SJ - short post today. today we drive to Florence. Not too bad. About 7 hours on the bus after another no-egg breakfast. Oh what I'd give for a sausage McMuffin with Egg. We arrive at the hotel which turns out to be more of the 'same'. Very small but right in the heart of the city. We have an hour or so to settle in and then off to Academia Muse...

Continuing in Florence.....we get to the Boboli Gardens and discover there really are no gardens with flowers! Pretty much hedges and statues and of course stairs to get to the top. Though once at the top there is a wonderful view of Florence, so it was worth ther hike. We make your way down by following any shade we can. By now my face is beet ...

We are at the half point of our trip....unbelievable! On one hand times seems to be moving slowly but the fast at the same time when I think of our journey so far! This morning in Florence we are going to the Uffizi Gallery. The gallery has the largest collection of the Italian Renaissance painters in Italy. Our local guide - Ricardo - does an a...

It is Monday afternoon and we have been on our own in Venice since 10:30 am. I should be able to get tou all caught up with our time in Venice with this post. We left Austria around 8:00 am and would be on the bus for a full day getting to Venice. Occasionally Jennifer will play music on the bus according to the area we are driving through. Any ...

17-7-08 19-7-08 Bacharach is really a cute town with a jump off train station. No one is there to man the "station" so you are on your own. Our hotel is picture perfect on the outside and you can make a quarter jump on the beds. Sort of like sleeping on a board. It is situated at the base of a medieval watchtower and a vineyard. There are beauti...

From Trier we decided to take the train to Koblenz where we could take a boat down the Rhine River. We have elected to by-pass the big city of Cologne in favour of spending some time in the small towns along the Rhine. We ended up taking the "milk" run train from Trier to Koblenz and arrived just in time to catch the last boat of the day down th...

As a tourist, much of the time I end up doing tourist things. Taking the passenger ferry up the Rhine is one such thing. It's the prettiest and slowest way to travel in this area, but everyone does it, and for good reason. The train is just dull and you can't see anything. At least on the ferry you can check out the castles and enjoy the sun. An...

First stop was an unplanned trip to Mauthausen, a concentration camp. It was not listed on the program, but am glad I went. It was very quiet and had a sad feel in the air. You were able to walk in everyroom from where they slept, where they pulled out gold teeth, the gas chamber, and the incinerator. They said the only way to leave the camp bac...

We arrived in Bacharach on 17 October. We had a nice trip from Switzerland and saw a lot of castles and vineyards along the way. When we arrived in Bacharach we saw the castle hostel on the hill high above...great...the only problem was we had to CLIMB up to the hostel! It was hard work with our packs on but the view was great. We ended up spend...