Well, Dianne’s long standing wish has finally come into being. For years she has wanted to head down to Utah to visit the various canyons she has heard about from her parents, her brother and his wife, and many others including friends from Europe. She has been reading books and pouring over various articles on the internet. She has an agenda and a porter to do the heavy lifting. We headed out on May 11th. But first, because we would be away on our daughter’s 50th birthday, we stopped overnight in Mission to take the birthday girl out for a pre-birthday dinner. Happy Birthday, Christine. The blog is a bit delayed because we have had a problem getting consistent connections to charge the computers and access to WiFi. Also had trouble reading the screen due to ... read more

Unlike Montpellier which has no Roman or Greek heritage, Nîmes has a very rich Roman history. The first thing that struck us when we started walking away from the gare was that there must be a mandate for all cities to have rows of trees lining the boulevards that lead away from the stations. This town was no exception. The Arena of Nîmes The biggest difference is that this tree lined lane leads you to one of the best preserved Roman sites we have seen to date: The Nîmes Arena. It might even be older than the Colosseum in Rome. It has the best information signs of all the sites we saw in France with many of them in English as well as French. It told us not only that the arena was still in use ... read more

Well, back in Montpellier for 23 nights. Whatever will we do to fill our days here in the south of France? We have already visited many of the sights in Montpellier and know our way around the old town. We don’t even need our map (most of the time). Time to get out train schedules and visit some of the towns in the area. Sète We had already visited Sète (see previous blog) but didn’t have dinner at either of the places we had identified. Peter and Bev had recommended the Gourmet Walking Tour which is run by a Canadian woman who has lived in France for 30 years. Hmmmmm. Food, wine, desserts… Sounded good to us. We met up with Nancy and another couple at the Grand Hotel and off we went. Nancy was able ... read more

Oh, boy… 7 nights in Paris… This has to be great! If we can find our Airbnb. Our SIM card doesn’t seem to work so we can’t phone the Airbnb to let them know when we will arrive. Two metros take us to the closest station and, while we were standing there trying to figure out which way to go, a man walks up and asks if he can help. Turns out he is from Chile and he has a brother in Canada. Whenever he is in Canada, many people are helpful so he is glad to be able to help. He even phoned the Airbnb for us. He was leaving the next day for Brazil so our timing was great! Airbnb The airbnb is in the Latin Quarter and within walking distance of just about ... read more

Brussels In keeping with our usual practice, we decided the first thing to do was figure out where we would be leaving from the next day. The metro dropped us at Gare Nord and we were leaving from Gare Midi so we hiked right across the old city enjoying what we saw but intent on getting to Gare Midi. The Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries were beautiful. They rivaled the Galleria in Milan for looks and prices. I won’t be shopping there any time soon. Well, window shopping maybe. Outside the Gare-Midi (train station) we found an enormous outdoor market. It took forever just to walk through it. Once we figured out the train station we decided to stop for lunch. While waiting for our food, we poured over the map of the old city to decide on ... read more