Greetings from the "Magic Kingdom"!!

Greetings,

We arrived by train at our final destination, the beautiful city of Prague. After dinner Fred and Kelly Prudek took us into the city to have a look at it at night. It indeed reminded us of the Magic Kingdom with all of the beautiful lights on the castles and Gothic architecture. We continue to have blessed with wonderful weather. Kelly told us that it had rained heavily on Thurs. night but by Friday when we arrived the sky was blue and the weather warm. Prague is an amazing city. Kathy and I explored the city on our own today. The streets were filled to the brim with people; mostly tourists we think. The Pope was actually in town but we were too busy sightseeing to visit with him.

We have routinely been impressed with the transportation systems in Europe.

Tomorrow we will attend church with Kelly and Fred and then relax in the afternoon along with packing our bags as we get ready to head for home. It's hard to believe that our 4 weeks of travel is almost complete. We have had wonderful experiences, seen amazing places and enjoyed many good conversations. We will arrive in Seattle sometime before noon on Monday the 28th.

Until later,

Eric and Kathy

Lovely Vienna

Thurs. Sept. 24th

We arrived in Vienna, the Capitol of Austia yesterday afternoon. We had a wonderful time with our hosts Kristin and Dieter Dworzak. They live in Freilassing, Germany which is approximately 8 miles from Salzburg. They took us sightseeing on Sat. and Sunday and then we were on our own for a couple of days. On Monday we rode the bus to Salzburg and spent the day wandering around town. Again, there is so much history everywhere you go in Europe. I can see why the U.S. is considered "young" in relation to the rest of the world. Tues. we borrowed Kristin and Dieter's bikes and rode to a quaint town, about 2 hours from their home. Austria and Germany have wonderful bike trails throughout the countryside and you see young, old and middle aged people riding bikes. Even though we are glad to be taking in some of the famous cities, we've decided that our favorite thing to do is recreat. I can see why people come to Europe to do bicycle and hiking adventures. The Bavarian Alps are breathtaking. We have also been blessed with good weather; comfortable temps. for walking the streets. We understand that the P.N.W. is experiencing an Indian Summer.
Today we are off to explore the city center of Vienna. Our host Kristin helped us to find a hotel in the heart of the city. How convenient for us that it is located directly next to a Starbucks coffee shop. I must say that it's been nice to see a bit of home. We did buy a city guide book but I wished that we had our faithful companion Rick Steves along on this leg of the journey as his writings have been so helpful.
I also must commend Eric for doing a terrific job mapping out our itinerary. He also has a keen sense of time and a good internal GPS as I tend to be a bit navigationally challenged, especially when I am hot and tired.
Tomorrow we head for Prague on the train to spend our last three days in Europe. The Lord has been good to us with many wonderful experiences and conversations with people along the way.

Until later,
Kathy and Eric

Now in Austria

Greetings from lovely Austria. We departed Venice on Friday afternoon. The train left the station promptly at 3:48 and arrived in Salzburg at 9:50 pm. I will apologize for any mispelling in this blog. We have found it a bit of a challenge to use a keyboard from a European country. Some of the keys are in different spots. Our last blog was short because of the expense in using the Internet.
Here are a few highlights of our time in Florence and Venice:
-We stayed at a B and B in Florence. The owner Graziella Panella (suggested in the Rick Steves Book) was delightful. She explained to us in broken english and with the help of Nimmi one of her summer helpers that her home was originally a convent built in the 12th century. Sometime in the 17 or 1800's her husband's family acquired it. She and her husband turned it into a B and B in the 1980's ( I think). They live on the middle floor and rent 6 lovely rooms to visitors. While having breakfast one morning we noticed two shelves with what appeared to be very old wine at least they looked old because she doesn't believe in dusting them. She did take one down from the top shelf that had the date 1840 on the label. She explained that her husband's family had a tradition of either purchasing or making 100 bottles of wine for the year that the family member was born. Each year the family would open a bottle in honor of the person's birthday. The 1840 bottle that she showed us was from her husband's great-grandfather.
-Our first day we took in two major sites; The Accademia which houses the famous statue "David" by Michalangelo and the Uffizi Gallery. Both of these are popular tourist sites so we were very glad that we had asked our hostess to reserve tickets for us ahead of time (also a R.S. suggestion). We climbed the 463 stairs to reach the top of the Duomo Cathdral to take in the view of the city. There is so much to see that it is hard to take it all in. Eric said that if he had a dollar for every time that I made this statement "I sure wished that I had thought to download the free R.S. audio tours on my IPod before we came" he would be rich!!!! If you want to shop in Italy come to Florence. It is incredible!
-Now on the Venice. We are very glad that we included Venice in our itinerary but it really is expensive in every sense of the word. One of our memorable stories was arriving in Venice on Wed. afternoon to a terrential downpour! I have never seen anything like it before. We hung around the train station for a while once we arrived hoping that the weather would clear before we ventured out to find our hotel. Alas, it did not. When we finally arrived we were like a couple of drowned rats. We emptied out our bags and tried to air dry things. It did clear later in the afternoon and we had two days of warm sunshine. Venice really survives on tourism and it shows. If I was planning another trip I can honestly say that I was glad that we saw it but I wouldn't be disappointed to not include Venice. We did get some ideas from a young lady and her mom who were visiting for a few days from London on how to save money and get away from the crowded tourist areas. We did take Rick Steves advice to get off the beaten path and explore side streets. Two nights and two days was really the right amount of time if not a bit too much.
Now in Austria - It is so wonderful to be in a home again. We are staying four days with Kristin and Deeter Dworzak. Their son Johannas is married to our niece Erin. When planning our trip they encouraged us to arrive before the week-end so that they would have time to show us some sites in the Salzburg area. We've had a wonderful time with them thus far. The mountains are spectacular, the food very filling. I will write more later when I have some time to collect my thoughts. One highlight was attending their church yesterday morning. Today, Monday Eric and I are off to explore Salzburg on our own. We will take the bus into town. We have already seen a few of the houses and areas where the Sound of Music was filmed. It's funny to hear the Austrians view of the movie as they see different locations pieced together.
At any rate our time continues to be wonderful as we get a flavor for different cultures. We have enjoyed a variety of conversations; some light and funny and others on a deeper level. We will be here until Wed. and then depart for Vienna which is a 4 hour trip by train. We will end our European travels in Prague and return to Seattle on the 28th.
On a family note:
We are keeping in contact with our kids by e-mail and an occasional phone call when possible. We are thankful that Joel was willing to stay in B'ham for the month of Sept. and take care of the house and dog. Tim is busy with life in Spokane this coming year working with the Whitworth Basketball program and....Kirsten and Sam are having TWINS! We phoned them on Sat. night and they gave us the news. One girl for sure and the other they were not able to tell because of the positioning. Maybe next month. Needless to say I didn't sleep well because my mind was buzzing with the news. She had an ultrasound on Wed. which showed two babies both with their own placentas so we know that they are not identical. Everything looks very good from what the Dr. could see. They too are digesting the news.
Well, all for now and more to come later. We love you all and look forward to seeing you and sharing photos with anyone who would like to see. We have had difficulty downloading pictures on Blogspot.

Will fill in some Austria details later and will leave for Vienna on Wednesday morning. This is our final week!!! Time has slipped by rather quickly. We hope all is going well with you all.

Until later,
Kathy and Eric

Leaving Italy and on to Salzburg

This blog will be very short as it is expensive to use the Internet in Venice. We have been in Italy now for one week, three nights in Cinque Terra, two nights in Florence and two nights in Venice. I will write more later about our experiences in each place. We are ready to move on and see new scenery.
Kathy and Eric

Pictures!

It's really slow adding pictures. Here's one at the top of the Duomo. We hiked up all 463 steps!!!

Kathy and Eric

Let the good times roll on

Dear family and friends,
It's been a number of days since we last blogged about our travels in Europe. It's been challenging to find the time to sit down to write so I will share some highlights of our trip thus far. It's hard to believe that tomorrow we are at the halfway point of our month long trip. We've lost track of time as each day is filled with different experiences. Here are a few highlights of what we've exerienced so far.
-We spent two days relaxing at a Protestant retreat center named Le Lazaret which is owned by the church of France in a fishing village called Sete on the Mediterranean Coast. It was a wonderful time with our good friends John and Letha Kerl.
-We then traveled to Paris and spent three days there taking in the major sights such as the Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, Muse D'Orsay,and the Rodin and Cluny museums and the awe inspiring Notre Dame Cathedral. We also took a twilight boat cruise down the Seine River enjoying the lights of the city at night. It's a maginificent city and we hope to go back some day.
-Friday we ventured on our own to the Cinque Terra on the French Riviera. After a long day of train travel, we were overwhelmed by the quaint and beautiful town of Vernazza. Of the five towns, we would concur with Rick Steves that it is the jewel of them all. One of our highlights was hiking between all of the towns along a steep and winding trail with pristine viewpoints. We can see why people who have visited want to return someday. Early this morning we awoke to the clanging cymbals and light show of a powerful thunder and lightening storm. We heard rain was in the forecast, but this was ridiculous. It subsided by the time we left and headed toward Florence on the train. After settling in at our Bed and Breakfast, we followed the advice from the Rick Steves Italy book and did a self guided walking tour to get accustomed to the city. Tomorrow we will take in several museums in this beautiful renaissance city and do a bit of shopping in the Market.

Having a lovely time and will now attempt to download some pictures to try and send off to you all.

Blessings from Italy,

Eric and Kathy

Reflections on our time in Lyon

Bonjour amis,
We are having a marvelous time with our dear friends John and Letha. They were able to take a few days of vacation from their busy schedule to host us in their home in Lyon. They have been so gracious to make our stay flawless. I think that traveling to a foreign country where you don't know the language or the culture can be both challenging and stressful at the same time. John and Letha take the time to explain etiquette in various situations.

Our second day in Lyon:

We had a leisurely morning before venturing out for the day. We walked a short distance to a beautiful 250 acre park named Golden Head Park (in English). The landscape, man-made lake and walking paths were very, very impressive. Adjacent to the park is a zoo. We continued our outing by renting bicycles and riding along the Rhone River. Lyon was the first city in France and Europe to adopt the concept of providing bicycles for people to use to ride around the city. One of the tour books mentioned that there are over 1,000 bicycles around the city. When you are through riding, you simply stop at a specific return/pickup location and lock the bike up. You must be sure that the bike is locked because if it's stolen you pay a high price to replace it. The French have it spot on with transportation i.e. walking, biking, buses and trains. We arrived home in the early evening to enjoy a salad and of course bread, wine and sorbet for dessert.

Our third day:

We drove about 30 minutes to the Beaujolais region. We spent the day meandering the countryside stopping at five different towns, each with it's own personality. One of the highlights of the day took place at the second town called Bagnols. John happened upon a Frenchman whom we named Francois. John who is the master of conversation opened the door for us to have a firsthand experience with a local wine making family. This was the first day of the harvesting of the grapes for the 2009 wine making season. Francois informed us that this will be a very good season because of the dry/hot weather doused with rain showers at critical moments. We watched the grapes go from the tractor/trailer to the conveyor belt and into the vat for the first pressing. He invited us down to the cave (wine cellar). He opened two bottles of wine, one red and one white from the 2006 season. I, who am a light drinker was a bit concerned about drinking two glasses of wine on an empty stomach, but I decided to relinquish myself to being a bit tipsy because it was such an incredible experience to be invited into the private life of a wine making family business. On an added note, we went to a local cafe' immediately and had a BIG lunch before driving on to the next village. The fourth town Oingt was celebrating it's 29th festival of grind organs, but without the monkeys though! How delightful to see people in costume turning beautiful grind organs on every street corner. You could imagine what life was like on a Parisien street in the late 1800's. Again, it's awe inspiring to think that these villages were built during the Middle Ages. We have wonderful pictures to remember these lovely villages when we return home.
Later that evening we dined at an authentic french restaurant called L'est. We were one of the first parties to arrive at 7:00 pm and within an hour the place was alive with activity. It was as if the wait staff knew the cues for each other as they appeared to work in perfect harmony. The Fench really do know how to enjoy a good meal and take great pride in the presentation.
We are now at a small fishing village called Sete' located on the Meditteranean Sea. We took the fast train from Lyon this morning departing at 7:10 promptly, arriving in Sete' by 9:00 am. We will write more later.

P.S. We think that we are people watching but in reality they are watching us and we are providing great entertainment.

Au revoir et à la prochaine!

Kathy & Eric

(We will try to add some pictures next time)