Greetings from Venice!

Since there are no cars in central Venice, we researched how to park our car before arriving. We actually found it was best to have a reservation for parking and to prepay it. We were very glad to have a reservation as most of the garages were almost full!

After parking we took a water taxi into the main section of the city. While inexpensive the water taxis are definitely not speedy! It like riding the Chicago Red Line or non-express Purple Line to Evanston…. you feel like you’ll never get there because of stopping at every single station!

Our hotel was about a 10 min walk from the main square, and we were so happy that we had limited luggage! We saw multiple people hauling enormous suitcases on luggage carts that had to be manually unloaded at every bridge! For those of you who have been to Venice, you can imagine what a mess this can be. Venice is known for its bridges which all have a relatively steep incline to accomodate gondolas. While the bridges are very scenic, they are a mess for luggage carts!

We thought our hotel would be nice, but you are never sure until you’re there. It turned out to be wonderful! It was an apartment with a room upstairs, a kitchen, and a living room. It was in fantastic condition, was on a quiet street, and overlooked a bridge and plaza.

We spent our first afternoon walking the streets of Venice (everyone says to just enjoy “getting lost” on the streets of Venice. For those of you who know Ryan, this wasn’t exactly up his alley! He insisted on using his offline GPS maps and of course never got lost once in Venice! ;)). We then watched sunset from various points, including Punta della Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiori (on a small island looking back at Venice).

As we were researching restaurants in Venice, we found that many of the restaurants can be pricey but not very good. By looking at several foodie websites, we found two restaurants that are known to be very good. When we emailed one of them for reservations, however, we found that it was closed due to the August holiday season (for those that aren’t aware, it’s typical in several European countries for people to take 3-4 weeks of vacation in August so many businesses just close during this period). We asked the owner for other recommendations, and she gave us a list of well-known local restaurants. I started calling and found only one that was open during this week of August! It was a local pizza restaurant located on a small residential street about a 40 minute walk from our hotel.

The walk to the restaurant was well worth it! We weaved through countless narrow side streets and found the restaurant located in a beautiful plaza by a canal and bridge. You know you’ve hit a local restaurant when you only hear Italian. 🙂 The pizza was fabulous!

We’ve also noticed that we always get assigned a “special” server who speaks English, sometimes even the Maitre’d. While we are happy to try to order in Italian, I think that they figure their English is far superior to our Italian attempts and less frustrating for them. 🙂 In fact, we have trouble even practicing other languages because people instantly switch to English (often without us even speaking… apparently we don’t look French, Spanish, or Italian!!).

On our second day in Venice, we visited the Doge’s Palace that was once the seat of Venitian politics and the city’s prison. We also happened to be in Venice during the Biennial Art Exhibit, which is a world-renown art show. Over the years this art exhibition has catapulted several up and coming artists to global promience, such as Edward Hopper. Each country is able to send one artist to the show so it was interesting to look through art from around the world.

We finished up the day with with dinner overlooking St. Mark’s Square at the one other foodie restaurant we found. It was a great ending to our time in Venice!

Ciao! We’re off to Austria!

Greetings from Tuscany!

Based on some great recommendations from a co-worker (thank you so much for all the fantastic advise and recos, Marco C!!), we took a beautiful route through Tuscany on our way to Venice.

One of the towns we we stopped was Siena, a beautiful walled city. We spent the afternoon wandering the narrow streets and saw the main plaza where a horse race occurs. While a horse race wasn’t happening while we were there, it was incredible to think about horses and thousands of people fitting into this plaza! There were even bleachers set up in front of restaurants for people to watch the races.

We also spent some time relaxing (as well as fun things like updating our budget, catching up on email, etc ;)) in a cafe over expresso and gelato. 🙂

For dinner that evening, we headed off to a restaurant that overlooked the vineyards and hills north of Siena in Tuscany/Toscana. We arrived in time to see the landscape in the sun and then watched sunset over dinner. We enjoyed a fantastic dinner of seafood, pasta, and truffles. It was a very fun evening!

Now we’re off to Venice. Ciao!

Sorry – we hit save on the wrong post – this is the one we meant to send today 🙂

Hello from Rome!

We kicked off our time in this ancient city with a visit to the Vatican. We did a lot of advance research to find out the best way to visit and decided on a pre-scheduled tour booked directly through the Vatican. We were glad to have a reservation as the line was wrapped around the building by 9 am when we arrived!

Our guide was great, and we got to see the Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Bascilica, St. Peter’s Square, and the Sistine Chapel. Although the tour was almost 4 hours, we got to see so much and our guide was so good that the time flew by. We were both very surprised at how busy the Vatican was! Our guide said that it would be hard to even find him, and he wasn’t joking! It was jam-packed in all the major areas so we actually had ear pieces to be able to hear our guide as we moved through as we would have never been able it stay together or hear him without it!

Seeing Michelangelo’s work in person was incredible! We both were struck by the contrast between Michelangelo’s pieces and the paintings completed in the Vatican just 10 years prior to his commission.

St Peter’s Basilica was also incredible! While it is one of the largest basilicas in the world, it doesn’t feel much larger than other basilicas. This is because statues were made 4x normal human sizing, and letters were amplified even more. This skews your perspective and makes it seem smaller than it actually is. It was such a neat experience to visit this holy site!

Balcony where the Pope addresses crowds

Next up, we hiked across town to the ancient sites of Rome – the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Pantheon. It was again 99 degrees so we definitely worked up a sweat! Before arriving, we stopped quickly for some pastries (which negated the benefit of our walk I’m sure!). We had found this pastry shop on a top rated list, and it was delicious! We enjoyed petit fours and profiteroles.

We had also booked a tour of the Colosseum and were again glad to have a reservation as it saved us a very, very long line. The tour allowed us to go the ground level, underground area, and top level which are not open if you have a general admission ticket. We really enjoyed it! If you’re headed to Rome, we definitely recommend booking in advance!

Our visit to the ancient Roman ruins was capped off with visits to Palatine Hill and the Pantheon. Palatine Hill is the center hill of Rome’s 7 hills and contains many ancient Roman ruins, including the Roman Forum. The Pantheon, which was originally built as a temple to gods and is now part of the Catholic Church, is one of the best preserved Roman ruins. It is absolutely amazing to look at ruins over 2,000 years old!

We finished off our time in Rome with a walk past Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps at night before grabbing gelato for dessert. This was a great end to our time in Rome!

Ciao for now!

Greetings!

As the title of this post suggests, we had an interesting start to our time in Italy! After leaving Monaco we quickly hit the border of Italy and spent the morning driving. The interstate stretch in this area is certainly exciting! It winds up the coast of Italy but traverses several mountains so you cross very high bridges overlooking seaside towns and countless tunnels.

We were headed for an area called Cinque Terre and were about 45 min away when we saw break lights and traffic stopping. Knowing the type of roads we had just been on, we thought it could be an accident. Although we don’t know any Italian, you can figure out a lot by observing!

After seeing 3 ambulances, over 10 fire trucks, and multiple police vehicles, we knew it was going to be awhile. In fact, most people shut off their cars and were walking around on the interstate. Then, the Italian police brought us water to drink…uh oh!

We eventually found a kind person who spoke English who gave us a status update. It turned out there was a huge car fire in the tunnel which caused significant damage to the tunnel and filled the entire tunnel with smoke. Thankfully (and absolutely most importantly!), everyone was fine. The only issue was the tunnel damage which shut down the road for 4 hours!

We were fortunate to have water, snacks and iPads so the time passed quickly. The only bad part was that we missed getting to go to Cinque Terre 😦

On the bright side…

– We were not in the tunnel when it happened (thankfully!!)
– We’ve now read up on how to escape tunnel fires (*details below for those interested :))
– We also have a great reason to return to Italy in the future – to see Cinque Terre!

We also thankfully made it to Pisa in time for our timed admission to go up the Leaning Tower. While you know it leans, it feels really crazy to be up at the top and feel the lean in person!

It looks like a few people have been here before 🙂

We even had a chance to get the classic Leaning Tower of Pisa photos. 🙂 Here are a few:

After leaving the Leaning Tower, we had a fast-paced drive into Rome! This time we saw 1 accident, 1 overturned semi, and 1 car fire. Wow! Today was definitely an adventure, but we had a few fun driving experiences such as:

1. The speeds for even mountainous, winding interstates are quite high at 130 km/h (~78mph)! Apparently the speed “limits” are really more of a max versus the speed you feel safe to drive!

2. Driving lanes are both narrow and optional. 😉 Drifting over into the lane beside you without warning is completely normal!

3. Fires do happen in tunnels. Here is what we learned about tunnel safety (for anyone more experienced with this, chime in with any other advice!)

– The key is to get out fast! Drive (if you can) or run (if necessary).
– Most tunnels have signs periodically throughout the tunnel saying the number of meters you are from each entrance or emergency exit so you can use these signs to know which way is the fastest exit.

– Almost every tunnel has a sign at the entrance that indicate the length of the tunnel so you can also use this to judge how far you are into the tunnel.

We are now ready to explore Rome! Look for an update soon!

Bonjour from Nice and Monte Carlo!

Our next stop was to beautiful Nice, France. We gave our feet a break from walking and took a bike tour to explore Nice. We had a fun time! Our tour guide was very good and took us to all the major Nice sites.

We first saw the Promenade des Anglais which runs along the ocean side of the city. The beautiful beaches here are unique as they are comprised of smooth stones versus sand. We also rode through Old Nice and saw the Opera House, a flower market, and several historical buildings in which the architects had painted false windows. Apparently when the funds ran low in building projects, faux windows were painted on!

Which windows are real and which are fake?!?

Hundreds of gelato flavors including a graham cracker variety a friend Steven suggested 🙂

We then rode up to the top of Castle Hill (Colline du Chateau) which is about 100m above sea level. From the top, we had panoramic views of the bay and beaches. Very nice (sorry, bad pun :))! We could also see homes of several famous people from here, including Elton John, Sean Connery, and the hospital where Anglina Jolie had her daughter.

Tasty Orange-Mango Soda the tour gave us. Interesting that it has no carbonation yet carbonated water is popular!

Next, we headed onto Monte Carlo, Monaco, which is located about 30 minutes from Nice. We took the scenic route into Monaco by driving the steep hills above the towns and sea.

Once in Monte Carlo, our Citroen held its own on the Grand Prix route – albeit our speeds only approached about 30 kilometers per hour. 🙂

We really enjoyed our time in Monaco! As you might imagine, we saw lots and lots of expensive cars and huge yachts docked in the harbor. I also saw the flashiest pair of Louboutins I have ever seen being worn!

Our first stop in Monte Carlo was to visit the Prince’s Palace that is set on a hill overlooking the city. We then looked through several beautiful gardens that overlook the ocean before winding our way off the hill.

We capped off our time in Monte Carlo with a really neat dinner overlooking the harbor and hills of Monaco. The view and the food were absolutely fantastic! (For those curious, we have been swinging the calories and budget of these meals by going light at least one meal… for example, if we have a nice dinner, lunch has been a piece of fruit and either yogurt or a granola bar. On average, we’re good! 🙂 Often, we have found some restaurants have a great tasting menu for lunch so it can be a great way to try nicer restaurants for less.)

Ryan’s formerly wrinkled sport coat. It didn’t seem to enjoy the compression bags so creative measures were used to make him look presentable.

Our actual rental car – that Citroen was just a joke so you didn’t get jealous

Next stop – Pisa/Rome!

After spending about a week in Spain, we headed for the French Riviera and Monaco!

Our first stop was to Cassis, a small seaside village outside of Marseille, France. The area is know for Les Calanques which are deep rocky inlets of white stone that create coves and ocean cliffs. The water here is very blue as this region is around what is know as the Cote de Azul (translates as blue waters).

The combination of white rock, ocean, and beaches was incredibly beautiful! We took a boat from Cassis to see the first 8 of a chain of calanques and had a wonderful afternoon.

The locals seemed to enjoy the beaches and finding their own outcroppings of rock for enjoying the sun. We also saw lots of people cliff jumping into the water – neat!

We grabbed some delicious sorbet and then headed off for a scenic overlook drive above Cassis. The views from this drive were incredible! Here are just a few of the views we saw:

Several people have asked what type of car we have so here’s a shot of it – it’s a Citroen C4. It’s working out very well!

We did have some excitement before dinner in Marseille! We always check maps/GPS to ensure that the local roads allow traffic, are two-way, etc. The road for the restaurant passed all of our tests. Well, when we drove to the restaurant we got in some trouble… The road was two way, but it was only as wide as one car!!! So, once we got to the restaurant and found no spots we had to do a six-point turn (Emily took the honors) while against a 15 foot drop off into the bay. After we made it out of that jam we went to a bigger street with parking. We found a spot, but the spot was actually painted on the sidewalk – yes, you have to ram your car up over the curb and park 1/2 on the sidewalk and 1/2 on the road. By the time we got to dinner we were about done for the day!

Here is a picture of our “two-way” road! Emily got to turn the car around in the narrow bend without going into the water. 🙂

Once the car was parked it was time to have the world renown Bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse is a soup made of tomato broth with multiple types of fish in it. Marseille has an active port so the Bouillabaisse here is made up of fish literally caught that morning so it’s absolutely fresh. In fact, the specific fish included in soup varies each day based on what was caught that morning. When we ordered, the staff brought out the fish that would be used to make our exact soup (Emily always loves seeing the full raw fish before cooking ;))! It was delicious!

Next up is Nice and Monaco! Au revoir!

After leaving Granada, we made our way to Barcelona which is about a 7 hour drive. We broke up the drive with a fun stop in a sea town called Peniscola, Spain. It was a neat area with a walled city on a bluff overlooking a peninsula with beaches on both sides. We had a fantastic lunch of seafood paella and calamari. Delicious!

We arrived in Barcelona in time to have a tapas dinner, walk the main shopping street/district (Passeig de Gracia which was near where we stayed), and then head to the main music hall. We had stayed away from flamenco shows in the other Spanish towns because we had found that there was a professional troupe and band that was performing for three weekends in Barcelona – which happened to occur while we were here. This also gave us a chance to see Palau de la Musica Catalana (Music Hall), famed for its skylight which can light the theater fully with natural sunlight. It was a fun evening!

We kicked off our next day in Barcelona by visiting the Basilica De La Sagrada Família. This church is beautiful but probably looks like no other church you’ve seen before. The architect of the basilica, Antoni Gaudí, had a very unique style that was at the forefront of modern 20th century architecture. This style results in bright colors, curved lines, and modern representations of Bibilical scenes. He was also fantastic at managing the use of light in his windows and design. We saw this firsthand as we visited on a sunny morning and saw the beautifulo reflection of the sun through the windows. I really enjoyed this non-traditional church!

One other very interesting fact about this basilica is that it isn’t finished! Gaudí took over construction in 1883, and it’s been under construction ever since! The good news is that it’s set to be finished officially by 2026 – 100 years after Gaudí died.

We spent the afternoon looking at several of Gaudí’s works which are located throughout Barclona and are a Unesco World Heritage site (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/320).

We also walked through La Rambla (busy street of stores, cafes), walked through the historic Gothic Quarter (narrow streets, historic buildings), and sat at a cafe overlooking the Mediterrean Sea. In fact, I am typing this blog while looking out over water – absolutely beautiful and relaxing!

Working on this blog post!

We capped off our time in Barcelona with traditional Catalonian dinner. Next up is Cote de Azul!

Hello from Seville and Granada!

We continued our tour by driving to Seville located in Southwest Spain. The drive from Toledo to Seville was quite pretty, with fields filled with olive trees, red clay, and sunflowers. The area is very dry, sunny, and hot so we saw multiple solar farms along the way. We also noticed that the houses in towns are almost always white with clay roofs to reflect the sun and keep buildings cooler. We also continually saw large bull signs all over Spain!

In Seville we had a neat hotel located in the center of the old town that was a completely remodeled house from the 1800’s. The location was great as it allowed us to stop back and cool down as the temperatures were about 104 degrees. Muy caliente!

The history of Seville is fascinating because the city was one of the battleground areas of the Reconquista between the Muslim stronghold and Catholics. Additionally, Seville was the port for exploration of the New World. Christopher Columbus and many other explorers set sail from this town. This port location led the city to great prosperity as it became the single point of entry for all ships from the New World so the city taxed all these imports at 20%. Not a bad return!

Our first stop in Seville was the main Cathedral and Giralda Tower. The cathedral is very unique because it contains Muslim influences (in fact, the site was once a muslim mosque) and houses the remains of Christopher Columbus. The Giralda Tower offers pretty view of the city, including the white houses and tile roofs.

Christopher Columbus’ Grave

We then went to the Alacazar which was a palace that changed control between Muslim and Catholics so the architecture differences (Roman and Muslim influenced) in this space are also fascinating.

Our afternoon finished with a walk through Plaza de Espana, a building and plaza built for the 1929 World Expo that showcased Spain’s prominence] in arts and engineering. For those who are Star Wars buffs, you may recognize this plaza from Episodes I and II.

We had a great dinner of tapas and then walked through the streets at night. The city comes alive at night when the blazing sun cools off and the little streets light up. Our hotel had a rooftop overlooking the cathedral so we finished the night with a few pictures from there. It was beautiful! 🙂

As I am typing this post, we have just finished visiting Granada on our way to Barcelona. In our short time in Granada, we visited the most famous site in the city – The Alahambra. The Alahmbra is a large fortress overlooking the city which was the center of Muslim rule of this area of Spain in the 1200’s-1400’s. In fact, the fortress remained the last hold in the Reconquista and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The fortreess is enormous, and we spent much of the afternoon walking through the palaces as well as visiting gardens which overlooked the city.

Adios for now!!

Greetings from Toledo!

After leaving Madrid, we had a short drive of less than 1 hour to Toledo, Spain. As a native of Northwest Ohio (about 1 hour from Toledo, Ohio), I remember watching a “sister city” feature on the local Toledo TV station in which a few people from Toledo, Ohio, went to Spain so it was neat to see the city in person. In fact, we noticed “Calle de Toledo Ohio” (Toledo Ohio Street) about 1 block from our hotel. Additionally, one of the shop employees that had to look at my driver’s license for a purchase asked if I lived near Toledo, Ohio.

After seeing the city, however, I see very few similarities between the two cities other than the name. 🙂

Our first stop was to see the Cathedral of Toledo which has a very interesting history. The first church on the site of the present day cathedral was founded in the 1st century by Christians and then changed to a mosque during the Moor occupation. This original building was destroyed and then the current cathedral was built over a 200 year period. There are multiple architectural styles and cultural influences in the cathedral. Toledo was one of the only Spanish cities where Christians, Moors, and Jews lived (more or less) peacefully together. The separate quarters of the city are still visible today.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the narrow, crooked streets. We visited the city gate, more churches, and the El Greco museum. El Greco painted several major Spanish masterpieces. The museum provided a look at both original El Greco paintings and provided an idea of how a Spanish home would have looked in Toledo.

Famous El Greco Painting of Jesus Christ

El Greco Painting of the overlook of Toledo – looks similar to some of our pictures!

On our walk around the city, we had Toledo’s signature dessert – marzipan which is made primarily of almond paste and sugar. While we often see marzipan as a filling to chocolates in the US, it is eaten on its own either plain or with filling in Toledo.

We also went outside the walls of the fortified portion of the city to see an incredible view back over the city. We had a wonderful dinner at 10 PM (and people were still coming into the restaurant to be seated as we finished dinner!) which again included gazpacho, hake fish (very common), and ham-based dishes. It was very good!

Emily found a very interesting place to stay located on a pedestrian-only walkway right in the middle of Toledo. It was actually a hotel consisting of small apartments in a historic building that has recently been completely restored into a modern, new space. It was great being so close to everything so we could easily swing by for some air conditioning after a very hot afternoon.

It only got to 99 degrees

Views of the city at night

We’ve also enjoyed lots of local produce for breakfast and lunch. Peaches are in season, and there are oranges from Valencia which are very sweet. It was an interesting experience shopping in the market in Madrid (we didn’t exactly understand you had to weigh your fruit and add a tag to it before waiting in a line of about 20 people deep… now we know! ;)).

Adios for now!

Hola!

We have spent the last couple of days in Madrid and have had a great time!

Our first experience in Madrid was to park in the tightest parking garage I have ever been seen. It is a good thing my Dad (who just happened to be my driver’s ed instructor too :)) spent a lot of time on maneuverability with me! Thanks, Dad!

We spent the first afternoon at two fantastic art museums – Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Prado. Both museums were very interesting, and we were even able to schedule around a free viewing day!

We also went to gardens behind the Prado and caught some nice pictures of flowers!

We had a fantastic lunch on an outdoor terrace nearby the Prado at 3 PM. Yes, people eat very late in Spain. Lunch often runs 2-3:30 and dinner from 8-10! Our stomachs haven’t quite adjusted so our 3 PM lunch was big enough and late enough to cover both lunch and dinner! 🙂

Classic Gazpacho – Served Cold on a Warm Day!

Our next day in Madrid, we had lunch in a lovely plaza and visited the Royal Palace which has some of the most ornate rooms I have ever seen. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside so you’ll only get to see the outside photos 😦

Paella – Chicken and Rabbit!

We had a delightful afternoon as we stopped into a very local cafe for water and had a fun chat with the cafe owner in broken spanish (definitely dusting off the cobwebs from high school language classes!). It was neat to see that even with a simple order for waters, customers were offered small slices of bread with different spreads. The cafe owner even brought over slices of cured ham – a Spanish tradition.

Next up, we visited Basilica San Francisco Grande which was incredible. The entire tour was in Spanish so we caught only about 20% of it, but the dome was incredible as was the entire inside of the church. Wow!

It’s normally very hot in Madrid (105+ degrees) in the summer due to Madrid’s location on high inland plateau. This location results in really hot summer and quite cold winters for this part of Europe. We have been quite fortunate with temperatures between 85-95 degrees in Madrid but have felt the true Spain summer heat in Toledo. We have found lots of refreshing items on menus such as gazpacho and have seen lots of ice cream shops. I can certainly see why! We also noticed that the city had even installed sun shades over the major shopping area.

We’ve also noticed how many of the names in California came from Spain – San Francisco, San Bernadino, and Santa Barbara to name just a few.

Interesting as well is the amount of US music you hear in cafes and on the radio. As I’m typing in a cafe, an 80s rewind is on… currently Footloose by Kenny Loggins. Probably not a Spanish tradition! 😉

The rest of the Spain tour continues with Toledo, Seville, Granada, and finally Barcelona! We post more in a few days.

1000 miles driven and counting… 🙂

Our 6th stop was San Sebastián, Spain, which is a nice 2.5 hour drive from Bordeaux. When we were planning the trip, we noticed that almost every major interstate in Europe has tolls. Since we’ve used a toll transponder for every trip to Chicago, Ryan researched to see if transponders also existed in Europe. He found that you could rent transponders for a small fee so we took the plunge and had transponders for multiple countries sent to our hotel in Paris. The transponders have proved to be fantastic for France and Spain as they are saving us a lot of time versus waiting in every toll booth lineup up!

The lanes on the far left are for the transponders 🙂

July 28th was Ryan’s birthday so it worked perfectly to be in San Sebastián that day since the city is considered one of the dining capitals of the world. Ryan had several awesome options for dining out on his birthday. He chose Akelarre, a 3 Michelin Star restaurant with 270 degree views of the Atlantic Ocean! We had an 8 (!) course menu. It was fantastic!

A fun take on suckling pig (a Spain specialty) with the discrete little pig pork rind

We also visited two mountains that overlook San Sebastián. They both have fantastic views of the area and kind of remind us of our visits to Catalina and Rio de Janeiro (in a small way).

San Sebastián is also known for its fantastic beaches. We walked along the three major beaches on a beautiful 80-degree sunny day.

We finished off the day by going to the historical center of the city and sampled pintxo tapas. We weren’t super hungry after lunch so small plates were perfect. Unlike US Tapas restaurants we have visited, the San Sebastián restaurants set all dishes on plates on a table. You just walk in and pick up what you want and then pay. This is pretty neat as you could try tapas from several restaurants in a night.

We have never seen a street xylophone and accordion combo. Ryan said that this reminded him of middle school general music where there was always a marimba concert each year!

After leaving Paris we headed west to see the Normandy and Brittany Region (two days) and then Bordeaux (one day).

Omaha Beach/Utah Beach/American D-Day Cemetery:

We took a guided tour of Omaha Beach and the American D-Day cemetery. It was incredible to see the height of the cliffs that the Allied forces had to scale… particularly given the troops had just been awake all night, were seasick from rough seas, had 80 pounds of wet equipment on their backs, had wet ropes which prevented them from using their planned climbing equipment, and were being pummeled by German mortar from above. It certainly made us feel so incredibly thankful for our military forces. We had wonderful weather which made the cemetery and overlooks quite striking. After our tour ended, Emily and I toured Utah Beach ourselves at sunset (which is at 10 PM local time! Despite being south of England, this region is 1 hour ahead which means the sun goes down quite late here).

Normandy/Brittany:

On our second day in the region we toured several locations – each unique and interesting!

Mont Saint Michel
This is a fortified island in the Atlantic on the border of Normandy/Brittany. It was a monastery from around 700 – 1800 and a pilgrimage site for centuries. The site was so interesting given the density of the city compared to the countryside of the main land. Historically the site could only be accessed during low tide, but a permanent road has now been built.

St. Malo
This is a fully functioning walled off city also in the Atlantic. Due to its strategic port location, the city was mostly destroyed during WWII as the German forces took over France. It took over 30 years, but the city has been fully rebuilt and now contains many restaurants and stores.

Dinan
This is a Brittany town that survived WWII and contains historic wooden homes. While we were there, we stopped at a Creperie and also had gelato! A local bike race was occurring (complete with announcers and crowds) while we were in town which was very interesting to see!

Cort d’Rose
We headed even further west to see the red limestone and sunsets of this region. We got to the town just in time for sunset which was beautiful! There were trails all around the water so Emily had a blast running trails while watching the sunset.

Bordeaux

Driving from Brittany to Bordeaux took about 6 hours so most of our time was spent in the car. We have several books on our iPad that we want to read so we turned on the iPad’s Accessibility Feature so the iPad can read books to us through the car stereo system. The drive was beautiful as we passed by fields of sunflowers and vineyards.

One interesting thing that we have seen is that people seem to transport just about any trailer/camper with tiny cars. It’s the start of vacation time in France (which lasts 3-4 weeks in France) so we’ve seen lots and lots of families traveling to the beach.

While in Bordeaux we had a fantastic dinner at Le Bistro de Gabriel which overlooked the main square, fountain, and river. The restaurant gave us the best table in the restaurant overlooking all of this which was fantastic!

After dinner we took some pictures of the reflecting pool and then went on a city tour of Bordeaux. The tour was only supposed to be 1 hour, but somehow ended up being 1:45. It was a very good tour in both French and some English so we were able to figure out what we were seeing. 🙂 After the tour we took advantage of the fact that our hotel actually had a washer and dryer! We already have done laundry in the sink 2x, so we were happy to use a washing machine/dryer although they charged us $25 USD for the privilege. 😦

We helped contribute to the economic solvency of the Chunnel (remember that case Kellogg friends?) by taking the train from London to Paris. We had just one day in Paris but will be returning for 3 days at the end of our time in Europe.

We had an absolutely wonderful day thanks to a co-worker/friend Ryan worked with 7 years ago who took a day off work to show us the city. Not only did she take a day off work, she designed a whole walking tour around different foods we wanted to try and several key sites we wanted to see. Wow – it was amazing – thank you so so much Marie-Odile!!!

To help offset a portion of the calories we were about to consume, Ryan and I kicked off the morning with a walk/run in Tuileries Garden (a park right in front of the The Louvre that overlooks of the Eiffel Tower). It was beautiful!

Our taste of Paris during the day included:

-Macaroons from Laduree, the original maker of macroons – these were incredible!
-Cake from Pierre Herme, known for its chocolates and beautiful cakes

-Tea from a historic tea shop

-Local cakes from the Brittany region (cake used loosely… Really they were just butter and sugar :)) + carmels (fleur de sel)

-Chocolates from Jadis et Gourmande Choclats
-And finally we finished off the day with Gelato

Marie-Odile led us through so many beautiful back streets which had incredible architecture. We visited multiple famous sites including Sainte Chapelle, Isle de Cite, Notre Dame, and the Jewish Quarter. I love stained glass (and actually used to make stained glass pieces… until work and grad school :)) so I particularly enjoyed Sainte Chapelle as it is comprised entirely of windows showing major books of the Bible.

Saint Chapelle

Notre Dame

We finished our day with a wonderful dinner at Le Violin de Ingres, a Michelin 1 star restaurant by Chef Constant (for you foodies). They had a surprise tasting menu. The food was fantastic… and Ryan was excited that the surprise nature of the menu made me try some dishes I would have never ordered. This included Foie Gras and Pigeon which were both delicious. The meal finished off with an incredible cream pastry covered in salted carmel sauce. Wow!

Since the restaurant was near the Eiffel Tower, we strolled by for a look at the tower twinkling at night. What a great way to end a wonderful day!

The next morning we picked up our car for the next month, and the car is great! We are “leasing” the car from the car manufacturer Citroen so it’s a brand new car. The lease is like a traditional car rental to us but offers the car manufacturer a tax benefit when selling to car rental companies. We’re now on the road in the Normandy and Brittany region in France.

More to come from these areas soon!

London definitely didn’t live up to its cool, rainy reputation. London was going through one of its hottest streaks of the last few years while we were there. I was surprised at how many places didn’t have any air conditioning at all (I, Ryan, am new to Europe travel). One of the big concerts we attended was in an unairconditioned concert hall that was 95F+ inside! We definitely appreciated sun over rain, but the experience made us appreciate our AC at home! 🙂

Emily had spent time in London in college, but this was my first time in the city. I was excited to catch up on seeing the main sites. In case you are interested, here are some of the highlights (we promise not to bore you with every trip detail!):

Westminster Abbey: After our flight landed, we headed straight to the Sunday morning church service at Westminster Abbey (the travel pros say to hit the ground running, right?). The service was very interesting as was seeing the abbey itself and the famous black and white tile floor we’ve seen so many times in royal events.

Harrods: We explored Harrods department store which sells everything from dogs to food to clothes to musical instruments! We were most interested in the food hall. Of particular interest and fun is that the pastry counter puts lots of their amazing desserts on Buy One, Get One Free in the last hour before closing 🙂 We enjoyed finding a fun spot to eat these delicious pastries in Kensington Garden.

The Proms: For eight weeks during the summer, the BBC sponsors a daily concert in Royal Albert Hall that is very popular. We went to a great concert by the US National Youth Orchestra with guest soloist Josh Bell. I can only give the concert an A- though given the extent that I sweated during the concert! 🙂

Changing of the Guard & Tower of London: Having been in Ohio State’s Marching Band, I found the ceremony quite interesting and was surprised to hear the Royal Band playing pop songs! We rounded out our classic tour of London with a tour of the Tower of London and enjoyed looking at the Crown Jewels.

Les Miserables: Somehow we had managed to never see this popular musical (or the movie… I guess that’s what 3 years of grad school does!) so what better place to see it than the West End!?

English Tea: One must have a tea while in England, right? We had tea at the Orangerie at Kensington Palace. There were lots of media types hanging out hoping to see the Royal Family arrive home. In fact, William and Kate arrived the evening that we had visited.

The Royal Baby: We made an impromptu post given that people might find it interesting! It was quite a mob of people, but it was definitely an interesting local experience to see.

It was a quick tour of London, but we enjoyed it! We are now off to France to begin the main portion of our Europe trip.