Just a few photos and quick note of our Trip to Europe

We are home…with so much to share!!!!

I have spent hours putting together our photos (and have not finished) and have had no time to blog or write up stories but will. I have had so many people approach me about wanting to do a trip such as ours and am willing to share what I can to help people pull such a trip off. It is not a good time to travel to Europe…the dollar to the Euro is at an all time poor, but we went anyway for Europe was calling and each and every day exceeded any expectation I could have had and any dream that I could have imagined.  Unpacking for 7 took me by surprise and I have to say was the hardest part of the whole vacation…I underestimated how tired we’d be upon or return.

I am posting some pictures (a small fraction) of our trip until I get to the others…they are in order as  we experienced things.  I think many won’t be able to be enjoyed without words to go along with them and I hope to really sit down and do that this week as everything is fresh in my mind.

If you subscribe to the blog and are notified when I post things I urge you to reconsider that option and to just check back in in about a week IF you are interested. The reason being is I know due to time that I will have to update and post when I can thus posting small updates at a time  and I hate the thought that people will be getting bothered with so many notifications as I do so. I don’t know how it is done but to unsub from the notifications might be a good option as I do this.

Our trip took us to Brugge, Rouen and the Notre Dame Cathedral in Rouen where Richard the Lion Heart’s heart is buried and Claude Monet painted it often and Joan of Ark was burned at the stake…there you will see that at 10:00 at night they did an amazing light show on the Cathedral to a slide show of Monet’s many different painting of the façade…so the picture lightly funky is from that.

Claude Monet's garden where we literally slept in his garden and were lulled to sleep by the sprinklers raining on our van (so much to share)...

Normandy to one of my favorite little towns Etretat…the cliffs that Monet painted and grand memories of our honeymoon and our stop there 8 years to the day before.  The children got their armor there…we ate mussels in a delicious cream sauce and got photos in front of the cliffs that Monet painted.

The Normandy Beaches…and St Mont Michele which was obviously impossible to capture on camera at night…but was stunning…I share the pics though am clearly aware they are awful quality.

On to a secret called Puy Du Fou that was nothing more than magical!!!!

The Lascaux Caves…and a huge underground cave…a prehistoric museum…and a prehistoric park (notice the orange snail/slug found there).

Geneva to meet a family that is dear to me as we went thru the process of adding to our family together…for some reason I embrace them like family and have loved them since our first correspondence via email.

On thru Mont Blanc to go to Italy…and as we approached it’s mouth to go in I hollered, “turn around we must go to Chamonix for lunch and a few hours”…with seconds to spare Steve turned that rented van around and we found ourselves minutes later with hot chocolate and crepes before us as we looked up at the beautiful Mont Blanc. I spent many of Christmas morning skiing in Chamonix as a child and it too was  a stop and place to stay on our honeymoon.

From there on to Florence, Tuscany, Rome and Venice…we missed Pompeii which I think saddened Reichen as much as it did me…but there will be future trips.  Florence was magical and we chased down our favorite art with map in hand on every street corner.  Rome where the boys carried their armor and Tristan put on his warrior face. Venice, after having the most beautiful weather one could ask for the whole trip hit us with nothing short on a monsoon…unprepared and having left our rain gear at home accidentally we all wrapped in garbage bags and I was dying to label them as “Armani”.

Up thru Austria where we hiked up a neighborhood hill for food and cursed the person who shared the restaurant info every step of the way, it was steep, we were tired and hungrier than I had ever been. When we got up there and took our first bite of food overlooking cows and mountains from the hill top I would have kissed the gal on the lips for the wonderful recommendation.

On to Meersburg Germany a small town on Lake Constantine…a wonderful town that when it appeared certain Steve was going to take a job in Germany I looked on a map and picked Meersburg as a place I would want to live.

To the Neushwanstein Castle where I fell in love with Ludwig II…when our tour led us to his bedroom and scenes from “Tristan and Isolde/Iseualt” we all were in awe as we read two different versions of the story about a month before we left.

The Black Forest and it’s dark squirrels that came to us for nuts…

We surrendered an additional stay in the Black Forest for a day and night in Paris!!!!…we were one of the last people to go up, all the way up, in the Eiffel Tower that night…a wonderful dinner on the Champs d’Lysee…

So much more to share…please note the pictures are just a fraction of these days…and what I share is only a fraction of the wonderful trip. I have promised to share great detail…prices…safety concerns etc… and will be as open and honest as I can so others can get ideas and evaluate if such a trip could fit into their budget.

If you notice a tendancy of Bronwyn being on the perimeter of many pictures we have captured her at her finest...true Diva literally making us beg to take her picture. When you proceed to take a pciture  without her she gradually pokes herself into the frame only to turn her back on you and glance under her eyebrows casually checking to see if you are getting her. I was asked during a 4th of July party if she was in acting lessons...if they only knew!!!!!

So so so much more later…my intention was only to share pics in these few minutes but you know me get me started and I won’t shut up J