Tag: Western Europe
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Week #17 ~ Recap
285 miles, 2 countries, 2 big cities, 1 Chunnel train, 2 friends from home, 1 West End show, 2 museums, 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 1 haircut, 12,000 steps per day average, and $161.98 UNDER budget. Our count list from last week doesn’t seem very long until we think of the span of history influenced…
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Is that Big Ben?
No, no it is not……the tower we all call Big Ben is just the bell tower…..the BELL is Big Ben. This is one of the many things the narrator on our Thames cruise shared with us as we were seeing the sites of London from the top of a very touristy Thames boat cruise. Coming…
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Week #16 ~ Recap
23 years together, (18 married), 3 countries, 2 friends, 1 museum, 1 castle, 1 ferry, 363 miles, 1 super long town name, and $651.65 over budget. Our overage is a result of buying plane tickets for the France to Italy leg, and the London AirBnB. We came to the United Kingdom to meet the Schengen…
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Erin go Bragh
One visit to this absolutely beautiful island will make you think of the past, present and future all wrapped up together. “Erin go bragh” literally translates to “Ireland til the end of time” or “Ireland Forever”. The green hills filled with white sheep, howling winds coming off the rugged cliffs, cities and towns that are…
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Week #15 ~ Recap
1119 miles, 4 countries, 7 cities, 1 airplane, 2 rental cars, 3 UNESCO sites, and $117.02 OVER budget. Whew! No wonder we’re tired! Budget overages were due to $160 on gas and about $1200 on lodging. After 4 days rest in Scotland, we flew to Ireland and have started a whirlwind driving tour around the…
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There shall be rest….and Whisky
Sometimes you need a vacation from your vacation. Water, the desire for a rural landscape after all of the cities we’ve been in and a chance to cook for ourselves several days in a row led us to rent an Airbnb in Invergordon Scotland. We got off the boat from Amsterdam at Newcastle on Tyne,…
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Week #14 ~ Recap
792 miles, 3 countries, 3 cities, 1 overnight ferry, 1 panicked incident, 2 hotels, 1 Airbnb, $14.41 UNDER budget. We originally planned to leave Amsterdam on October 2nd, but extended our stay for a day when Marla left her bag on the tram on the way to the ferry to NewCastle, England that held her…
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They should have gone to Amsterdam
I don’t really know how it happened, but Amsterdam became our favorite stop so far. The place is built on sand with pilings for support, and some of the buildings have an obvious lean to them. Bicycles are literally everywhere, canals also. I admire the Dutch for their pragmatic handling of the sex trade and…
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Angels on our shoulders….
“Where’s your gray bag?” I felt a panic start at the top of my head that settled into my gut as I realized in an instant that I had left my bag with my PASSPORT, our iPad, 2 debit cards and my Amex on the tram. I had left that bag behind when exiting the…
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Week #13 ~ Recap
831 miles, 2 countries, 2 cities, 1 concentration camp, 2 walking tours, 1 gigantic beer festival, 2 hotels, walking an average of 11,300 steps per day, and $129.45 UNDER budget. From Munich to Amsterdam ~ from a city with a historic glockenspiel and a palace modeled after Versailles, to a city with some of the…