I may have mentioned before that I love castles so when I saw Chillon Castle on the banks of Lake Geneva or Lac Léman I knew we had to visit. We took the train to Montreaux, which is famous for its summer jazz festival as well as having a recording studio for Queen. If you get off the train at Montreaux you have to walk … Continue reading Montreaux, Switzerland

You can’t beat the beauty of Switzerland…the lakes, the snow topped mountains, and the cleanliness of all that surrounds you. It is amazing that even in a large city, everything is so clean! I can’t decide if I would recommend visiting in November. It was a bit chilly and we had several gray days, but the crowds were nonexistent. It was so peaceful to wander … Continue reading Geneva, Switzerland

We traveled to Ghent on a Monday, which is apparently akin to a Sunday in which there was very little open including restaurants. We didn’t care because we were on a mission to see Gravensteen Castle, which basically translates into Stone Castle. (I love castles, so expect to see a lot of blogs in which we are wandering around them.) We arrived right when they … Continue reading Ghent, Belgium

I fell in love with Brugge (or Burges if you are looking it in English) as soon as we started walking down the street from the train station. The beautiful constructed houses on the canals, some with the dates displayed on the façade, the arched bridges over the numerous canals, and the skyline of gorgeous spires were all enchanting. Our primary focus for visiting Brugge … Continue reading Brugge

Perhaps the best thing about Belgium, besides its beautiful architecture, is the chocolate. It is EVERYWHERE. We has our first hot chocolate yesterday in Brugge in which we whisked solid chocolate into hot milk. It was so rich and earthy tasting. I tried a fair trade dark chocolate and Jef had a Vietnamese chocolate, which was lighter than mine. Today we stopped at Pierre Marcolini, … Continue reading Tasty Treats in Belgium

We leave on Thursday for Brussels. I am certainly looking forward to trying some craft beers and tasty chocolate! We better plan for a lot of walking because I hear that the waffles are also amazing. Our vacation is for four days and we hope to do at least two trips outside of Brussels. Do we go to Burges? Antwerp? Ghent? All of them and … Continue reading Belgium is up next!

I was very interested in going to the British Museum. I’ve seen it in so many movies and referenced as having all kinds of items that I wanted to see. I really love Egyptian artifacts and I was so thrilled to see the Rosetta Stone and the various mummies. However, the sheer number of people who were also vying to see these items made it … Continue reading British Museum, British Library, and King’s Cross Station

If you like beer, I highly suggest several pub stops while in London. We replaced afternoon tea with a beer stop instead. On Friday night, after dinner, we were walking around and discovered that EVERYONE is out having a beer on the street next to the pubs. I had forgotten that when I lived in Spain we did the same thing. It’s a fun atmosphere … Continue reading Westminster Abbey, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, Sir Ian McKellen, and Beer

Our long layover and little sleep caught up to us and we didn’t get moving until after 10am. I had a plan to get to the Tower early because that is what all the guidebooks tell you to do, but I also knew that it was better than trying to get there on the weekend. We took the Underground to Tower Hill and bought our … Continue reading The Tower and St. Paul’s Cathedral

We had about a 6 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. Instead of wasting time in the airport, we decided to head into town. Before we left, we took advantage of the lounge’s showers and breakfast fare. Even though each of us had about three hours or less of sleep, those showers gave us the extra push we needed to get out into the city. We … Continue reading Frankfurt layover