Porto to Paris

Portugal was one of the best countries that we have been in. The hostels were all very nice, the food was good, there was so much to do and everything was cheap (probably the cheapest we have found in Western Europe). We started in Porto, it is an older looking city, much less modern than Lisbon, but it has a lot of character.

It is a city build on a large river. On one side is most of the old city and on the other are all of the port cellars.

We did a tour of a couple of them. Taylors was the best, good port and it was a free tour with tastings at the end.

Plus we got to watch two guys empty out a 1000 liters of tawny port that they were going to blend and bottle, it smelled pretty good. We found a neat little port house and did a tastings of a bunch of different ports from smaller producers. The guy who was working was really knowledgeable, he spent a while talking to us about all of the ports we tried and port in general. We definitely know a little more about port now. The next day we went back and bought a bottle and with a bit of luck it will make it back to Canada in one piece. After a couple more days hanging out in Porto we took the train to Lisbon.

Lisbon is a modern city, very different from Porto.

But it was still very nice to wander around. There were also a number of day trips around, including a trip to the western most tip of continental Europe, Cabo da Roca.

 

  

  

  

  

  

After Lisbon we flew to Paris. Paris is not one of our favorite stops of the trip. It is expensive and a little dirty. Very different from Portugal, and many of the other places we have been. However, after doing a walking tour we have a bit more of an appreciation of the the city, or at least its history. We spent a couple of days wandering around seeing the major sights.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

The Eiffel tower is pretty cool. We spent a day at the Louvre (so much art) and a day at the Musee d'Armes (weapons and armor from the stone age to the world wars).

Ramey leaves for Toronto tomorrow (originally this post was written January 17th, it just took me a little while to post it) morning and Justin leaves for London in the afternoon.

Santorini, Athens, Delphi, Meteora, Naples, Rome and on and on...

We know it has been a little while since we have posted anything. Sorry for the lack of pictures and updates.

Merry Christmas (a little late) and Happy New Year.

The last month has been busy. We have met a bunch of great people and been in some pretty nice places, so we have been easily distracted from the computer!

In brief, here is what we have been doing....

We spent a few days on Santorini. It was great, there were very few tourists there and the weather was nice. We met a few different groups of people on the ferry ride out (including two Canadians, who we first met in Hamburg, Germany and just happened to run into again) and the group of us got a great deal at a little hotel. We had the whole place to ourselves, including a great courtyard where we could sit out drink, play cards and eat great clementines.

 

 

We rented a little car and drove almost every road on the island.

The landscape was amazing. They have red, black and white sand beaches.

 

 

 

A few other pictures from the island.

 

 

After we left the island we returned to Athens for two nights (well a night and a half, the ferry back from Santorini did not get in till 1am). The next day we wandered around the city and walked up to the highest point, Lykavittos Hill, to watch a spectacular sunset.

After that we left for Delphi to see the ruins of the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle of Delphi used to “live”.

Then we continued on to Kalambaka to see the monasteries in Meteora. These monasteries were built on high pinnacles of rock and were a bit of a trek to walk to.

 

After a few days in Kalambaka, we traveled to Igoumentista to catch the ferry to Bari, Italy and then a train to Naples.

Naples was great. It was so busy.

Apparently, Naples is the city to go to to buy a nativity scene in Italy. The narrow streets were packed with people. The pizza was great, though we did have to wait in a scrum for 30 minutes to get one, everyone was yelling in Italian. We only spent two days there including a trip to Pompeii.

 

From Naples we moved to Rome. Which after Munich is probably our next favorite stop of the trip.

 

In Rome we met another Canadian couple and explored much of the city with them. We got to see the Pope driving around in his Pope-mobile, I got a good video of him.

After we left Rome the next few days we traveled quite a bit. We went to Florence for a night, Pisa for a few hours (just enough time to take a few pictures of the Leaning Tower),

La Spezia for the night so we could hike through the towns in Cinque Terre the next day and then on to Nice.

We spent a couple of days in Nice... it was... nice.

We took a day trip to Monaco.

Saw some really old bones who a guy we met in the hostel was studying for his PhD and a Telsa Roadster.

From there we decided we had enough time to go to Barcelona before going to Geneva. Barcelona was very nice. It was quite busy as it was the last weekend before Christmas and there were a lot of tourists arriving for their Christmas break. We had a great time wandering around the city and we found a great stall at a market that served grilled seafood, stews, pastas and tons of other delicious food.

We arrived in Geneva on December 21st to spend Christmas in Switzerland with Justin's family. We had a great time. Pascal and Jean took such great care of us. Christmas dinner was great, it was really nice to meet everyone.

The food, wine and company was wonderful. After traveling for two months, it was a great break.

We spent the few days before Christmas exploring Geneva and a day trip to Mont Blanc and Chamonix. We had dinner on Christmas Eve with Justin's family and on Christmas Day we drove to Pascal and Jean's chalet in Suen. The time at the chalet was very relaxing, we went for a little walk in the snow,

did a bit of skiing and ate fondue for Christmas dinner. It was a great Christmas!

After the chalet, we went to Zermatt for a day, had a great walk.

We saw the Matterhorn and then took the train to Interlaken. We spent two nights there, went up the mountains to see the Eiger and planned out the next few weeks.

From there we went to Basel.

There is an airport close by where we could get cheap flights out. We were glad we stopped there, it is a pretty neat little city. For New Years they put on a huge fireworks display over the Rhine river. We also went to the Tinguely Museum which displays machine/works of art by Jean Tinguely. They were really cool.

We flew to Porto on the 1st and we are going to be in Portugal until the 11th. From here we fly from Lisbon to Paris. We will spend a few days in Paris and hopefully a trip to Normandy. On January 18th Ramey is going to fly back to Toronto. Justin will follow a few weeks later after a bit more traveling, possibly towards southeast Asia (we will see... flights are pretty cheap).