At the crack of noon (we’re on holiday), Monday, July 13, it was a quick trip from Karlsruhe back to Kandel to pick up our charges, Delaney and Brett, and head to France. Destination for the next four days would be Nancy in France’s Alsace Lorraine region, with a short stop-off to see the cathedral …
Saturday, July 4th No fireworks for us–saving them for Bastille Day. Today it was back to Centraal and back on the train, this time to Utrecht to catch a bit of the prelim stage of the 2015 Tour de France and to visit our Gallant friend and Utrecht native Sophie. More and more it seems …
Thursday/Friday, July 2/3 Travel day is travel day–long, tiring, a bit of a blur. Fly to Paris via Detroit; TGV/Thalys fast trains to Amsterdam (Amsterdam flights were really expensive); Thursday morphed into Friday. Anyway, the four of us made it. After 36 hours of being on the go, the fine Dutch beds felt pretty good. …
French ATC decided not to strike (at least for now), bags are packed and we’re on our way. #excited.
Looks like a couple of ATC unions in France might be making our departure plans a bit more interesting. C’est la vie.
Since 2010, I’ve tried to keep a little running notebook–mostly for our own reference/enjoyment– during our Euro travels. Results have been spotty at best and generally unacceptable. Seems like we’re just too busy trucking around, drinking beer, trying to find someplace to do laundry… Anyway, after 2014 I said I was pau with paualready.com. Changed …
I did comment on the tough driving in Spain, but oh how I jumped the gun. In retrospect it was a probably a good idea because it helped me prepare for what is the unabashed chaos of Moroccan motoring. Signage means nothing, lane markers even less and meshed into the motorbikes, buses, trucks, donkey carts …
Laurel has a fondness for ruins of the Roman variety. We’ve hit many of the biggies; Rome, Pompeii, Arles, but also several smaller, less-known empirical remnants. Leaving Zagreb a couple of years ago, we zigzagged over a series of two-lane suburban roads until, just across from the Croat equivalent of a 7-11, was this cool …
It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road for over a week. We’re on our second day in Sevilla in the Andalucía region of Spain. Sevilla is filled with reminders of how, at some points in the past, people of different religious ideologies really did get along. Granted, at times blood was spilled, tribes …
Of the thirty or so diners in our restaurant of choice Sunday evening, I think there were only two not speaking Portuguese. This was definitely a local ‘family’ spot and most certainly our kind of travel eatery. Ordering was accomplished with lots of gesturing and pointing and not too many words The result was a …