Our Grand European Vacation 2007
In and around Europe
This is the first journey as a retired couple. We leave the United States on Royal Caribbean Line's Jewel of the Season April 15th for a transatlantic voyage to Europe. The first port of call is Cork, Ireland, then to Cornwall, England, LeHavre, France, Brussels, Belgium and ending in Amsterdam, Netherlands. From Amsterdam we will take the train to Paris, France where we will meet a Grand Circle Tour group taking the Burgundy & Provence River Cruise to Nice, France. In Nice we will rent a car and drive to Lucca, Italy to see Steve's grandfather's birthplace. After 4 days in Lucca we will return to Nice to catch the Eurostar to London, England. In London we will see Phathom of the Opera. From London we will take the shuttle to Southampton where we will board the Queen Mary 2 to sail to New York. We will spend one night in New York, taking in the Broadway play, Lion King. The next day we will take a train to Richmond and thus ends our Grand European Vacation!
Route taken and entries by Real Traveler Steve & Sally
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Day 1 - April 15, 2007
We had the usual stress of flying the same day as our cruise travel. All in all, we just missed the bad weather and made it to the cruise port in p... Continue reading »
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Cork and the Waterford Crystal Factory
We weren't able to update this blog site until we arrived on land with a good internet connection. The following is from the update we sent a... Continue reading »
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Fowey - A Charming Fishing Village
Our tour was in England – more specifically Cornwell, England - we took a 1 ½ hour bus ride to a small fishing village called Fowey, pronounced lik... Continue reading »
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4
Normandy-From Bayeux to the D-Day Invasion
At 9:15 p.m.on June 5th, the BBC announced to the French Resistance that the landing was imminent, signaling to the underground to start dynamiting... Continue reading »
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Brugge - A Beautiful City
After a 30-minute drive from the port, we arrived in Brugge where we began a guided walking tour. We also took a beautiful canal boat tour of the c... Continue reading »
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Amsterdam & Kuekenhof Gardens
Our journey in Amsterdam began with a tour of the city by bus, then a stop to the largest diamond processing facility in Amsterdam, then a canal boat... Continue reading » -
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Queen's Day Celebration
Today is our last day in Amsterdam...
Every morning starts with coffee & tea – our room has a really nice area for preparing our drinks.... Continue reading »
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Enroute to Paris
We had a wake-up call at 6:00 am so that we wouldn’t have to rush – after a tea & coffee we departed the Amsterdam Hilton via taxi to Amsterdam... Continue reading »
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Paris & Versailles
This morning we started bright and early on a 4 hour bus tour of Paris – this included stops to view the Eiffel Tower, Champs Eylsee, Arc De Triump... Continue reading »
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Giverny, Mussee D'Orsay, & Moulin Rouge
This morning we headed to Monet’s home, Giverny – it was a brief 45 minute drive from Paris – for those of you that have seen the famous Monet gard... Continue reading »
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Beaune and Boarding the Provence Small Ship
If you were reading “cliff notes” our day would sound like this – left Paris on bus è arrived on River Boat. You would miss the entire experience o... Continue reading »
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Wine Tasting in Beaujolais!! C'est Magnifique
The morning was very relaxing – breakfast around 9:00 am – then a relaxing 4 hour cruise on the Rhone River to our mid day destination of Trevaux –... Continue reading »
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Lyon - Markets and Monuments
Today we found an Internet Café in the morning – we were able to collect our email – unfortunately we were not able to send any of the daily journa... Continue reading »
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Tournon - Dinner with our host family - The Lobac's
After a morning lecture on the French Resistance during WWII, we said farewell to Lyon and began our leisurely cruise to Tournon – along the way we... Continue reading »
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Avignon
Today we arrived in Avignon which is a walled city from the medieval ages. IT is here where the Pope settled and built his 'palace' before moving t... Continue reading »
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Arles
We arrived early in Arles to begin our tour. Again, this is another medieval town with great Roman influence. They have a coliseum…just smaller tha... Continue reading »
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Aix En Provence & Nice
Today we said farewell to the Provence ship...our home for the past 7 days. What a time we had!
Aix En Provence is a rather cosmopolitan city... Continue reading »
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Heading for Lucca
Leaving Nice – picked up our rental car – headed to Lucca …
We had a nice stay in Nice – this morning we left our tour group after breakfast.... Continue reading »
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Finding Steve's Grandfather's Home
We were up bright and early today because our plans were to locate the house that my grandfather lived in.
I want to share that we had a wond... Continue reading »
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Return to Nice - On Our Way To England
We left Lucca around 9:30 a.m. and headed back to Nice to return our rental car, spend the night and catch the TGV to Lille Europa, connecting to t... Continue reading »
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London
We arrived on time on the Eurostar. What a great 'flight'.
We had to que up (stand in line) for nearly 30 minutes for a taxi in L... Continue reading »
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