Last full day of our Europe Adventure

This has been an adventure for sure, started in London then Paris, Nice, Venice, Florence and finally now in Rome. We haven't been able to do a post for a few days because our hotel internet has been down so this will cover a bunch.
Last Wednesday when we were in Florence Eric and I did a wine tour through the Chianti region in Tuscany. It was beautiful scenery, we toured an old castle (where a family still lives) and where they make wine and olive oil. We had a little wine tasting and snack then got to just look around on our own for a bit where I got a lot of great pictures.
Thursday we took the train to Rome and met up with our friends, Brad and Craig, from Seattle. It's nice to have someone to have a conversation with in English. By the time we made it for Rome, we're ready to come home and the 80+ weather is making it hard to walk around all day like we've been doing. After checking into our hotel we walked to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain, both full of people/tourists. Friday we went to Vatican City and toured the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. It probably would have been more fun if we didn't wait outside in line for 90 minutes and then once you got inside you were pretty much trapped for another 2 hours. It was like sardines, super hot inside and since there were so many people it was hard to even see everything or appreciate it for all it was worth.
Today we went to the Colosseum and took some pictures.
Tomorrow we fly out of Rome to London at 11:30 then onto Seattle/Portland from there.

To see our recent pictures, click on the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

First full day in Florence

We arrived to Florence yesterday by train and took a taxi to our hotel. Our first room was super nasty, luckily with a little nice complaining we were moved to the newer wing (a room we could actually feel clean in). At first we weren't stoked about this city (although now it's growing on us a little more), Venice was amazing and we wish we would have had another night there. Our hotel in Venice was top notch and couldn't be beat, plus it had a shuttle boat that took you over to Zatterle or San Marco. That, along with a roof top pool made our 2 nights fantastic. We Loved Venice, no cars, water everywhere, great food, fun little streets, friendly people, etc.
So, for our first full day in Florence we took a taxi from our hotel (not prime location) to the Academia area but we didn't have a pre-booked reservation so we weren't able to get in.
Then we walked around the Duomo area and the streets were packed! You had to put your head all the way back just to see the top of that church, the pictures won't do it justice for how grand it was. After that we shopped a little and had a very authentic lunch (pizza without cheese but topped with arugula and tomatoes!).
Last night we had another great meal, what looked like a hole in the wall opened up to a nice restaurant that had a lot of signed pictures from famous people like Dustin Hoffman and Pavarotti who had all eaten there. Eric had the BEST lasagna of his life and my asparagus risotto was delicious as well. It's nice going to restaurants where the owners are the ones serving you, feels very welcoming.
Tomorrow we're going on a Chianti wine tour so I'm really looking forward to that, it will be nice to get outside this city and see some new scenery.

To see our recent pictures, click on the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

We have arrived to Venice

Hello there, We arrived to Venice this evening and it's beautiful. We just got done with a delicious dinner but the internet is over $30 a day so we'll write more and post pictures from Florence early in the week.
The train ride was long but well worth it now that we're here.

Talk to you in Florence,
Whit and Eric

Hello from Nice

Today we took the train to Monaco/Monte Carlo, definitely the richest place in the world we've ever been. The Bentley's and Ferrari's were the norm and were all over the place. They had a lot of fences set up for the Grand Prix so it was cool to see where they'll actually have the race. As we were walking from the train station up to Monte Carlo you could see yachts EVERYWHERE, if only we knew one of the owners...
In the restaurant bathrooms, they had sheets of Kleenex instead of toilet paper!

We came back to Nice in the early afternoon then walked from the train station, through Old Nice and back to our hotel. Tomorrow we're supposed to have heavy rain all day so not sure what we'll do. The hotel said to not even try going to Cannes since the film festival is going on, a bus or taxi would take over 2 hours each way with traffic.
We'll probably go up to Castle Hill (even if that means carrying our umbrellas) because I've heard it's a great view point.


To see our pictures from today, click on the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!!

What a WONDERFUL Birthday, I couldn't ask for anything better than spending my 26th in the south of France. We flew in from Paris today and arrived to our hotel around 1:30. Eric surprised me by upgrading our room to a view of the Mediterranean, DEFINITELY makes it that much better! The sea is amazing, much more light aqua than I had imagined and our hotel is newly upgraded and modern. After check-in we walked on the Promenade des Anglais and around Cours Saleya and Old Nice. Then, after a little siesta, we had dinner at a marvelous restaurant right on the sand (really more like river rock) about 50 feet from the sea.
What a wonderful birthday this has been!
Tomorrow we plan to go to Monaco and Eze and Friday we plan to go to Cannes. When we arrived at the airport earlier there were a bunch of paparazzi everywhere (probably a ton of celebs here, hope we see some!).

To see our pictures from today, click on the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

Last full day in Paris

This morning we began our day with a delicious espresso and brioche. We took the train out to Versailles around 11 and were there for a couple of hours. We met a couple sitting behind us on the train from Michigan and it was so nice to have someone to speak English to! The grounds of Versailles are beautiful and HUGE! The pictures really don't do it justice.

We then toured the Musee d' Orsay. It was good to see some of the great artwork. Next we came back to our hotel to rest a little (after getting our afternoon crepe snack). We had planned to go to the Eiffel Tower around 4 but after walking all the way there the line was over 3 Hours long! No kidding, the line must have been close to a mile long. Needless to say we decided to come back when we hoped the line was a little shorter. Around 8:00pm we headed back out to make another attempt at going up the Eiffel Tower. The line had not shortened at all, so we decided that if we wanted to go up we'd have to hike (no line to go up the stairs but you can only go as high as the second platform). We went to the first platform, which was plenty of stairs for us, and still had some spectacular views. I'm really glad that we did this closer to our departure rather than in the beginning. We were able to identify all of the places we had been and it reaffirmed how much we walked! After we had a quick, very marginal dinner (hard to beat our dinner from last night) we took the subway back to our hotel. We are both so tired of riding the subway. It's great for the few days you're in town but I couldn't imagine having to make that your lifestyle daily...glad to be living in a place where it's 15 minutes drive to the office and no traffic. Luckily in Nice we'll take taxi's everywhere and Venice will be fun water buses.

Tomorrow it's on to Nice! Our flight leaves Paris at 11am and the flight is only about an hour. Hard to believe we're not even half way done with our trip, it feels like we've already done so much.

To see our pictures from today, click on the below link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

The Louvre, Notre Dame, the Pantheon and the Eiffel Tower

Today was another power day for us. We started our day at the Starbucks attached to our hotel and promptly spilled both coffees (luckily they were both on Eric!). So, after a quick change we headed out to the Louvre. Fortunately we bought our museum passes ahead of time so we were able to get right in and avoid all the lines. We made our way through to see the famous Mona Lisa and took some pictures of some other famous paintings & sculptures. There were so many paintings, it was hard to take it all in. The ceilings were amazing, can't believe how vivid the color of the paintings were considering how old the artwork was.

After a little lunch at Chez Alexandre, we headed across the river to the Notre Dame (no pictures were allowed inside). This was one of my favorite parts of the day, the church was Amazing and the Huge stain glass windows were incredible. We then walked over to the Pantheon where they had a large exhibit of a pendulum and the tombs of many famous French people (like Jean Monnet and Victor Hugo). We walked around the Latin Quarter district for a while and ran into a French college student (as we were asking for directions to get to the Pantheon) and she said that was the most prestigious area in all of Paris. We looked like huge tourists today with our little backpack, map, Rick Steve's Best of Europe book and our camera (luckily we didn't have the fanny pack too!).
On our way back to our hotel, I finally saw my first UPS truck since I've been here and we enjoyed our first Crepe (nutella & banana). We took a little siesta to rest our legs before heading back out. Around 7 we went to a giant overlook where we could see the Eiffel Tower again. We ate dinner nearby at a great French restaurant called Cafe du Trocadero. I had a fromage platter as an appetizer but the brie oddly smelled like brussel sprouts. From our table we had a WONDERFUL view of the Eiffel Tower and among the 2 1/2 hours we were there, we could see it start to light up. Every hour it sparkles with lights for 5 minutes.
After dinner we walked back to the over-look for more pictures at night, it was So pretty and a perfect end to our evening.

To see our pictures from today, click on the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

First day in Paris

We left London today at 11 am and took the high-speed Eurostar train through the Chunnel to Paris (only took 2 hours 20 minutes!). On the way over, I realized that France is going to be very difficult for us speaking no French, I needed to point to my chips and Coca Cola light on the train because they spoke no English.
Upon check-in (nice historic Victorian hotel and much nicer than our London hotel) we quickly headed out and walked down to the Arc de Triumph and the Champs-Elysees (where they have 7 lanes of traffic with no lines). We then walked across the Seine River and saw the Eiffel Tower. We got some great pictures and will either go up it tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll need to look into how much a dinner cruise on the Seine River would be too; it would be really pretty at night. After that we walked back to the hotel and underestimated the distance. We must have walked 10-15 miles again today, our feet and legs are killing us! It was much warmer today, a little humid but at least not rainy and cold.
Now we need to go find a nice french dinner place close by, cannot walk anymore than 5 more minutes today.
We'll update you more tomorrow!

Pictures from today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/?saved=1

Tower of London

This morning we had planned to take the train out to Windsor Castle but the normal circle line subway that we've been taking was getting some maintenance work this weekend so we would have had to take 3 or 4 different trains to get out there. Instead, we went to the Tower of London and walked across the London Bridge. It was cool to see that castle (many of the archways were built in the 1200's) and to learn about some of its history. We had a walking tour guide who talked about King Henry VIII and his six wives that he had beheaded. Some of the tour guides are members of the royal staff and actually still reside at the tower. To be a guide, they have to have extreme credentials including serving in the British army for at least 22 years. One of the greatest parts was seeing all the royal jewels, they had a diamond that was 590 carrots! (he went to Jared, haha)
We then walked across the London Bridge and that was cool to see, thankfully it started getting a little sunnier and warmer around that time.
After that we took a very long bus ride back to High Street Kensington and rested up at our hotel. We walked so much yesterday that we needed to take it easier on ourselves today. Tomorrow we leave London at 11:00 am and take the train to Paris. Bonjour Paris, Au revoir London.

To see the pictures from today, click on the below link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/

Busy day around Central London

Today we woke up at 10:27 am (after being awake from 3:40 to 5:30) and had breakfast at The Muffin Man Kensington near our hotel. I used the hotel hair dryer and it obviously didn't work very well, but it was so windy and sprinkly out that it ended up not mattering. After breakfast we took the tube to Westminster and when we walked out we immediately saw the London Eye (biggest ferris wheel in the world) and Big Ben. We decided to not ride the London Eye, it takes a whole hour and our hotel said guests haven't been that impressed. It was a little cloudy today but we had good pockets of sun too. We took the Westminster Bridge over the Thames River and took some pictures (click on the link below). We then saw the Winston Churchill statue and walked up Downing Street and saw the Prime Ministers house (10 Downing St.). Then we took the Princess Diana memorial walk and made our way towards Buckingham Palace. The walk was really pretty, huge parks with grass, trees, benches and a really nice pond. Saw some new species, a rabbit squirrel and a black duck rooster (obviously not really, but they looked like cross-breeds of the two). Huge white pelicans too. It was a perfect temperature but there was a ton of stuff in the air so my eyes kept getting junk in them and the pollen made us feel sorta sick. We had missed the Changing of the Guards by about 1 hour but that would have been cool to see. They had some amazing cars parked out front, pretty nice rides. One thing we've noticed is there are no street signs, not sure how a non-local would find their way around. We then walked up through St. James Park and made our way to Piccadilly Circus. That was a zoo, large tour buses and people everywhere. We had a little snack at Cinnabon (we walked probably 5-10 miles today so we've burned tons of calories!) before taking the tube back to our hotel. We've decided not to take the day trip to Oxford and Stonehedge (figured we've seen plenty of pictures of those already) and that will give us another day to hang around.
This afternoon (after we rest our feet) we may take the bus to Harrod's and then find a good Fish n' Chips restaurant.
Tomorrow we'll plan to go see Wimbledon, Notting Hill, Tower of London, the London Bridge and more.

To see our pictures from today, click on the below link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/?saved=1

Jet Lag

Well it's only 4:00 am in London but we're both up! Going to try and go back and sleep as much as we can so we get adjusted. We were in bed asleep at 10pm so at least we feel refreshed.

One other thing that I noticed at Heathrow were the number of planes not in operation. Our flight coming over that was no more than 75% full as well You can see how the economy must be taking a toll on the tourism industry here. What was also crazy was the number of 747's British Airways had in their fleet. We must have seen almost 10 just parked with no signs of immediate flights. I'm sure they're in use but no where near capacity.

We have arrived!

After a great flight on British Airways (nice big seats, pillow, blanket, eye mask, ear plugs, wine and a yummy dinner) we arrived into London around 12:30. Then we took the tube to our hotel and got here around 2:30. Earlier we walked around High Street Kensington a bunch and just looked around at everything and saw Hyde Park. Lots of the same stores you'd see at home (Urban Outfitters, Starbucks, Aveda, etc). Crazy to see so many nice cars (we've already seen several Bentley's and Ferrari's) and all with the steering wheels on the right side!
Our hotel is in a good location and only about a 5 minute walk from the train station. Tomorrow we're gonna go see Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and possibly some other stuff. Then Saturday we'll most likely take a day trip to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Oxford.

To see our pictures from today, click on this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38097129@N08/?saved=1

Welcome to our Europe blog, more information to come May 7th.