A friend of mine turned 40 in late September, and late September is when millions of Germans celebrate Oktoberfest for 2 weeks, so I felt compelled to attend my 3rd such festival. And perhaps even more compelling was the chance to see a new country, Belgium, and to sample the […]
We loaded our Kia Carens, left our Paris apartment, and said “farewell” to the barista we’d seen every morning for a week by 9am on Tuesday, June 13. It was time to head west. Just over an hour later, we pulled up at Giverny to see Monet’s gardens. If this […]
On Monday, June 12, we arrived at the Palais Garnier, the original Paris opera house, at 10am and signed up for audio tours. The children had their own version, and the voice leading theirs was, most appropriately, the famous Phantom of the Opera. I’ve never seen live opera nor spent […]
On Sunday, June 11, we arrived 45 minutes early for our 10am time slot to visit 6 million dead people in the Parisian catacombs. We descended a spiral staircase into the underground–130 steps–leading to the darkness below. We walked 1.5km, stopping at visual markers that synced with our audio tours […]
After our 10am stop at Cafe Victor Hugo on Saturday, June 10, we took the metro to Puces de Vanves, which was a big ol’ flea market area. I got some vintage pipes with artwork on them; my bride got some coat rack thingy for the children’s backpacks that was […]
On Friday, June 9, we arrived at the Louvre at 10am. An hour or so later, our friends arrived, and then the 10 of us meandered about the museum, checking out artifacts and art among the roughly 5 million Chinese tourists who were also checking out the artifacts and art. […]
“When in Paris, the only thing one should leave to chance is the Loterie Nationale.” – Ernest Hemingway June 8 was our third day in Paris. Deciding the attacks with hammers were finished, we went to Notre Dame cathedral and the nearby archeological crypt (after our usual cafe au lait […]
The 5 of us were biking along the canals behind the palace at Versailles when my 8-year-old followed my detour off the main path to see where a hilly dirt path that went into the nearby woods might lead, as it seemed more exciting than the wider main trail. He […]
We boarded the train in York and arrived at King’s Cross on July 7, briefly stopping at Platform 9 3/4 before depositing our bags at the AirBnB in London. Then, I met my distant German relative, Andreas, and his girlfriend to tour the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studio, and it […]
As the girls sang “Welcome to Old York” to the tune of the similarly-titled Taylor Swift song about NYC, we started our 1 day in what would become one of my favorite cities visited in the world. We came by train from Edinburgh after returning the car. Then, about a […]