Pictures are Online!

I have uploaded pictures and done my best to provide captions! Please feel free to check them out!

http://www.davesphotos.org/gallery/2005_europe

Feel free to let me know if you have any comments!

Dave

Home Safe and Sound

After three trains, a bus, two planes, and a car... we made it home safe and sound about midnight. We had a great time! As much fun as we had, it was nice to be home and sleep in our own bed.

Those that might be interested...
In Paris our hotel was inbetween the Invalides(right) and the Eiffel Tower(left)... about the center of this LINK (Google Maps).

I am hoping upload pictures sometime this weekend!

Monday - Not Much Time Left

Well, there isn't much time left before we leave! We've been having great fun. This is likely the last post before we leave on Wednesday. I'll post on here when I've uploaded pictures, etc. So, here it goes...

Yesterday we visited Versailles! It was awesome to walk through the gardens and see the huge estate. We scheduled our time so we could be in the gardens as they turned on all the fountains and played classical music. We came back to Paris and took a short nap before heading back to the Left Bank for dinner. After dinner we wandered around Notre Dame again, and watched some street performers.

Today we visited Sacré-Coeur and did a walk around the Montmarte area. The walk took us past Moulin Rouge, one of Picasso's homes, and one of Van Gogh's homes. We grabbed some lunch before heading over to the Pompidou Center. It's a huge modern art museum, basically built inside-out. You'll have to see it to understand. Afterwards, we did some shopping and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe - Paris. Sure, it isn't authentic Parisian food, but it is nice to have a reminder of home every once in awhile. Traveling overseas reminds you of how spoiled we are in the US, even with small things.

Well, tomorrow we plan on visiting the Orsay Museum and also the Arc de Triomphe. We'll probably do another self-guided walk as well, depending on our time.

We hope all is well with our friends and family back in the states! We will see you all soon!

Saturday - More Paris

Back to Paris updates...
Last night we started touring the Louvre. We covered selections of two of the wings. It doesn't sound like much to do... but trust me, it is.

This morning, we went back to the "Cite" (old Paris). We visited the Deportation Memorial, which is dedicated the those that were taken during the Nazi captivity of WWII. We then went and toured the Sainte-Chapelle with its stained-glass windows. We finished up the area by doing a walking tour of the Left Bank and Latin Quarter. We began to get hungry, so we headed to the cafes in the Louvre. This afternoon we finished going through the Louvre. Needless to say our feet our tired.
Time to take a short break...
Write more soon!
Dave and Becky

Supplemental Update ...

Hey all! Another update!
I forgot to mention that last Tuesday we also went to St. Paul's Cathedral. We climbed most of the way up the dome together, but I did the last part on my own. It was over 500 stairs... not much different than the old Stair Master!

Also... for those wondering, we DID use the "Underground" in London. We felt safe, as there were MANY Police at every station. In general there were a lot of Police around the city. Also, don't believe the news stations that show them all carrying machine guns. I don't think I saw a single one carrying one.

We DID make it to Paris!

Hello all!... Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been busying touring around.
Tuesday we started off by touring England's Houses of Parliament. It was cool to see the rooms that the House of Commons and House of Lords conduct business. We then spent the very end of the day at the Imperial War Museum, until they closed it on us.

Wednesday, we dropped off our bags at the train station, and went back to the Imperial War Museum to finish the sections we didn't get to see! Our guidebook recommended 90minutes, but we spent a total of about 4 hours there. We made our way back to the train station and headed out. We took the "chunnel" (Channel-Tunnel) train across and down to Paris. We wandered around town and grabbed some dinner. After dinner we walked over to the Eiffel Tower and watched as they lit it up with flashing lights. It was beautiful.

Yesterday we slept in to prepare for our time in Paris. When we finally got up, we visited the Champs-Elysees, using our guide book to find out about historic items along the way. Our tour took us to the Tuileries Garden, and the Louvre. We decided to save the Louvre for later, but grabbed a quick snack. We went back and changed and then walked over to the Eiffel Tower (about a mile from our hotel). Those that are not aware... there are 3 levels, each higher level access costs a little more than the previous. We decided to live it up and go all the way to the top! We were lucky, because when we first got in line, the signs said that top was closed because it was overcrowded. Thankfully it cleared up so we could go all the way up. When we got to the top, there were a lot of pushy people, so we didn't spend a ton of time up there. We ended up lingering around the next few levels long enough to see the city lights begin to turn on, as the sun went down. We headed back towards our hotel, extremely hungry for food. We ended up coming across a small Italian Restaurant. Soon after we sat down, the other two tables of people left... leaving the place to just us! It was pretty cool to have the place to ourselves... and essentially our own cook. It was an excellent meal... and will recommend the place highly.

Today we started off by getting some pastries and going to a park to eat a small breakfast. We then took the Metro over to Notre Dame, where we climbed the tower. Thankfully we did this early, as it began to rain when we were at the very top. By the time we got to the bottom again, it was raining pretty heavily. The news had told us (we think since it was in french) that it was going to be in the 80's. Oh well! So we went back to our hotel and got our jackets and pants.
Since it is near our hotel, we went to see the tomb of Napoleon at Les Invalides, as well as some WWI and WWII museums. We're taking a little break right now, but will be heading back out soon!
Write more later!
Dave

London - Monday

Well, we've conquered another day here in London. We did go to the British Library yesterday afternoon. It was great to see some very old literary documents... Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible, the first collection of Shakespeares play's, just to name a few.

Today we visited the British Museum. We saw lots of artificats and items brought back to Britain during the days of their colonies. It would be difficult to list the numerous things that we were able to see... so you may have to visit their site... or wait for the pictures.

We grabbed some lunch and headed over to the Tower of London. This was the original place that the royalty lived, and it now houses the Crown Jewels. It is quite unfortunate that they don't allow you to take pictures of the Crown Jewels, as they are quite magnificient. Its even more amazing to think that many of them date back to the 1660s.

Well, that's all for today. Tomorrow is our last full day in London. We head for Paris mid-day on Wednesday!

Dave

Made it to London

We made it.

On Friday we took public transportation up to SFO, to catch our flight. For some reason, on each leg of the trip, we had people start talking to us... since it was obvious we were going on a trip (with our big backpacks). It was odd, but quite entertaining. Our flight left SFO about 1:45pm PST... landed in New York about 10:30pm EST. Finally our flight left New York about 11:45pm EST.

We arrived in London yesterday, Saturday, about 11am localtime. We treked to the hotel in Kensignton, not too far from Hyde Park. We got showered and changed, and headed out for an adventure. We decided that we had been sitting for far too long. So, we made our way to Westminster Abbey to do a self-guided "walk" through the church and surrounding area.

After Westminster, we marched on towards Trafalger Square. Since the National Gallery is there, we wandered in and saw tons of Renaissance paintings, including items by DaVinci and Seurat. Since we had only had a couple ours of sleep in the past 48 hours, we were getting pretty tired and decided to call it a day for touring. On our walk back to our hotel, it began to pour rain. While we were waiting for the rain to stop, we had some more random converstations with people who "noticed" we were Americans. We are still a little confused how they knew, as we were trying to blend in. We're guessing that it was because we were smiling. We finally gave up waiting and hastily walked the rest of the way to the hotel. We got into some dry clothes and went to a local pub, for a great meal. Any food would probably have tasted amazing by this time.

Today (Sunday), we got ready and made our way towards The Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. This was the secret bomb bunker where the British planned attacks during WWII. I must say that we both enjoyed these museums and highly recommend them. We plan on heading towards the British Library. We'll see what we feel up to after that!