We’ve been busy…a trip to Europe from May 2-19 took us from Vienna, Budapest, Venice, Verenna (Lake Como), Province and Paris! Check out our photos – 345 of them! Enjoy.
Highlights of the trip: Venice was wonderful, we were there 1.5 days and could have used about 2 more to really explore. Verenna in Lake Como was lovely, very picturesque – we were there 3.5 days and likely could have cut it down to 2. Paris was fantastic, as usual we stayed in the latin quarter where it was very lively. Next time we’ll find an apartment for a week! Lots of eating, walking and shopping! I didn’t put on any weight, mainly due to the walking!
My favorite dishes: Caprese Salad (tomato and fresh mozzarella cheese!), Salade Nicoise (tuna and salad stuff, YUM), Steak Tartar (yep, that’s raw meat!) and Snails. We also had a crepe in Paris that was fantastic (ham and cheese!) JT and I took it across the street and had it in a lovely park.
Best buys: Milan skirt (brown dotted skirt), brown capris from Paris, and a couple of really sexy bras from Venice (those Italians know how to make lingerie).
Best Adventures: Venice – the Valporettos (water buses) went on strike on the morning we were leaving…we ended up having to walk about 1 hour with luggage in tow. The bridges in Venice are stepped, never ramped! The roads are cobblestone or brick…thump thump thump. We could have taken a water taxi for $80 and as a good friend put it “you cheap bastards” but then we wouldn’t have had the adventure.
The car: the car that we would be spending about 15 hours in (7 at once, then various day trips) would have cost us an additional $500 to drop in a different country than where we picked it up…ended up not costing the drop off fee because we got a France origin car. A teeny tiny little Mercedes. The boys filled it with luggage (see photos) packed so tight. T and I couldn’t see each other in the back!
Manifestation, Paris: Upon arrival from Avignon TGV we could not get a cab because of some Manifestation (Protest) whereby the protestors blocked all bridges to car traffic. When I went back into the train station to buy a map (because we didn’t have any maps because we had Garmin) I noticed army guys in fatigues with machine guns – which kind of freaked me out. John and T had noted that there were some bad guys convicted in France the day before so we figured it was related to that…so we didn’t want to be stuck in the subway, so we walked to our hotel…about 1 hour!!!! That glass of wine was well deserved!
A few shots:
This little movie is taken from the top of the Arc de Triomphe one weekday afternoon. It seems that a bunch of students got together to protest something or such, and blocked traffic for about an hour. The dark blue area on the left are the cops, very systematically walking after the students. They didn’t really seem interested in catching anyone!
This little video is the speed of the TGV from Avignon to Paris (about 800 km in 2.5 hours!!!!)
And last but not least, this little video is a street entertainer on Montmartre directly on the steps to the Sacred Heart Church.
Kitcheninspirations 
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