Ah, Rome, the Eternal city… We arrived mid-day on Tuesday, and it’s been non-stop pretty much since then! To keep things brief, here are the highlights of our visit, in rough chronological order: Campo de’Fiori, Piazza Navona, Pantheon (at night), Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill, Vittorio Emanuele II Monument, Pantheon (by day), Trastevere, Piazza del Popolo, Via del Corso, Ponte and Castel San Angelo, the Vatican Museum (incl. Sistine Chapel!), St Peter’s Basilica, the Spanish Steps, Museo Nationale, Santa Maria Della Vittoria (for Bernini’s St Theresa in Ecstasy), and the Borghese Gardens. Whew! It’s quite warm, and we come home with tired feet every day, but we’ve been eating well and drinking well, and sampling some very fine gelato across the city. And tomorrow, we begin our adventures in Tuscany! So for now, ciao e buona sera!

Now that we have The Sound of Music stuck in your heads… Remember when we said the village we’re staying in can only be reached by two-hour hike or cable car? Well, the tiny konsum (store) in Gspon is closed until the end of October, so we rode the cable car down to Staldenreid to take advantage of the supermarket…and then hiked back up to Gspon. For 2+ hours. At probably a 45-60% grade the entire time, with groceries. Calling it “tough” is putting it lightly. On the bright side, (besides getting our exercise in for the day month) we found a huge patch of wild raspberries that Josh and I returned to on Tuesday; Dorothee and Stephan had gone on a walk in the opposite direction, and, unbeknownst to us, had gathered a whole bag of wild blueberries, so we combined our fruitful (ha!) efforts into a completely hand-made galette (aka pie) for dessert. YUM. Today we took a less strenuous hike via the “Gspon Panoramaweg” (“weg” is like “path”; you figure out the rest), a trail that leads out from the village and then doubles back up to the very top of the mountain for unbelievable views of Gspon and the surrounding Alps, all while being surrounded by nothing but rocks, moss, heather, and the occasional pine tree. We concluded our Alpine tour with traditional Swiss fare in one of the two town restaurants, where the owner joined us for a beer after dinner. For now we say goodbye to la Suisse…but for those of you in the know, I’ll see you in Zurich. ;)

Wow, we’ve been busy… Wednesday started early(ish) so that we could make it to the weekly market in coastal Cassis. The market is in a beautiful central square, and we both found things that we needed (Josh) and wanted (Meg). Afterwards we spent a couple hours on the pebbly port beach with fantastic views of the surrounding massif (cliffs); thanks to natural offshore cold springs, the water here is surprisingly icy! After a quick stop in a gorgeous cliff-side winery specializing in traditional Cassis white and rosé, we headed back inland with stops in gorgeous Aix-en-Provence, and pretty, quiet Lambesc. Today we rented bikes and rode all over Sud Luberon and Vaucluse, to Cucuron (high on our list of favorite towns), for swimming in the aqua-blue Étang de la Bonde, followed by a winery visit outside Ansouis and a short trip to Lauris after dinner. Our day ended with a pastis and ice cream in Lourmarin. End result: we don’t want to leave; we’ll definitely be back!

Wednesday was our one-month anniversary! Go us!!
So anyway, we took a train from Oostende to Köln in the morning, and met Josh’s mom at the Hauptbahnhof; it would be nice to see the city in the summertime, but we’ve kept things low-key here while we rest up a bit! We’ve slept in, visited Josh’s grandmother to show her some wedding photos, caught up on emails, explored an Ahr valley winery, and biked into nearby Siegburg for cheese from the jaw-dropping counter in the outdoor market. On Friday Dorothee and Stephan threw a wedding-celebration-party for the German family and friends who couldn’t make it to NY in July, and it was great to catch up with some folks and meet others. Today we were at another wedding celebration for a German friend who married a guy from Pennsylvania, and enjoyed a marvelous sunny afternoon with champagne, cake, and boules (practice for when we’re in Provence this week!). It feels great to be rested up for the next half of our adventure, which we embark upon early tomorrow morning!

On Friday we took a cross-country train from Berlin to Haarlem for a weekend in the Netherlands. We visited Amsterdam on Saturday, when it rained allll day. It’s an interesting (and quite beautiful!) city, but with all the partying, not really our style. It didn’t help that we came back to our B&B soaking wet! Today was much sunnier, so we rented bikes and roamed from Haarlem to the coast, down the beach and through farmland and beech forests to the famous tulip fields – empty now that it’s August, but in a gorgeous landscape. A gorgeous sunset over the canal in front of our B&B is a high note to our time here, and tomorrow it’s off to Belgium!