Europe

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ITALY

5/27-29   Rome & Vatican City - Wow!  Italy is amazing!  In Rome, we went into the Coliseum and then walked through the ruins of the Forum.  The next morning, we got to the Vatican Museum and saw the Sistene Chapel...absolutely beautiful!  Then over to St. Peter's Basilica...beautiful with its fountains and pillars out front.  Inside, we saw Michelangelo's Pieta, very moving.  Saw the altar where St. Peter is buried, and mass was going on.  We went below the basilica and saw Pope John Paul II's tomb.  After the basilica, we headed over to Trevi Fountain...gorgeous fountain...statues of Poseidon and Triton and clear water flowing over white marble.  Great city rich in history!

5/29-6/1   Florence - We caught the train to Florence and stayed in a cute place right in the heart of town.  Went to the Duomo, climbed to the top of the Capinale bell tower next door to get a great view of the whole city.  We went to the Pitti Palace and the Uffizi Museum, where we paintings by Botticelli, Michelangelo, and others.  We walked around the very nice Santa Croce Church, where Michelangelo, Galileo, Da Vinci, Rossini, and others are buried.  Then to the Academia, where we saw Michelangelo's David...so impressive, just beautiful.

6/1-2   Cinqueterre - We drove out to the coast to Monterosso, one of the 5 towns that make up Cinqueterre.  We walked around our town a bit and also hiked to the next town, Vernazza.   It was very picturesque...the water was crystal blue and the houses very colorful.

6/2-5   Siena - On the way down to Siena, we stopped at Pisa and saw the Leaning Tower...it truly leans!  :)  We also stopped at a small town called San Gimignano and walked through it's narrow, cobblestoned streets.  We got to Siena and found a cute B&B to make our home base for 3 days.  We took day trips out to Assisi (of St. Francis fame) and Cortona (made known by the novel/movie Under the Tuscan Sun).  Great towns...cobblestoned streets and fantastic views of the surrounding Tuscan landscape.  We took a day to just walk around Siena as well...went to St. Catherine's church, the Santo Dominico, and had lunch in Il Campo, the large town square in the city centre.

6/5-6   Trieste - This was a quick stop on the way to Croatia.  We took the train there and stayed in a nice place near the station.  We walked around the city, through the parks, and had dinner at a great small restaurant near the hotel.  The next morning, we got on a train for Zagreb.

CROATIA

6/6-8   Zagreb - We walked around this very nice city, seeing large markets, cathedrals, and the main square.  We also made contact with some family members we had never met before...they were the most wonderful, welcoming, gracious people ever!  They made us huge homecooked meals and took us to see the small wooden house (that is still standing) where my great-grandfather grew up before coming to America.  It was a wonderful, wonderful visit!

ROMANIA

6/9-10   Cluj-Napoca - We stopped in this college town for the night.  We walked around a bit and found a nice restaurant down the street from our hotel.  This was also the first day of the World Cup, so we stayed up and watched the games!

6/10-12   Brasov - On the way to Brasov, we stopped in Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.  It is located in the Transylvania region.  Besides all the Dracula souvenirs, it was actually a very cute, small, cobblestone street town.  We then drove on to Brasov, which is a large city, but stayed in the Old Town, which is smaller and quainter.  We walked to the nearby town square for dinner.  We took a day trip out to Bran, where we walked around Bran Castle (AKA Dracula's Castle).  We also drove through Poiana Brasov, a very neat local ski resort town.

BULGARIA

6/12-14   Veliko Tarnovo - We drove through Romania down into Bulgaria to Veliko Tarnovo, where we found a cute B&B to spend 2 nights.  We walked around town a bit, then went out to nearby fortress ruins, made completely of stone.  We explored more of the town before finding a good restaurant for dinner, and then more World Cup!

ROMANIA

6/14-15   Sibiu - After crossing the border back into Romania, we drove through beautiful countryside (actually, both Romania and Bulgaria have some very lovely countryside) to Sibiu.  This town has a huge pedestrian street that leads right up to a large town square.  Lots of activity to be seen here.

6/15-16   Beius - We drove through the country and arrived at this small town for one night before heading over to Hungary.  We found a cute pensione to stay in and walked around town.

HUNGARY

6/16-17   Budapest - We walked along the Danube in this great city and saw the Parliament House.  We also took a tram up the Pest side to get a view of the whole city.  We passed through a large city square where a tance troupe was putting on a performance.  It was quite a happening place!

AUSTRIA

6/17-19   Vienna - We caught the train to Vienna and found a place to stay near the station.  We took the metro downtown to St. Stephen's Church.  There's a square there and pedestrian streets lined with many stores.  There were street performers everywhere doing different types of shows, including different kinds of dancing, singing, violin playing, magic, etc.  It was great fun to watch them!  We also went out to the Summer Palace of the Hapsburg emperors.  The palace itself and the grounds were very beautiful.  We went back downtown to the Fine Arts Museum, where we saw paintings by Rembrant, Rubens, Velasquez, and others.

POLAND

6/19-21   Krakow - What a great city!  There is a great large town square lined with cafes and stores.  There's also a large, beautiful church and horse-drawn carriages waiting to tak people on rides.  Every hour, after the church bell rings, a trumpter appears in the church tower, playing a tune that stops suddenly.  He plays to remember and symbolize when a young trumpter was shot there by an arrow back in the 1400s.  The current trumpter plays and stops at the exact point that the young trumpter was cut off.  It's really a neat thing to witness.  We also walked over to the Wawel Palace, which sits up on a hill overlooking the river.  We went down the older, Jewish sector of the city.  We went into a local synagogue and cemetary, where we saw rock placed on top on headstones in place of flowers...very interesting.  We also took one day and went out to Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenou Concentration Camps.  It was a very informative and moving experience.

6/21-23   Warsaw - We took the train to the capital city and spent most of our time exploring the Old Town (AKA the Warsaw ghetto).  It was very nice, with a few squares lined with cafes and shops.  We went to the History Museum, and watched a documentary on how Warsaw was destroyed during WWII.  The rest of the museum was very interesting as well.  We spent time looking around and grabbed dinner in one of the squares.  Overall, I really liked the time we spent in Poland!

RUSSIA

6/23-26   Moscow - We had a pretty interesting time in Russia.  We flew from Warsaw to Copenhagen to Moscow, where we were went to our hotel, which was located right next to the Metro station.  We had a tour of the city that took us by the building that house the KGB, the University, various parks, and Red Square.  Red Square was really interesting.  It contains St. Basil's Cathedral, the Kremlin (and the large wall surrounding it), and Lenin's Mausoleum.  We saw Lenin laying out in his tomb, then went inside the walls of the Kremlin to the Armory, where we saw old gold and silver artifacts, carriages, armor, crowns, clothing, and much more.  We also got to see some of the famous Faberge Eggs that were on display.  They were incredibly intricate and beautiful.  We walked around the Kremlin a bit, stopping at the different churches inside.  Near our hotel, there was a huge outdoor market that we went and explored.  There was a large clothes section, and another area for souvenirs, such as ornaments and dolls.

6/26-29   St. Petersburg - We took the train to St. Petersburg, and arrived at 10:30 at night...you would never have know it, though, since it was broad daylight still!  We were there during what it called the "White Nights," where it hardly gets dark at night, maybe for only a few hours in the middle of the night.  It was very strange trying to go to bed while it was very bright out!  We had a tour of the city and saw many major sights - St. Michael's Church, the Peter and Paul Fortress, Palace Square, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Admiralty, and Kazan Cathedral.  We also toured the Hermitage, a huge museum with hundreds of rooms, where we saw all the paintings and gold and crystal that Catherine II amassed for herself during her time.  We also spent some time on Nievsky Prospect, the main street running through the city,  where we found places to eat and shop.  We took a trip out to Peterhof, a town/palace about 45 minutes outside of the city.  There are beautiful gardens there that have large, fancy fountains.  About 30 minutes outside of St. Petersburg is Pushkin, another palace we visited.  It is known for the Amber Room, a room decorated completely in amber...very beautiful.

FINLAND

FRANCE

LUXEMBOURG

BELGIUM

NETHERLANDS

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