Travel Tuesday

Oh wow! Where to begin. There are so many stories, so many places we visited, so much fun and laughter, so much food, so much chocolate, so many pictures--just so much of everything. It's going to be very hard to really narrow it down. Plus I can't exactly remember where all of these are from--and it's too big of a job to check the metadata on each photo. So, I'm just posting the pictures. 

We went to many towns in Germany--Breisach, Speyer, Rudesheim, Koblenz, Cologne--Basel in  Switzerland, Strasbourg, France and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. But, here goes--lots of photos:

Stephanie and Nicky treated us to lunch at this French restaurant on the canal before our tour of the Anne Frank House. 

Posed for this portrait with Mindy and Justin (theirs is the exact same).

Jordan, Emily and Morgan.

Matt and Sharon.

We spent a lot of time in the lounge on the boat. It was one of our favorite things as we had a few waiters really taking care of us--Rudy, Jet and another guy whose name I do not recall.

Hanging out on top of the ship was our most favorite thing. We just about had the whole place to ourselves. Plus our "buddies" from the lounge waited on us up here. This is all 16 of us here.

Morgan, grandpa and Jordan.

Butch and I on the narrowest street in Rudesheim, Germany--we try to find the narrowest street just about everywhere we go--all over the world.

We had the BEST schnitzel at this German restaurant in Basel, Switzerland.

Swinging out over Amsterdam.

Daniele was the activity director. He took a shine to our family--mostly because these kinds of trips are mostly old people. Most of our family is closer to his age, so he developed a good rapport with all of them.

Our guys (holding Daniele)--from left: Nicky, Butch, Olly, Mitchell and Justin.

Butch found a geocache in the water dangling from a chain where Switzerland, France and Germany converge. It's amazing to be standing in all three at the same time.

Sandy and Greg.

This is where Butch found the cache. 

Daddy's baby girl!

A beautiful shot of one of the canals in Amsterdam. If I had any room, I'd have this one blown up and framed. I think I'm going to do it. Surely I can find a place. 

I wasn't here to witness Mitchell and Greg sharing this gigantic beer.

In Rudesheim, we all stopped and spent 2Euros for a little capsule of flower seeds. There were two types, so most of us got one of each. Isn't that the cutest thing?

There were lots of pretzels eaten here and there.

We played Boggle while floating down the Rhine. They have a game room on the ship, so Jordan and Morgan picked it.

All Matt wanted was beer. Everyone enjoyed a lot of beer! I don't really know if the beer was better in Germany than what we have here. I didn't think to ask.

Us with our grands--notice the castle in the background. Where we were sailing this day was called the Lorelai Valley on the Rhine. I said it looked like a subdivision of castles--there were so many, but they were pretty far apart. It was just one after the other. So cool!

Mindy taught us how to prop your phone on the ground to get tall things behind you.

Butch and I had a lock engraved for the "love locks" bridge. 

The only windmill we got to see. Of course, we saw plenty when we took our Tulip and Windmill tour in April. We weren't in the right place to see more. This one is really just a photo op for tourists.

Lots of beautiful sunsets cruising down the river while sitting on top.

I do not recall the name of this church, but it's been under constant construction since 49 ad.

Steph and family.

On the first day of our cruise, the grands were disappointed that we weren't able to sit on top. We went through 7 locks that day, so no one could be up there. Instead we took over the "little" lounge on the boat. 

This was the dart contest. Mitchell and Emily were the winners.

Mindy's photo tip would have come in handy for this one.

Apparently dogs are welcome at restaurants in Germany!

Mindy and Justin in Breisach.

Grandpa with Morgan and Jordan!

Okay, I think you get the idea. It was a great trip. Well, until we were on the way home. As I say, the airlines try to ruin every trip! Morgan and Olly's flight to Chicago from Heathrow was cancelled, so they were stuck overnight. Matt and Sharon were so delayed that they missed their connection to St. Louis. The got home, but it was much later. All of us from Nashville arrived about 2 hours late. Sandy and Greg--Jordan and Robbie's flights went off without a hitch. It's so frustrating. The airlines are so unreliable. Makes me want to quit traveling. But as Butch says, once there's some time passed, it doesn't seem so bad. That might be true, but I never forget!