Europe 2008

I may never get all of our great Europe pics on here, but i hate when things are not in chronological order, so here is an incomplete post. i will add pics soon.

After flying in from Tchad to Paris we spent 2.5 days in Paris. We saw Notre Dame, the arc de triump, the louve, the eiffel tower, the gardens of versailles, and ate delicious falafels! We took a evening boat tour of the city and watched with surprised as the eiffel tower turned a beautiful blinking blue. This video is better than ours, so enjoy:

After missing the train out and getting ripped off by this restaruant that promised wi-fi, we then took a train through the french countryside to Milano(Milan), Italy. We got in very late, but God protected us.

We spent the rest of our time exploring Italy's western coast. We first went to these cute seaside towns called the cinque terre, where we swam and jumped off big rocks, hiked beautiful vineyard trails, walked the "via del amore," and took a really relaxing and scenic boat ride. While we were there some other guests in the home we stayed in highly suggested a town called Priano on the Amalfi coast.

we then took the overnight train all the way to Napoli (Naples) and went in search of Priano. We had actually reserved a room ahead of time, unfortunately by the time we got to Napoli they had given away our ocean view room, and then by the time we took the Circumvesuvian train and a tour bus along skinny roads that on 1 side was the cliff and the other a 1000 ft drop to the ocean (awesome ride btw), they had given away our 2nd night at the hotel!! And this was Friday and we really didnt want to change hotels on Sabbath. So we made some calls and then rented a scooter to find another hotel (thankfully almost everyone in Italy speaks English ). We finally found one and they allowed us to move our stuff in, but not pay until after sundown.

The views in both places were awesome!

On Sabbath we had breakfast with a view and then studied the lesson quarterly in a swing on the patio, then Jason suggested we continue our study at the top of the mountain. So we had a great hike with breathtaking views and just happened to find a pinic table to finsh reading the Bible. We also found blackberries and figs to eat right off the vine/tree. It was awesome!!

We then left Priano and headed back to Sorrento where we stayed in a campground with a tiny cabin. We wished we had found more places like it, cause we spent way more money than expected on hotels. We took a day trip to the island of Capri and went into the blue grotto. very cool, highly recommended.

We discovered our new favorite dessert while in Italy--sorbetto (sorbet)!! Our very favorite here in the states is Haggen Daaz's coconut sorbet, but there it was cantaloupe.

We also spent a half day exploring Pompeii and the archeological museum.

We then went to our final destination--Roma(Rome). We only had 2 days, so we did a open bus tour where you can hop on and off at your leisure. We saw the coliseum, forum, julius ceasar's tomb, the Marmartine prison that housed peter and paul in the new testament, st.peter's basilica, etc.

Then back to the good old USA, and God was so good to us. Even though we missed some trains, we didnt have anything stolen, or harmed in any way.