Europe!!!

(Pictures from left to right. TOP row: Castle in Germany, Neuschwanstein, Roman area in Verona Italy, Italian street, crossing a bridge in Venice, 2nd Row: Church in Venice, chasing pigeons in St. Mark's plaza Venice, riding a gondola across the grand canal, our gondola. 3rd Row: Santa Maria de Salute Venice, Cathedrale in Florence, Riding a carrosel in Venice, camping, leaning tower of Pisa. 4th Row: Ceiling of Pisa Cathedrale, riding train to Cinque Terre Italy, One of the cities of Cinque Terre- 2 pictures, the walk between the cities. Last row: Hiking to Burg Eltz Germany, Entering Burg Eltz, lunch of chickpea and cheese pizza and stuffed spinach pie in Cinque Terre, duplicates of first pictures.)

Well at the last minute we decided to take advantage of one of the perks of being in the military and take one of the AF flights to Germany. We flew to Baltimore and spent a great day in DC with my brother and his wife and then the next day crossed our fingers that we'd make it on the flight to Germany. We did!!! And had a great flight over-- nice regular plane with two meals and Henry almost the whole way and Dell and I did too. So when we hit Europe we were ready to go.
We rented a little compact mercedes with a navigation system that we promptly named Lisele-- she had such a calm voice. "Please take a u turn" whenever we messed up following her directions. And then we headed east and south into Germany. We drove through germany, austria, northern italy, and switzerland. (though we just drove straight through austria and switzerland since it was cold and rainy in both of those countries. We'll linger longer next time. We had a wonderful trip and Henry was a star. He adjusted quickly and was a real sport about long walks through cities and long drives through countries. We played a lot of tag and I Spy and ate a lot of ice cream. It was a great trip!