http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Mijke/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Mijke en-us Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:19:38 +0000 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:19:38 +0000 The marvelous adventure is over and we are back in Wisconsin. I don't know if anyone is still checking into this site as I let it fall by the wayside the past few weeks.....but we're back....and getting ready to head out again to Nantucket. So in the end we drove 20370 km. through 21 countries...not to mention travel on quite a few ferry boats. With gas ranging from 912 dollars a gallon...g http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Wisconsin/blog-290769.html Denmark was a good fit for all our traveling styles. Throughout this journey I've tried to keep a balance of all our divergent favorite parts of traveling and we hit them all in Denmark. For Chase you need history especially medieval or Viking and good museums are most appreciated. Marshall likes animals and activities. As for me I like scenery and seeing things that look totally diffe http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Denmark/blog-282772.html We are on the boat from Norway to Denmark now. After leaving Finland we spent a couple of days in Sweden. Stockholm is a beauitiful city built on a number of islands connected by bridges so you always see water and beautiful boats. The changing of the guard at their palace is fun because they have about 50 soldiers on horse back some with swords some playing musical instruments. We saw the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Norway/blog-280264.html Marshall and I had a really relaxing week in Finland Chase on the other hand was worn out bruised but very happy by the time we left. We spent 8 days in Finland so that Chase could study with one of the world039s foremost medieval sword fighters. He trained all day on two saturdays in workshops with other students trained privately each mornng then again at the sword school for about 4 h http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Finland/blog-278177.html Mark joined us in Prague as did the entire rest of Europe it seemed. Here we are for 3 months and we chose Prague as a place for Mark to join up with us for 5 days not realizing it was the biggest weekend of the year in that city. It was the 4day May day weekend and the entire continent apparantly decided to go to the Czech Republic. We could only find a place to stay for the first two nig http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-274486.html After our whirlwind visit to Vienna Slovakia gave us a slower paced few days. All over Eastern Europe there is work being done on buildings and streets making up for years of crumbling neglect. This was quite evident in the small capital city of Bratslavia. It has a charming old center which was apparantly ignored for about 40 years and is now getting fixed up. We headed into the cent http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-271643.html Last time I posted was from Romania the morning that turned into my favorite day of our trip...if not my favorite travel day ever. Throughout Hungary and Romania I have loved all the horse drawn carts. We saw a farm with a sign that it gave cart rides. We ended up getting a couple of hour ride through the Romanian countryside in an old wooden wagon filled with hay driven by Cowboy and h http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-270011.html We left Turkey and began our 3 week or so journey through Eastern Europe into Scandenevia. The first stop Bulgaria was certainly a change from the countries we've seen thus far. For one thing we entered the country completely blindly with no plans or ideas of what we'd see. I mistakenly thought Bulgaria was in a guidebook I had brought so we had no information at all about the country. The http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-267584.html Our border crossing from Greece into Turkey and our first few hours in Istanbul had us so nervewracked I thought I would not enjoy the stay....but a few days later as I luxuriated in a Turkish bath life couldn't have gotten much more blissful Crossing from Greece is still like crossing a military zone. You must go through 6 or 7 checkpoints each one with a bunch of soldiers with machine g http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-266238.html Greece has been a grand adventure. Staying on the Peloponnese Peninsula was great for day trips to many ancient sites and several islands with ease. We went into Athens twice and saw all the sites such as the Acropolis there. On Sunday they have a huge flea market that spills out over several blocks and contains much junk but also amazing quantities of cool antiques like swords war memoroblia http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/blog-264368.html We finished off our three weeks in Italy heading south to Pompeii after Rome. Pompeii was an amazing site. It was stopped dead in its tracks one August morning in 79AD. And now nearly 2000 years later you can still see brightly colored mosaic floors beautiful frescoes painted on the walls water pipes bakery ovens and the best preserved building in townthe brothel complete with little ro http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Pelopennese/Nafplion/blog-262729.html We're in Rome now having left our little home of 10 days in Tuscanny. It was a cozy spot to explore the region. Easter was spectacular. We went into Florence and took part in a celebration that dates back about 500 years where they explode a cart of explosives when a dove flies in. For a couple of hours prior there are people around in medieval costumes and armor throwing flags beating drum http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/blog-259869.html We are really having a great time. We are renting a small house in a little town in the hills of Tuscany. Well they call them hills but driving around they feel more like mountains. They are steep and the roads are very windy and it takes about an hour to get to a place that the GPS says is 10 miles away. But at least it is always a charming and beautiful hour as you pass old castles rising http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/blog-257921.html Our first week has been magnificent. We flew into Nice and got a car which we will have for the next 3 months. We drove around Nice and Monnocco and on to Italy. We first visited Cinque Terra which was amazing. It is five medieval towns seperated along a seven mile stretch up on cliffs or down by the sea. Chase broke his ankle on New Years eve and only got the cast off two weeks ago so I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-256325.html The boys and I will be leaving Sat. the 8th of March for our latest adventure. Last year we visited our 50th state so now it's time to head back to Europe. Four years ago we spent several months covering several countries and this time have decided to try some different countries. We will spend a few weeks in Italy a couple of weeks in Greece head over to Istanbul then up through Eastern Eu http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/blog-252909.html