. We were kind of late getting there as we had spent quite a bit of time in Paris finding the other train station. Anyway, the next day we were able to rent a little Renault Clio with a stick shift and toured the Normandy battle sites and the American Cemetery.

Normandy

Finally, the next day we went back to Paris where we found a hotel across form the St. Lazare train station and we spend our last 3 days in Europe there. Well, we did go out and see the sites of Paris. We ended our trip with a lovely dinner at Brasserie Lazare which is located at the train station. There we met a couple who were from Lille, France who were in Paris for business and a holiday. The waiter offered us apple pie for dessert but when they ordered dessert, they had a dessert menu so we got another dessert – an amazing meringue.

Notre Dame

A common sight

So, on Monday, May 26 we took the bus to CDG airport and came back to Minnesota on Icelandair stopping in Reykjavik for an hour. I will be adding posts about some of our experiences.