http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/L and J in Portugal/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from L and J in Portugal en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:08:59 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:08:59 BST We took a trip to Panama over Jason's spring break in March. We started in Panama City then headed to the mountain town of Boquete and then spent a couple of days in Bocas del Toro a chain of islands on the Caribbean side before heading back to Panama City. On our first night in Panama City we stayed at La Casa de Carmen a hostelbudget hotel that had gotten great reviews. We met some fun http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Panama-City/blog-275948.html We left Boquete and took a short flight from David to Bocas del Toro. Most of the flying time was spent circling higher and higher over David so that we could clear the mountains that run through the center of Panama and get down to the Caribbean coast. Bocas del Toro is a chain of islands near the Costa Rican border and we stayed just on the outskirts of Bocas Town the biggest town in the are http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Bocas-Del-Toro/blog-266158.html From Panama City we flew to David second largest city in Panama and drove around 45 min. to Boquete. Boquete is a relatively small town 6200 people according to Wikipedia in the mountains near the border with Costa Rica. It is growing really quickly due to a large influx of American and Canadian retirees. We saw a lot of gringos around town and were amazed at all of the billboards in Engli http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Boquete/blog-266134.html We were a little hesitant to go back to Panama City after the less than good first impression we had gotten of it. But it was either go to Panama City or sleep on the beach in Bocas in the rain so we went. We stayed at a hotel that was recommended by some people we'd met in Bocas who were going to be staying there for our second night. It was pretty nice and when we asked for a room with a v http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Panama-City/blog-266015.html http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/blog-261428.html Photos from the last six months in Minneapolis. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Minnesota/Minneapolis/blog-237223.html Last stop before flying home Brussels July 2007 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Belgium/Brussels-Capital-Region/Brussels/blog-236897.html After three days in 268esk Krumlov we caught a bus called Autobusy in Czech to Prague. The ride was more peaceful than our death defying shuttle from Austria but it was about 90 degrees on the bus and there were people with standing room tickets in the aisle so it was a cozy ride. I visited Prague with my grandparents and my cousin when I was 12 and although I didnrsquot remember muc http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/North/Prague/blog-236830.html From Munich we flew to Brussels and then hopped a train to Brugge. The Brussels train station was really confusing the guidebooks had warned us and we were still surprised how bad the signage was and we ended up chasing down a very friendly train conductor to ask him where we were supposed to go. Then we spent most of the train ride to Brugge convinced that the Dutch announcements were telling http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Belgium/West-Flanders/Brugge/blog-236822.html Munich July 2007 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Munich/blog-236809.html Rothenburg July 2007 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber/blog-236652.html We spent a couple of nights in Freiburg as part of our road trip around southern Germany. We stayed at the Black Forest Hostel which was great. It was kind of industrial feeling and had a really nice functional kitchen that we used to make dinner one night. It was located just a couple of minutes from the town center and the room we had the first night was on the side of the building that fa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Baden-W-rttemberg/Freiburg/blog-236647.html We stopped for a few hours between the Rhine Valley and the Black Forest in Heidelberg. What we noticed in Heidelberg other than that the castle was very cool was how many Americans were there. Between tourists students studying abroad there and the nearby American military base it seemed like one out of every three people were heard talking was speaking English. We spent some time browsin http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Baden-W-rttemberg/Heidelberg/blog-218038.html From Helsinki we flew to Cologne Germany. We just had one night there and had found a great deal at the Hilton so we got off the plane looking forward to a nice quiet night filled with bubble baths television in English and high threadcount sheets. That wasnrsquot exactly what happened however. As we got off the train from the airport in downtown Cologne we noticed big crowds of people ev http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/Cologne/blog-184490.html Wersquove been bad about updating our blog lately sorry We've got good internet access again though so we'll get all caught up in the next few days. From Tallinn we took an hour and a half ferry ride across the Baltic Sea to Helsinki. The ferry was great and even offered opportunities for those interested to buy cases of vodka and beer at ldquolow Estonian prices.rdquo We didnrsquot http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Finland/Uusimaa/Helsinki/blog-183934.html After checking out of our retrotel in Echternach Luxembourg we headed back east into Germany and towards the start of the scenic part of the Rhine River Valley called the lsquoRomantic Rhinersquo. This area had a fun mix of castles wine especially Riesling and windy roads running along the river. The Rhine River valley was also busy with trains on both sides of the river and barges goi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Rhineland-Palatinate/Sankt-Goar/blog-183930.html We picked up a rental car Peugeot 207 in Cologne and took the Autobahn southwest towards Luxembourg. For the 5 days we were driving around Luxembourg and Germany we didnrsquot have any hotel reservations. Not having any reservations gave us some flexibility in this portion of our trip which was good because we were indecisive about exactly where we wanted to go. We drove for a few hours an http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Luxembourg/Luxembourg-City/blog-183929.html When Lindsay and I were planning our trip this summer we were always keeping an eye out for cheap budget flights. One great deal that we found was a flight on Easyjet from Berlin to Tallinn Estonia. We also found a flight from Helsinki a short ferry ride across the Baltic Sea from Tallinn back to Cologne Germany. It turns out the cost of the two budget flights plus the ferry was comparable t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Estonia/Tallinn/blog-177224.html We left Prague and took a five hour train ride to Berlin. The train was nice but had this weird system where some people had seat reservations and some like us didnrsquot so there weren't two seats together anywhere in our car that were unreserved for the entire trip to Berlin. This meant that we and lots of other people had to juggle ourselves around in different seats for different segme http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/District-of-Berlin/Berlin/blog-177113.html We took an airport shuttle from Linz Austria to Cesky Krumlov across the border in the Czech Republic. Our shuttle driver may have been a nice man but he drove like a maniac. He went about 70 mph down small windy back country roads barely wide enough for two cars and then slammed on the brakes and veered to the right every time another car appeared. To his credit he did sometimes slow down a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/South/Cesky-Krumlov/blog-175572.html