Title:  All Good Things...

Yes we are home now but we had a wonderful experience.  Travelling is not only fun but truly an education.  We learned history, about other culture and customs, more about wine and food - a total package.

We spent a few more days in Amsterdam and thankfully the weather improved (as we were not dressed for cold.  The sun favoured us most of the next few days and we walked and walked.  We seen all the typical sites and covered it all on foot.  No shortage of places to shop in Amsterdam (not my favourite vacation activity).

Here is what we liked best:

• Pecorino cheese from Tuscany (medium)
• Tuscany Wine tour
• Experiencing something spectacular around every corner in Rome
• Sitting on the side-walk and eating/drinking as the people passed by
• The spectacular Swiss Alps
• Getting to know some of the fabulous Rhineland - while we only seen a part of Germany it was a great part with friendly people.

What we liked least:

• Traffic in Rome - road lines and crossings are invisible to drivers - you need to be brave
• Bicycles in Amsterdam - there cars and even trams stop at cross-walks but bikes ring and bomb through.

Friendliest people:  Italy and Germany  (least friendly is undoubtedly the Swiss)

Best value / prices: Italy and Germany  (most expensive is undoubtedly Switzerland)

Best food:  Italy (and on the cruise boat)

Best wine:  (that we tried) Italy

Overall we are blessed to have been able to make this trek!  The hundreds of pictures will now have to keep us satisfied (at least for a while).

Title:  It's all down hill from here

We boarded the Avalon's new ship "Visionary" which is leaving for it's 4th commercial sailing.  We are following a route that has been taken for hundreds of years BC though we will be living in better conditions than most who have traveled it.

I could have entitled this blog "the spread of western civilization" had I known the history lesson we were in for - a lot of the things we learned and were reminded of in Rome are tied together on our Trip down the Rhine - the shore guides not only speak great english but all are well educated and excited about their topics.  We see wonderful towns, another wine vineyard, and more churches that are simply amazing.

We have visited places that have impacted everything from religion to knowledge. (Luther to Gutenburg) and have seen the result of many wars, in fact in the German town of Mainz have preserved ant remains of a bombed out church and have added columns to hold up the remains as a monument to the impact of war.

We went for the new boat but should have realized that even Dutch/German engineering can leave the first users of a new product still working through some problems.  In any case we have been finding the cruise to be fabulous to inform us about areas in Germany that we may have never visited - places like Koblenz and Spire that we loved and would like to see again.

Cologne still smells (they have fixed their ancient sewer problems but people still wear way to o much "cologne".  The church is magnificent inside and out - it rivals the Milano church but it is not as beautiful and it took longer to finish - though they still are working on it.

Our Dutch guide tells us arrival day is a typical Nederland day ( rain, cold and very windy).  No wonder they found a way to harness the wind - they have lots of wind and water!  They take us in a canal tour of Amsterdam and a cool tour to a "typical Dutch village" of the old days - windmills, cheese making and wooden shoes - a great way to end the trip on the boat - we are already looking forward to being back on our own schedule with three extra days in Amsterdam.

Title:   Leaving the beauty of Bellagio for the beauty of the Swiss Alps

We had a great last night in Brellagio, thanks to the recommendation of our "land lord" Flavio - we were picked up and driven way above Bellagio to a working Farm/Restaurant that overlooks Bellagio - beautiful food and scenery in one sitting!

The next day we ferry to Varenna and catch the train down the north leg of the lake then to Tarino where we are disappointed to find the Bernina Express has no window seats left - well sometimes things work out best - turns out there is an excellent train, leaving earlier on the same track through the Bernina pass for less money.  As it turns out the four of us and one other passenger have a whole car to ourselves - facilitating viewing of the scenery we could not have done from the packed cars with the bigger windows - awe-inspiring views!

Only Joe MacGillvary couls get a free beer from a passing train bar car we happened to stop beside.

After spending considerable time 'above the tree line' (when we closed most of the windows) we landed in Pontresina early and had a good stopover with a small hike in this small but expensive ski town.  Then we headed through some more alps and then began to slowly descend and moved on to Zurich to be picked up for part 2 of the Eurotrek - being picked up by Avalon on June 3.

Zurich