uvalawtina

Today we fly home to the US and end our 3 month journey of Europe. We have really enjoyed our trip and keeping in touch with so many of you through this travelblog. As our final blog, we thought we would sum up our trip with superlatives. Enjoy! Best Big City: Paris Best Medium-sized-city: Salzburg, Austria/Krakow, Poland Best Coastline: Croatia Best Beer: Belgium Best Restaurant Food: France Best Snack Food: Italy Best Wine: France (Matt), Spain (Christina) Most "Foreign" country: Portugal/Hungary Most Mansions: Bordeaux, France Best Medieval Experience: Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic Best Walled City: Rothenburg, Germany/Bacarach, Germany Coolest Roman Ruins Outside Rome: Split, Croatia Best Public Transportation: Venice Most English-speaking: The Netherlands Least English-speaking: Spain (not including Marbella) Most Intriguing place: ... read more

Today was suppose to be a nice day, consisting of the following: 1. Wine tasting at a little vineyard in the morning (yeah, thats right, drinking in the morning again) 2. Driving to Tours, Cheneceaux, and Blois for some chateau hopping, nice French dinner, and stay at a cute little hotel overlooking downtown Blois. None of those happened and we ended up eating pizza at 11PM at a restaurant next to a roadstop and staying at a Holiday Inn Express somewhere on the road to Paris. Here is how it went down: Wake up at Audes, get the directions for the vineyard, chateau hopping, and the hotel and head off. We had an amazing bottle of wine at dinner the night before and wanted to go taste some more and make some purchases to bring back ... read more

Because we had a lot of time walking the castle walls in Avila and because we are nearing the end of our trip we started a list of things we look forward to upon our return: 1. Steak Houses 2. Thai food 3. In-n-out 4. Understanding the menu 5. Coffee to go (and big coffees) 6. The complete season to date of Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Deadwood, Boston Legal, all 11 Patriots games, the Daily show from the week up to and including the recent election. 7. Movies in English 8. Girly gossipy magazines like People and US Weekly (I think we know who wants these) 9. Cold milk 10. Hot showers 11. Sugar substitute 12. Ketchup 13. A real martini, not premade and poured from a bottle 14. Watered-down American beer 15. Not paying 6 ... read more

1. Tangers is the Tijuana of Moracco. Dont bother. Its not worth the money, headaches, and hepatitis C. That is what we were told, and Christina had already been there, so we skipped it. 2. "Bullfight anybody?" (asked to my parents, my little sister, Christina and both of her parents) Answer: 2 yeses, 4 maybes, and 1 no. Guesses on who said what? 3. The Christians are hilarious when they take over a muslim mosque. AND LAZY!!! They come across a beautiful Moorish temple that took 100 years to build and is considered the height of Moorish art and what do they do? They make it Christian. But, do they knock down the temple the infidels built and rebuild on the sight their own church? No (thank goodness, because that would have been a shame). They ... read more

General Overview: 1. Our Public Needs Us!!! Sorry for the long delay between blogs but we've been traveling too fast to slow down and write. Christina and I have locked ourselves in an internet cafe and will hammer out a few blogs to get you guys through your Monday. 2. We have added something to our Dont Judge It Before You Try It category: Rose wines (accent over the e, which are pink wines similar to white zinfendal). When the waitress at our very fancy, very Provencial restaurant suggested a pink wine to go with our meal, I almost laughed (this is the wine Provence is known for). But alas, I tried it and it was suprisingly good. So, we decided to do a little wine tasting while in the area, which leads me to my ... read more