Our 2 month adventure is coming to an end ...

The end is near friends and family, but dispaire not! We have some beautiful pictures from the last few places we've visited and we will be making at least one more post, possibly from London.

After enjoying our time in Amsterdam, which included the city and the outskirts, we barely caught our 4:20 Ryan Air flight [which we originally thought was at 6:30] from Eidhoven to some place an hour and a half outside of Stockholm.

Stockholm is a georgeous city, and is similar to many other sea fairing cities in that it had a rich past that included a lot of sailing back and forth. We learned that Sweden and Norway both still have Royal families, though neither are in direct ruling status. We also went to this dank, but really impressive museum where we got to see one of the world's oldest wooden battle ships. This particular boat never made it more than a few miles from shore, but it probably the best preserved specimin from before the 1600's due to the cold waters near Stockholm. The museum is called the Vasa Museum, and if any of you come to Stockholm it is worth a visit.

We stayed near the Nobel museum, where the Nobel family has displayed some relics from its famous past, and we also saw the impressive city hall where they hold the Nobel Prize ceremonies every year.

After a quick day and half in Stockholm we caught a train to Oslo and then a few transfers on our way to Flam. Pay close attention to time on the watch in the picture below, yes that is PM not AM.

The effects of the 24 hour sun [which scandanavia is famous for around this time of the year] were wierd enough without the help of our sleepless night train, and subsequent 5 hour layover in some town called Myrdal [which looked to have nothing but trains going through it .. not a road in site], all of this culminating in a goofy but beautiful train ride from Myrdal to Flam that included beautiful waterfalls, valleys and a Nymph which will we have to save the video of for later.

Once we finally arrived in the touristy, but awe inspiring landscape [see picture at the top of the post] of Flam we snuggled into our cabin. We eventually came out to enjoy the scenery and a 4 hour boatride that took us through parts of the world's longest Fjord the "Songefjord" where we took some great pictures and generally just took in the scenery.

After a few days in Flam, living as cheaply as possible because Norway is ungodly expensive, we made our way back up to Oslo. Hopefully we'll find some good pictures to share with everyone from Norway's capitol.

Anyway, we will see you all soon!

- CC & JW

Thuis (at home) in Amsterdam

We have safely arrived with Jeanette and Laurens, and we feel like we've come home. They have been sooo nice! They moved their spare beds up to the loft, or as Aunt Winnifred calls it "The tower room", and have given us a tour of the more remote areas around Amsterdam. They even had a hot delicious meal waiting for us after meeting us at the train station. Hopefully they will be able to visit us in Toronto some time so we can return the hospitality.

Anyway, just before coming to Amsterdam we went to little place in south Germany called Fussen. In this small village where the Bavarian Royalty used to live we went to see a couple small castles ...

Oh my god!! Ok, they aren't actually small. The smaller one is Hohenschwangau which was really more impressive on the inside but they wouldn't let us take pictures! I blame a tourism conspiracy. But the humungeous one (which Disneyland based their castle on) was spectacular.

They call it a fairytale castle because the crazy King Ludwig spent a tonne of his royal inheritance on building it, though it was never completed due to his mysterious death at age 40. It was medeavil style on the inside, decorated in impressive detail, and even after 17 years of work was only 2/3rds completed.

So after spending some time in Fussen we are getting ready to explore everything Amsterdam has to offer. There are beautiful canals galore and we have been given some suggestions about the museums and shops and bike paths and lots more. So far we have seen "Broek in waterland", and "Marken" which are two unique villages just outside of Amsterdam were they have traditional garments and houses that all must remain the same by law.

Both villages are right on the ocean, but are inside the sets of dykes (dams) that protect massive portions of land that has been reclaimed from the sea. The shoes made the visit worthwhile :)

We hope you're all doing well, we've only got a few more stops on our trip, so enjoy the last couple weeks and the pictures. We'll see you all soon.

CC & JW

Good King Wenceslas looked out...on Prague

Soo for those who did not know...King Wenceslas is the patron saint of the Czech state..and of course, the guy in the christmas carol!!
There's a big statue of him outside the national museum here in Prague, as well as a funnier one of him on an upside down dead horse...(pictures to follow)

We LOVE beautiful beautiful Praha. It is WAAYYY more than we expected! Its a real medevil town that was virtually untouched by the wars so most of the buildings are older than dirt.
Although it is completely overrun with tourists, we are enjoying our extended stay here.


The first night we wandered through the city...for longer than we expected to (the streets are VERY confusing) enjoying everything lit up and even some fireworks to top it off :)

We've been through all the big sites including the castle and some WW2 memorials and enjoyed some amazing czech beers. We even watched a Football match between Austria and Croatia in the Old Town square where they had some Huge screens set up...and of course beer tents!
We also love prague because the medevil town kept the medevil prices...and Jacob likes the dragons....hee hee
Anyhow, like we said, Pictures will follow, but we forgot our camera cable back at the hotel.
Lots of Love,
C & J

Budapesccchhhtt

We're alive and well and enjoying the pessccchhht. Thats what they call the newer side of the city - the poisonous Danube river separates us from the historic Buda side. Hence Buda-Pest. We've had plenty of history lessons since we arrived here late Wednesday night. Our walking tour of the city showed us heroes square, castle hill, and all the monuments to Hungary's right hand man St. Stephen.

We've relaxed in the Turkish style bath houses, and enjoyed some delicious local cuisine, though I think the duck in France was still the best meal we've had. They say you should experience Europe through its food, but if that is true then Europe is just one big Gyro. We've had some variation of gyros in every city we've visited, Greece's were definitely the best.


Tonight, for our final event in Budapest we're going to experience our first Opera, Tchicofski's Onegin, at the second best Opera Hall in the world. Apparently the best one is in Milan, but we don't feel like being pick pocketed this trip, so we probably won't be visiting there.

After tonight it's another early morning train ride all the way to Praha, or Prague, were we should be able to see our first full fledged castle! Along with a lot of other entertaining venues, it should be fun. We haven't decided where to go in between Praha and Amsterdam, but we'll be sure to keep you posted.

All our love to everyone back home, especially the black fluffy one.

C and J

Dubrovnik

Some exciting news to share with everyone...Jacob proposed to me in Rome! We apologize for the delay in sharing the news, but we had to get a hold of the parents first!

Thanks for all the well wishes! :)

This is a pic of our final sunset in Greece, what an amazing time we had. So relaxing it was hard to leave, but we had to keep on trucking, and boating, then flying, and bussing, then boating again and then 1 more bus before we arrived in Dubrovnik.

Heres a pic of us in Old Town which was originally built in the 1100's but destroyed a few times and re built because of war and earthquakes, definitley the most unique city we've been in. Croatia is also amazingly gorgeous, with its cliffs and oceanic horizon its a view that can't be beat. We are becoming stairmasters here, EVERYWHERE is uphill....there are 200 stairs up to our hostel - try that with a 18Kg backpack on in 35 Degree weather after spending the night on the deck of a ferry.....WOOT

Next we are off to budapest. Hope you are all doing well and keep in touch!

C & J

Napoli, Athena and the glorious Greek Islands

First and foremost, we have fixed the comment section of the site so you can post without logging in or having an account. Let us know if any of you still have issues.

Secondly... ahhhh greece. We have made it from beautiful Roma, down the amalfi coast to Napoli (naples for you westerners :p) and in spite of being in the middle of a garbage strike it was a wonderful experience. We ate delicious world famous pizza, stayed in a very unique and friendly hostel and saw both pompei and Mnt. Vesuvius. After that we flew to Athens from Bari and had a much smoother flight that the one to Roma, which means I (Jacob) may be able to convince Claire to get on the plane and come home in a few weeks.


Athens wasn't nearly as dirty as people had described it, though our hostel had some disgusting flora fauna and other residents. We only stayed there for one night, but made the best of it with a six hour walking tour of Athens that included the Acropolis, the old ruins, the 1890 Olympic Stadium and a few other tidbits.


Finally, we took a ferry over to the island Aegina for 6 nights which is absolutely gorgeous... Between the mountains and the Ocean and the white and blue buildings, sand beaches, 30 degree weather, we are just loving it here!!!! And we learned how salty the mediterainian sea is!! Keep your mouth closed :)

Anyhow, we're thinking of you all and hope that you are keeping well.
Bye for now,
Jacob and Claire :)


(p.s. Claire likes napping ... a lot :p)

Roma!

Hey All, so we made it to Rome, and when the plane landed I nearly kissed the sweet Italian ground because our flight had so much turbulence for the last 30 minutes I thought I was going to die. People were screaming books flying around - it was terrible, needless to say i am super excited to fly to greece with Krazy Klown Airlines again. On top of all that, Jacob nearly got us arrested at the Barcelona Airport by trying to bring 2 knives and a fork on the plane....
Anyhow, we are now spending a few days touring the sites of Rome - Today we went to the Vatican Museum but it was closed so we'll try again tomorrow. So we had to settle on seeing the Pantheon, Castel sant Angelo, Some Berini fountains, the spanish steps, and Piazzo Del Popolo.
Thanks to everyone who left comments and who are reading up on our adventures, we miss you all :)

Ciao Bella,
ps. Jacob is too big for europe...but hes so cute :)

Barcelona

¡Ola!
hi everyone, well we finally made it out of france after a small detour through Toulouse where we enjoyed a day of biking around an a delicious meal of the local specialty - Duck!
So now we made it to Barcelona which is gorgeous! The people are very friendly and the streets are clean. But the architecture is really what amazes us here, each building seems so unique and of course all of the different buildings designed by Gaudi - he and Dali must have been on the same drugs, I mean...who would build a real life gingerbread house! I wish we could put up some of the pictures but the computer at our hostel won´t let us. Our hostel here is really good, in a very clean neck of the woods and last night we went out with a bunch of other traveling Canadians.
On Saturday we are flying to Rome...we were intending on taking the train, however the ride is 26hours...believe it or not we weren´t too into that!
So Adios for now and hopefully our hostel in Rome will let us post some more photos!!

The black stuffed toy is Lola, we miss her :(

_mont saint michel_

Un Chat? Cest ne pas un chat! cest LOLA!

Hi everyone, we are having a good time, though slightly trapped in France due to there 5 day holiday. Our 6:55 am train in a few days time will take us to barcelona and we will finally be free! For now we are going to try and find a winery to enjoy in Toulouse, and look forward to mopeding down the coasts of spain.





Hopefully I wont have to walk much farther like this...

Hello All, We have arrived in Paris and spent many many hours sur les pied tromping around seeing all the sights and fights that the passionate Parisiens have to offer. We have learned a bit about the french culture too...first off, there is nobody over 30 here, 2nd nobody works...or if so it is like a 3 hour workday - the rest of the time you can find everyone lounging around in front of the Louvre or the Seine.
Our hostel is directly in the red light district, in fact there is a Tranny club right across the rue...ne pas de probleme...i have spent a year working at Bloor & Sherbourne.
Hope everyone is well and enjoying drab T.O.

Team CC goes to Europe!

If you were looking for Claire and Cob's (JaCob's) blog about our travels to europe you 've found the right page! Come back soon to enjoy our adventure, or live vicariously through us because your life is boring.