Where we are staying at in Italy, the small town of Ghirla, is a nice quite place. The weather has turned warming than usually in this part of Italy. The temp is in the mid 90’s but the humidity has to be 70% +. Our first few days where filled with local trips all within a couple hours drive of the house. On Friday we visited the city of Milan to the south of us. Milan is the second largest city in Italy. We parked just outside the city and road the metro train in. We saw the major sights, [View Full Entry]

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We had another long day of driving ahead of us. Today we were off to meet the rest of the family in Italy. The day of driving was going good until the last couple of turns. We took the A9 instead of the A8, which basically took us 30 miles to the East. No problem, we just plugged the coordinates into the GPS and found our way. We told the family that we would be there around 3 pm. It was 10 after 3 when we entered into the small town. As we drove past the small bus station, we saw [View Full Entry]

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What a great day! The wind had stopped, the sun was out, and there was even a nice cool sea breeze. We were heading off to see the famous beaches of the French Riviera. We decided to take the scenic route that winded through the hills and countryside. When we reached Cannes, we found a shop and purchased some beach towels and a new pair of swim trunks for me. Parking was hard to find, so Nic went in while I stayed with the car driving around. Nic got the stuff and we were ready to go. We found a [View Full Entry]

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We got somewhat of an early start this morning due to the amount of driving we had ahead of us. Our plan was to make it to the seaside town of Sete and camp there. As we drove along the long desolate highway, we quickly noticed this was the windy region. There were electricity-producing windmills everywhere. The wind was strong enough to move around our little car. We were surprised at how quickly we reached our destination. We drove through the town that we thought would be a nice beach village and found it was nothing more than a smelly commercial [View Full Entry]

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We had a late first night in Barcelona: Drinking, talking to other travelers and doing laundry. Once again, we had a room all to ourselves. Barcelona was still warm and muggy when we woke in the morning. We headed by foot down to the city center. After checking out the scene, we got on a sight seeing bus. It was a double decked one just like in Paris. We went all around the city seeing the major landmarks. Unfortunately, I don’t have too many pictures to show for it, as the batteries on my camera went dead. It was very [View Full Entry]

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We got an early start this morning from the hostel. We knew it was about an hour drive to Pamplona so we left at 530. The drive into Spain was great. We went through some of the nicest scenery since Switzerland. We almost ran into about 60 sheep crossing the road. When we reached Pamplona, we saw everyone camping on the edge of town and in the parks. As we got closer to the town’s center, it looked like a war zone. There were people passed out on the sidewalks and in the streets. There was trash and broken glass [View Full Entry]

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Nic and I headed south towards Spain today. Today must have been the first official day of summer because half of Europe was on the road with us. The driving was very slow going, but it was pleasant because we had good weather for once. The further south we got, the nicer the countryside was. When we reached within 60 miles of our destination, the rolling hills turned into vast canyons and mountains. Everything was green and lush. It almost looked like some painting of the French Countryside. Our hostel was located in a small village on the border of [View Full Entry]

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We headed out of Paris wondering what we had missed. We probably missed some stuff, but I think we hit the major points of interest. Anyways, it wasn’t worth wondering around the city aimlessly getting soaked by the rain. We were driving to the middle of France, to a place called Poitiers. Poitiers had no attractions; it was just a stopping point that looked good. Quite honestly, most of this trip was not planned. Some days we didn’t know where we were sleeping the following night. That was how we wanted it, and it seemed to be working good for [View Full Entry]

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Nic and I said our goodbyes to Tori and her family; they were off to London. We set off to see the rest of the sights in Paris. Our first stop was the Louve. This is the largest art museum in Europe. It houses the original painting of the Mona Lisa, and many other works of art. Just the outside of this museum was impressive. After that, we bought a ticket for the sight seeing bus. This was one of the best deals. We rode the bus around the city on the open top second deck and saw every thing. [View Full Entry]

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We woke this morning at our hostel to gentle rainfall. Our plans were to see Brussels on our way to Paris. As we drove the two hours to Brussels, the rain was coming down in sheets. We finally made it there. I wasn’t to impressed. Our first stop was to look at the European Union Headquarters. This building was heavily guarded so we just took a picture from the outside. Next, we drove into the city center. It was probably some of the worst traffic I had ever seen. We looked at some of the old buildings and then headed [View Full Entry]

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