TravelStream™ news feed for member kcomai on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/kcomai en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:34:25 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kcomai/2/1214774760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kcomai/2/1214774760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kcomai/2/1214774760/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:34:25 -0400 Europe 2008

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Austin, Texas, United States

Well it took us a little longer to get home than expected....we left Zurich at 6:55am, and flew to Amsterdam, where we caught our connecting flight to Houston. While heading pretty fast down the runway, about to take off from Amsterdam, our plane came to a sudden halt.....We passengers were very concerned as to why our plane would just stop! It turns out, well-- as the crew told everyone-- that the front tires on the plane needed to be replaced. Fabulous! I never get nervous when I fly, but I did find myself a little uneasy here, hoping we land okay in Houston with our 'new wheels'.......So, the crew put on a movie for us and served snacks while we sat on the runway for about 2 hours while the crew did whatever it was they were doing, and replacing the tires, as we were told.......

All in all, the flight home ended up being a safe one even though we were on the plane a total of about 12 hours instead of 9.....We spent Friday evening at my parents house, and drove back to Austin early Saturday morning.

We return to the 'reality' of life and back to work on Monday. Every time I look at our pictures, it makes me sad that the trip went by so fast!!! We were on-the-go almost non-stop for 7.5 weeks, and I could have kept going, I loved it so much! But- I did miss our family and friends, and our dog! Our trip was an amazing adventure that we were so fortunate to have. I hope that our blog will be a good source of info for anyone planning to visit any of these places. Now maybe next we'll have to try out for "The Amazing Race"...............
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Mürren, Swiss Alps, Switzerland

Switzerland is now one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, if not the most beautiful! Wow! We spent both days hiking through the alps. The first day we overdid it a bit and were both so sore the 2nd day, so our 2nd day's hike was just an easier walk. The weather was very mild, fairly warm with a cool breeze during the day, and cool at night. Perfect!
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Provence, France

We had a wonderful time in Provence, and great weather (although it did get warm enough on Saturday to feel like Texas!!!! It was about 102F that day-- getting us prepared for home!) We spent 4 nights at a bed and breakfast in the french countryside. Thursday, we did a wine tour with a guide and 3 other people- one couple from Kansas City (it was nice to have Americans to chat with!) and one girl from Korea. It was so much fun! The tour was all day from 10-6. We visited 5 wineries and had lunch together. Our guide spoke great English and was very informative with a great sense of humor as well!

Friday, Mike and I did some driving around the area to a few smaller towns in our rental car and also visited one other winery on our own. Saturday, we checked out the market in Arles, did a little more driving and then went back to Avignon for the evening for a little shopping and some dinner.
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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

We love Barcelona!! The tapas bars, the culture, the shopping, the nightlife, the sangrias, and the tapas (did I say tapas?). This is my favorite city to eat in on this trip!!! I've always enjoyed eating a variety of appetizer-type foods rather than a regular meal, and tapas is just that. We have been to a few tapas bars here, where you have a large selection of tapas to choose from. It's fun choosing all of the different tapas to try. I was even brave and tried an octopus one.....(don't worry there are plenty of 'normal' tapas too) If you are wondering, the octopus one was not my favorite of them all, but, it wasn't bad......There is one tapas bar (Sagardi) that we want to return to, but unfortunately we leave tomorrow and didn't have time to fit in a 2nd visit. :-(

Other than the tapas bars, we definitely enjoyed the city itself. Barcelona is a beautiful, clean city. We had a nice, modern hotel (again, budget), and the guy here was so helpful with our questions. We visited some of Gaudi's famous architecture works (Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Park Guell), and the Picasso Museum. Tonight, we had a fabulous dinner and then had a couple mojittos out in the El Born district. My only regret is that we did not have any flan while in Spain..........Oh well, we will have to make another trip back to Barcelona! Love it!!

We are off to southern France tomorrow, and are both looking forward to it!
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Girona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

Our Ryanair flight from Alghero flew into the small airport in Girona, about an hour train ride from Barcelona. Since the flight arrived late that night, we slept in Girona before heading to Barcelona today. We were a little skeptical of our Ryanair flights since we'd heard mixed reviews of the budget airline, but everything went fine!

We walked around Girona (it's a small town) for a few hours today before taking the train to Barcelona. It is a pretty little town, definitely worth a night or two's stay.
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Alghero, Italy

TUESDAY- Today was our first full day in Sardinia. It was beautiful beach weather. We picked up our rental car after breakfast and headed up to Stintino, to La Pelosa beach. After the beach, we headed down to the Neptune's Grotto cave, but after walking all of the stairways to get there, we found out it was already closed for the day. Well, at least we got our workout for the day!
We love our hotel in Alghero. (especially Kristel, because they put out lots of sweets and pastries for breakfast.... :-) ) Unfortunately, the weather forecast is showing rain for the next day or so......
WEDNESDAY- Today was cool, rainy, and cloudy! We went back out to the Neptune's Grotto cave and did a tour, and then went to check out the Sella e Mosca winery. Later, Mike got a much needed haircut (and she did a great job for not speaking English!). So all in all, it was a pretty productive day despite the so-so weather....
THURSDAY- Today was another cool cloudy day! So we went for drive around the island. We took a route that our book talked about. The book warned about the curvy roads, for those who get carsick easily, but we ignored it since we never get carsick, ever. Well, this road did it for me. I felt uneasy for most of the afternoon drive......The road was way to curvy for me! Once out of the car, I felt much better. Anyhow, Sardinia is a huge island, with alot of different types of landscapes. Some of it reminded us of Texas landscapes and Big Bend! We stuck to the west side of the island on our drive. Later in the afternoon, we did visit a beach (Scivu) on the Costa Verde, but we only stayed out there about an hour, and then it was cooling down and looked like a storm was coming in (although it never did storm).
FRIDAY- Today we drove out to the Costa Smeralda, on the north part of the island, and visited a few beaches. This is a very beautiful (and very expensive- property here ranges around $1,800/sq foot) part of the island. Luckily the beaches are free :-). It was sunny but unfortunately very windy, so we kept getting sandblasted on the beach. Not the most relaxing beach visit, but still nice. The beaches up here were beautiful.
SATURDAY- It was great weather today (best day we had!) so we spent the entire day on the beach near Alghero. We flew out in the evening to Girona, Spain, enroute to Barcelona!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kcomai/2/1213064700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kcomai/2/1213064700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kcomai/2/1213064700/tpod.html Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:27:49 -0400 Europe 2008

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Pisa, Tuscany, Italy

Pics from the famous tower! You choose your favorite....
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Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Florence is beautiful! It's so much cleaner than Rome and Venice. And ladies, this is a shopping city!! Mike even shopped a little with me (wow!!!) There is tons to do here, and lots of trendy little bars and restaurants. Wish we could stay longer! Friday we arrived and checked into our awesome hotel/hostel. It is a budget hotel, but one of our best hotel stays on this trip so far. If you ever need a cheap place to stay in Florence, this is the place!! (it's called Casa Nuestra) Then, we went to the Acadamia Gallery on Friday evening (which houses Michaelangelo's famous David sculpture) and had a nice dinner and a place the girl at the hotel recommended, and of course some gelato after that. I think we have eaten gelato at least every other day while in Italy. :-) Can't get tired of it! Saturday, we visited the Uffizi art gallery, and walked around the city some more.

Tomorrow we plan to do a day trip up to the Cinque Terre and then back to Florence. Wish we had more time in this beautiful city, we love it here!!!!!!
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Cinque Terre, Italian Riviera, Italy

Today we took the train out to Cinque Terre. Much of the Cinque Terre area became a national park in 1999 and there are lots of hiking trails, beaches, etc. We did the hike through the 5 towns (about 4-5 hours of hiking). This area is beautiful. The hike is one of the most scenic hikes I have ever been on. Much of the hike goes along the coastline (except you are high up in the mountains). It sure was a workout, but we did enjoy it!!! Unfortunately, a thunderstorm started while we were about halfway through the hike. We had raingear, but because we still had to finish hiking to the town (nowhere to hide for cover) we were pretty much soaked by the time we made it to the 3rd town. We killed some time there while the rain died down, and then finished the rest of our hike sloshing around in our wet shoes in the cloudy weather. Good thing about that is that there weren't as many people on the trails after the rain so we almost had the trail to ourselves.

Of course, around 5:30pm when we were waiting for our train ride home, the sun came back out and it was beautiful outside then. Oh well, at least it wasn't a hot hike!!

Loved the Cinque Terre, and wished we could have stayed a night or two there. Maybe next time!!!!
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Rome, Lazio, Italy

Rome...what can I say. Huge city, a ton of people (both locals and tourists) CROWDED subways, and alot of things to do. It was not near as hard to find our way around this city as I was expecting, so that was a good thing considering that we only had three nights so we pretty much just saw the basics-- the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Vatican City, St Peter's Basilica (amazing!), and a few other things. Rome has a huge amount of very interesting history.

We also ran into a movie set at the Piazza del Popolo, and watched Tom Hanks film a scene in his upcoming movie (someone told us the movie was called Oblisk, but we looked it up online and imdb.com says 'Angels and Demons').

All in all, we made pretty good use of our 2 busy days we had in Rome.
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