Hanser on Tour

As many of you know Rich and I are back in the United States, but we still want to tell you about the rest of our adventures, so we are going to finish the rest of the countries for you. So, on February 16th we headed to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Amsterdam is a very cool city that is full of canals, very narrow houses, and steeped full of history and traditions. The next morning we joined a walking tour to explore the city. The walking tour started at the Dam, in the center of the city, near the war memorial, which is as it sounds a tribute to all those who perished in past conflicts. The Dam, as you might have guessed derives its name from its original function, a dam over the Amstel River (also ... read more

During our spanish adventure we decided to go over to Portugal to explore Lisbon and the surrounding areas. On the 31st of January we took an overnight train to Lisbon and arrived the morning of the 1st of February in Lisbon. After getting settled, we explored Rossio Square where the Teatro Nacional is. Next, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Oceanaria de Lisboa, or the Lisbon Aquarium. The aquarium has a huge tank (the size of four football fields) where the animals of the world's oceans can interact just like they do in the wild. Otters as you can see are also a big hit at the Oceanaria. We then treated ourselves to a movie and pizza! On Saturday the 2nd of February, we headed down to the water and the harbor exploring ... read more

In the hills of southern France we found our next destination, the historic walled city of Carcassonne. The Romans first fortified the hill in Carcassonne around 100BC and the fortifications were expanded over the years. The fortified city that had been built up over the years became a centerpiece of the crusades to wipe out the cathars of the area. The city and battlements were expanded over the years and the city became a vital military outpost along the boarder with Spain. In the 1800's the city was put up to be demolished, but after some heavy campaigning the city was saved. The architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc was brought in to renovate the city and all of the old town was restored to reflect the way the city looked in the middle ages. Before we could get ... read more

We took the train down to Zurich and settled into our nice "cheap" (if you can call $30 a night in a dorm bed cheap) hostel. Our first day was a cold, wet day so we spent time inside at the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum which took us through the history of the area from prehistoric times to the present. We also got a nice introduction to just how expensive the city is with a nice simple dinner that only cost us $80 or so. The next day we walked around the city checking out the sites on the banks of the Limmat River. We saw the Rathaus, Grossmunster, Wasserkirche, Fraumunster, St. Peters-Kirche, and the Lindenhof. In the afternoon we met our friend Roger whom we had first met in Australia and who lives in Zurich. Roger took ... read more

There we were sitting on the train to Krakow all by ourselves watching the snow-covered landscape crawl by when this young, rather inebriated guy sits down next to us and begins to talk to us in rapid Polish. I finally get a chance to tell him that I don't understand a word he's saying. Now normally you would expect the conversation to be over at this point but this didn't phase him at all. For the next hour or so we talked in sign language, broken English, and the few new Polish words this guy taught us. What a great introduction to Poland. I was on my own for the first day because Britt was under the weather and resting up; I started my tour of Krakow out in the Rynek Glòwny, or city square, which ... read more