Paris/Barcelona/Lisboa

The Louve



Eiffel Tower








Paris Eiffel Tower




Rabbit -Barcelona outdoor Market







Morning after overnight train ride







Ola From Portagal!
The last week has been a whirlwind. We spent two days in Paris, saw the Louve (a crowded tourist spot) and the Eiffel Tower. Went to Riems, part of the champagne district in France, toured the caves of Pommery cellars and tasted champagne. We took an overnight train to Barcelona (six people jam packed into a tiny space!!),  all I can say is it smelled like feet! Spent a couple of days in the campground that was right on the beach and went to the aquarium (supposed to be the biggest in europe but we found it small). It was a nice aquarium though. We then took a first class train to Madrid that had a fancy meal and then another overnight train to Lisboa Portugal. The overnight was a chair that we slept in, not comfortable at all, but we are here and it is sunny and warm and very nice. We will try and post more pictures when we get the chance. see you all soon!
Heather and Tom

Amsterdam!!

Hieneken Experience






Anne Frank House




Friends we met on the Train






Hey everyone,
Amstersdam is tons of fun!!  We went to a couple of coffee shops.....(you know what we mean) just to check them out. We didn't indulge as it seems all locals do.  We also went to the Hieneken brewery and took the tour of the original place where it was all started. We have had a lot of fun and a considerable amount af rain one might even call it a torrential downpour to be exact!!  Maybe staying in the tent in Amsterdam was a bad idea.  Anyway, we are off to Paris tommorrow and we will update you again soon.
Heather and Tom

Germania

Holocaust Monument








Munich








Munich Pub Crawl






Berlin Wall





Brandenburg Gate





Hallo,
The last week we have been on the move. From Zermatt we went to Zurich for one night then on to Salzburg, Austria to see the sound of music sights (no laughing) and Motzarts birthplace. From there to Munich where we went on a Pub Crawl, don´t worry we had a drink for each and everyone of you! Maybe two!! After a few days there it was time to find another military base to send items home so we went to Ramstin Airforce base. At this point (just over half way!) we both caught a little cold...to many late nights, rain for a week straight, oh and did I mention the pubs? So we checked into our very first hotel of our vacation the Airforce inn for two nights in a warm cozy bed ( a good deal being only 32 dollars). We rented movies, drank hot tea, bundled up on the couch, slept late, and ate out! It was nice to not have to worry about anything and just relax! We were feeling rested and a bit better so yesterday we traveled all day to Berlin. Today we are on a walking tour seeing all the sights including the Holocaust Memorial, what is left of the Berlin wall, Brandenburg Gate, the grass that lies over Hitler's bunker, checkpoint charlie, and a ton more. Having a great time.
Auf Wiedersehen,
HeatherandTom

The Matterhorn

Hello Everyone,
Writing to you from Switzerland at the Matterhorn in Zermatt. Is absolutely breathtaking here, there are climbers everywhere waiting for conditions to be right to make a go at the mountain. The views here are so nice that we were inspired to do our own climb,  a hike from town to the base of the mountain to get some more views (we about fell over from exhaustion). When they tell you it is a two hour hike, they really mean two hours nonstop at a jogging pace.  It is really similar to the cascades up hear, but a little more extreme in altitude. We hope be able to post some pictures from here and the other places loaded up here. All is well with us, and we are having a great time. See everyone when we get back.
Heather and Tom

Pisa/Cinque Terre

We spent the last two days in the Cinque Terre, a beautiful national park that has trails through 5 little fishing villages, built into the cliff side of the Italian Riviera. It was great to get out and hike all day with the olive groves, vineyards, and sea all along the way. The views were even better than the Almalfi Coast. We are headed to Como lake country tomorrow (we were suppose to be on the train now but once again the public transportation system failled us and we missed our connection). On our way here from Florence we stopped in Pisa, jumped off the train, rode the bus to see the leaning tower, took pictures of us holding up the tower, jumped back on the bus then train to Cinque Terre all within an hour!! A whirlwind event. Will post pictures soon. Heather and Tom.

Florence

Hey everyone,
We are in Florence now, we saw the museo of scienza. It is really neat, it had all kinds of scientific insruments from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It had a bunch of Gallileos telescopes and incline plane demonstration tools. Anyway, it was really intresting stuff. We also saw the museo Acedamia which has Michelangolos David statue. Very cool but you can't take any pictures, just like the Sistine Chapel. we are having lots of good times, the food is really awsome, and we will talk to every one when we get back.
Tom and Heather

Rome

Buongiorno,
Weve been busy the last week. Went to olympia in Greece and saw the Ancient Olympic arena *first pic*, then on to Pompei (after two trains broke down and everyone on the train had to be transfered to busses) to see the Scavi Ruins, and now in Rome. Today we went to see the Basilica Di San Pietro (which was free since it is the last Sunday of the month), the Sistine Chapel closed at 12:20 so we plan to see that tomorrow morning. We also went to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Fontana Di Trevi (where you throw a coin into the fountain and they say it will ensure a speedy return to Rome). As you can tell we are staying busy. having a great time. Arrivederci!

Back in Italy

Hey everyone,
Thanks for the comments on the blog, its nice to know you all are thinking about us while we are away. we visited olympia before leaving greece to see the ruins of the first olympic, the really old ones. it is actually smaller than you would think, but very cool. After a Stay in a nazi style hostel in Olympia we went to patras to catch the ferry back to Italy. When we got there they £$$&up our tickets and almost made us buy new ones back to Italy. We made a stink and threatened to call someone and all the sudden the ticket comp came. We made it back and now we are waiting for another train. we will post more pictures next time, cant here.
Tom and Heather

Paros

We made it to Paros, one of the Islands off of Greece three nights ago. It's a hard life buzzing around town on our scooter visiting all of the beaches, renting lounging chairs and umbrellas to shade us from the Sun that shines from 0700-2030 every day with a temp that reaches 85 degrees. Were doing our best to see the bright side of things though, our tans are looking great, and the water is beautiful. It starts out green at the shore but as you move farther out it gets a little more blue until all you see is clear blue water! We went to butterfly valley yesterday and took a ton of pictures. We have had a great time in Greece and we know we could spend the rest of our trip visiting the other islands, but were off to the mainland tonight and then we will work our way back to Italy. Its hard to post pictures here since the prompts are all in Greek. We will get you some soon. Heather and Tom

Santorini

Hi Everyone!
We made it to Santorini on Friday after our overnight ferry ride on the deck (or should I say Teenage Booze Cruise)! We have a campsite complete with fridge, kitchen, swimming pool, bar, and restaurant. Saturday we rented a scooter and buzzed around the Island, hit red beach and saw the Oia sunset (they say it is the best in Greece). Yesterday we took a boat tour to the volcano and swam in the hot springs, had lunch in Thirissa and went swimming again (it's hot here), and our tour ended about 5:30pm. Then we had to walk up 588 stairs from old port back to Fira. Each stair took about three steps so we had a great workout. Anyway lots of fun here wasting the day away at the beaches, eating gyros, and enjoying cocktails.  Take care. Heather and Tom.

Athens and the Ruins

Temple of Olympian Zeus
Parthenon Temple at Acropolis

Panathinaikon Stadium
Hi Everyone!
As you can see we have finally figured out how to put pictures on the page, bad news though-it takes forever so only a few pictures per entry. Today we went sightseeing all day long, the acropolis, Odeum of Herodes Atticus, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Ancient Agora, the Panathinaikon Stadium, and on and on. We started our day at 0800 and by 1500 we took a siesta in the National Gardens. It was intresting seeing everything but the hoards of tourists were always in the way. Tom has other words to describe them. Tomorrow we are off to either Paros or Santorini Island. We are having a great time. Heather and Tom.

Athens!

Just got to Athens, but the winery that we went to in Patras was really cool. Achaia Clauss was very old from the mid 1800's. Lots of cool stuff to look at,the old barrels of wine had extravagant art carved in them. The oldest was over a hundred year old batch of wine. Any way cool stuff, and drank a few bottles of wine waiting for the tour with some friends we met from Denmark. Stayed at Rion beach, lots of cool photos, still trying. Wish us luck!
tom and heather

begining of Greece trip

day one is pretty uneventful, the ferry trip was 15 hours long and we sat in airplane type seats. bad news on the pictures, i(tom) accidently erased the italy pictures of the Amalfi coast. so no pictures yet. we are still trying to figure out the picture posting also. so if you see some pictures on this post it means that we figured it out.

The Almafi coast

   We made it out of Naples, barely. It is not the cleanest city in the world, but it was fun. We got on the train to Salerno and then took a ferry to Almafi. It is so pretty here, the water is turquoise blule and very clear and the people are a lot nicer to us than in Naples. We found a hostel up the hills that let us put a tent under the lemon trees in the yard. Every house here has a lemon grove in their yard. We had our first authentic Italian dinner, a small box of wine and pasta with a jar of sauce on top from the local grocery store.
   The view is the best I have ever seen from where we are staying, it is about a thousand feet up the mountain side with the best view of the Mediterranean. Its breath taking. Will send pictures as soon as we figure out how :)
Tom and Heather

best plane trip ever!!

Hi Everyone!
We made it safe and sound to Italy! On our trip from St. Paul to London we were bumped from economy class to first class!! Hooray for us!! I felt like royalty. We were served a four course meal, champagne toasts, cloth napkins, and roomy seats with real pillows and pillow cases.  So we had a wonderful flight, but when we landed in Naples we were informed our backpacks were still in London. !!  Oh well.  
   We spent the day running around Naples, and for all of you who thought it would be yucky, you were right, what an armpit of a place!! Well time is almost up and hopefully our bags will arrive soon!!  We will write more when we get some sleep and can find a computer that works faster.
take care, heather and tom.

Off to Europe Monday

Hello Friends and Family.  Here it is, our Europe blog. Feel free to leave us messages on this or emial us directly. We look forward to leaving exciting entries and pictures so that each of you can enjoy our travels with us.  Have a good summer. Hugs and Luvs, Heather and Tom.