YEAR 3
Visby - A very nice old town. A nice place to spend the day walking around.
Stockholm - I finally return to my Grandfathers home country. The Gamla Stan (Old Town) was a nice place to wander around. The visit to the Vasa Museum was the highlight. We are already planning our return to Sweden. With a real Swedish lunch - TGI Fridays.
Tallinn, Estonia - A country very proud of their new independence. Our first view of Russian Orthodox Churches, they are very impressive.
St. Peterburg, Russia - The highlight of the trip. Absolute monarchs can build some impressive buildings. The Peterhof, impressive building and the Pool of the Great Cascades; the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood, even the name is impressive; the Hermatage a vast museum built as a palace for Empress Elizabeth and a visit to the tourist store for souveniers. Most of the buildings suffered extensive damage during World War II, the Russians have done a fine job of restoration.
Copenhagen - a tour of Copenhagen with none other than Hans Christin Andersen himself finished the week. Hans was very informative and entertaining as he showed us around the city. Lunch was very good a the Old British Pub. And finally a visit to Tivoli, an amusement park that can trace its history back over one hundred years.
A good cruise but the food and service did not live up to our previous cruise with MSC. We will try again in October when we will sail on the MSC Armonia to the Greek islands. Great company on this cruise and a good time on the boat.
Greek Island Cruise on the MSC Armonia. We flew into Venice Friday evening for our Sunday cruise.
The high points of Venice: Water Taxis, a vist to the island of Murano to see glass blowing, the Hotel Bower and the wonderful city of Venice. We sailed on Sunday to the following ports:
Bari - This time we did get to see the bones of St. Nicolas, good shopping.
Santorini - For the climb to the city of Fira, Sara and Lisa rode the donkeys to the top while Jim, Jake and I took the more practical gondola. We walked the narrow streets, ate at a wonderful Greek resturant overlooking the bay.
Mykonos - A night visit for shopping and ice cream. Not being able to find our way out of the narrow streets was the highlight of the evening.
Piraues and the wonders of Athens - A very quick trip to the National Archaeological Museum was followed by a wonderful trip to the Acropolis.The Acropolis is full of history and is awe inspiring.
Corfu - The story of the cruise. We signed up for a day at a Greek beach at a high end hotel, we ended up at a out of season, stoney beach nothing go on beach. Luckily the Ski & Fun club 2001 was open and the kids were pulled behind a boat on a Great Big Marble. It saved the day!
Dubrovnik - Our second visit here for shopping, pizza and wandering around the old city.
This cruise lived up to our expectations food and service were great.
End of season soccer tournaments - Jake was in Paris, Sara was in Munich, what to do to see both? Here is what I did:
Wednesday evening - Drive to Munich. Stay at a tiny very German Inn near the airport.
Thursday - Up at 4:30. Fly from Munich to Paris. Drive from Paris Orly to the soccer fields, watch 2 games. Stay at an Ibis hotel next to the largest mall I have seen in Europe.
Friday - 2 more soccer games. Drive back to Orly and fly back to Munich. Stay at the Kempinski Hotel at the airport.
Saturday - Drive to Sara's soccer fields. Watch Sara play two games and kick the winning goal in the championship game. Drive back home.
Our trip to Gotland - Lisa reconnected with Anne-Lena.the exchange student who stayed with her family. Anne-Lina and her family now live on the Swedish Island of Gotland. So we flew to Stockholm late Thursday and on Friday were flew on Skyways airline to Visby where Paul picked us up and drove us to their house in the countryside.? We got to see the wonderful Gotlandish countryside: Good food and good company.
The whirl wind trip to the USA for Christmas!
Fly to Cincinnati, drive to Olean, Christmas, fly to Park City, UT. (Good skiing and very good vacation) fly back to Buffalo, drive to Cincinnati, fly back to Frankfurt. The highlights: PS3, everyone upgraded to 1st class, Jake's glassblowing and dinners with family.
Ski Week.in the Tyrol, Austria.
If you would like a ski vacation in Austria call Tyrolain Tours! They deal with engish speaking vacationers and are wonderful. Stayed at the Landhotel Alphof in Kirchdorf, also wonderful. The worst snow they have had in 20 years but there was enough to ski. We skiied Kitzbuhel and Steinplatte. Steinplatte was better but would have loved to ski Kitzbuhel with more snow. We took a one day break an drove into Innsbruck. Visited Swarovski's Crystal World, very nice but different. Had lunch at the top of the Olympic Ski jump, the Black Bread soup is wonderful. Finally, a couple of hours in the Old Town.
A word of advice. If you are going to drive in Europe, on a major highway, on a Saturday, during ski season start very very early.