Summer Vacation; Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, and Berln

For our summer vacation we decided to drive and visit a few countries and camp in between spots. We started off with the country of Luxembourg and visited the Luxembourg American Military Cemetery here there are 5076 American graves here.  Almost all that are buried here died during the Battle of the Bulge.

General George S. Patton is buried here as well in the front of the cemetery between the two flagpoles overlooking all the Soldiers.

This is the view from General Patton's Grave

 While we were there the park ranger asked if I was military and when I said yes she asked if Jonah and I would like to retire the colors for the day.

 I felt extremely honored to retire the colors during 4th of July weekend surrounded by all these great Soldiers.

Jonahs Cub Scout training paid off on the flag folding

This is a Memorial Chapel at the front of the cemetery

We had a great visit, I would recommend anyone who is visiting Europe stop by this small country and visit some of our American Heroes.

Europe camps a little differently than we do in America. Campsites have full amenities, each site has water and electricity, there is usually a nice playground on site and all of them have a restaurant on site. 

 This is our 4th of July BBQ at the campground, we even found a Dr Pepper at the local grocery store

 Jonah challenged me to the obstacle course

In the town center was the Museum of the city of Brussels

The Manneken pis is a little fountain created in 1619 of a boy peeing 

 So many decisions on what chocolate to buy

Godiva chocolate factory window 

 Yummy

 A trip to Belgium would not be complete with out eating a Belgium Waffle on the town square.

 Next we drove to The Netherlands, above is a picture of the old and new wind turbines.

All of the waterways though out Holland were beautiful to look at. There are rotating and movable bridges everywhere to allow boats through the area. It started raining pretty heavy so we did explore Amsterdam, instead we went to the largest indoor flea market in the Netherlands. Then we drove to Berlin.

 For our last night of vacation we decided to stay in a hotel, this is the view from our room.

I can remember the day that the Berlin wall fell in 1989. 

The wall separated East and West German. You can learn more at history.com/berlin-wall

 Old sections of the Berlin wall, now looked at as art history

This is a reproduction of how the two sides where divided and shows how hard it would have been to try to get across.

 The famous Check point Charlie is still standing for visitors to see and take pictures of with some "American Soldiers" (they are Germans in American Uniforms hired by the city). This was the main passage between East and West. read more: checkpoint-charlie

 Built in the late 1700's the Brandenburg Gate is the last remaining gate of the separated Berlin. See brandenburg-gate

Our last ting to visit was the Holocaust Memorial, this is a piece of artwork in remembrance of the over 6 million Jews murdered during the holocaust. Holocaust memorial

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 8 Venice

 Venice is a beautiful place.   

 Zackary is great at adding filters to his pics they look like postcards.

 The grand canal is big and busy, there is no reason to spend loads of money on a gondola unless you just want pictures and memories of it.  It is just as easy to use the public transportation boats and travel the waterways.

 There are no shortages of gondolas and people spending loads of cash to ride them.

 It is a whole different world watching the locals travel on water and park their boats at the local docks.

 There is just a maze of waterways and narrow roads.  The Venice card is well worth the money you get public transportation, wifi, and bathroom visits.  You can also add entry to the museums and churches but we chose not to. 

 This pic that Zack took looks like a painting.

 We went to go see the area that has the Venetian glass makers and watched them hand blow some glass.  Unfortunately you can not take pictures.  The hand blown glass is amazing, super detailed and works of art. 

 There was one place we went into and they had hand blown chandeliers that where 2 stories tall hanging from the ceiling, they had a life size all colored glass trike that looked like you could start it up and drive away.

 As beautiful as this place is, to me it is a place that you go see once and then you are done.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 7 Milan

Our next trip was to Milan, I admit I didn't think I would like it to much.  I didn't take to many pictures, but to my surprise it is one of the places we would like to go back to and explore more.

Outside the Milan Cathedral. 

 Some street vendors were selling birdseed.

 The cathedral was started in 1386 and has taken over 600 years to complete

 The huge bronze doors are extremely detailed.

 These are individual panels of the doors.

 The marble floor is beautiful

I loved the huge columns.

We decided to leave Milan early so we could get to our next hotel and rest before we went to Venice on our last day in Italy.  We will return to Milan to walk around the shops more. Kim was able to buy some things in Milan before we left.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 5 and 6 Pisa and Cinque Terre

Our next leg took us to Pisa but since the only thing to see in Pisa is the church and the tower we just made it a stop on our way to Cinque Terre.

 This is the entire site of Pisa. 

 We decided not to climb to the top of the tower, after all the tower is what we wanted pictures of. I was also tired from Florence and didn't feel like climbing the 200+ stairs.

 Just like all the rest of the tourist you have to have a pic of pushing the tower over or holding it up.

 We left Pisa and went to our B&B to be able to explore Cinque Terre the next day.

We booked our B&B on https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1030343 and Barbara was a great host, the room was fantastic and view outside our window was beautiful.  If you decide to visit Cinque Terre look her up.

 The road to Cinque Terre was very small and winded around, over and through the mountains.

 Whenever we could find a place to pull over we did to take pics the views were outstanding. 

 No matter how steep the side of the mountain it was all used, there are vineyards all up the side of the mountains and their is a single person rail system built into some of the land for the locals to harvest the grapes.  It looked like a scary one man roller coaster.

This picture does not show just how steep this is. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 villages, Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. 

We Parked at Monterosso and it was a beautiful site.  It is the only sand beach between the 5 villages, You can see in the above pic that the hotel has carved out a man in the rock overlooking the water.

 Because of the steep terrain there is only 2 streets lining this village most are souvenir shops, but there are restaurants and hotels too.  We hopped on the train and went to the next town. 

 Vernazza has one main street to walk down to get to the cove.  We stayed here, ate lunch and looked at the water. 

This is still a main fishing village, you can see fisherman coming in and out of the cove constantly.

 This was a great place to sit at the outside cafe and eat a late lunch. 

 I love this pic of Zack and Jonah on the rocks overlooking the water.

We found a tunnel to walk through and this is what was on the other side. There was a few people sunning and others just looking into the waters. The construction of the houses on the cliff edges where cool.  This is all we had time to visit on this trip, I hope we are able to come back and visit the other 3 villages.  There is a hiking trail between the 5 villages, I think that would be a fun trip and prob some great pics.