Charming Cinque Terre, Magnificent Matterhorn

Cinque Terre hike: Town of Monterosso is in the background


Cinque Terre hike: Vineyards between Monterosso and Vernazza


Zermatt: Picnic lunch on one of our hikes at Sunnega Paradise


Zermatt: Drank hot chocolate and ate an ice cream outside at this restaurant at the Schwarzsee Paradise point. Matterhorn mountain in the background.

We continued our travels along the Riviera, ending in Cinque Terre, Italy. This area consists of five small towns along the Italian Riviera. We spent two nights in Riomaggiore (town #1 on the Cinque Terre hiking trail). Each town is nice and quaint, each having unique characteristics.

We hiked the Cinque Terre trail between the five cities. It´s 9 km (about 6 miles) and well worth it although tough at times. We stopped in Vernazza for lunch, where we had awesome pizza. Pesto pizza is fantastic. After finishing the hike, we swam at the beach in Riomaggiore, which has large pebbles and no sand. But the water was clear and a perfect temperature. Then we had a picnic dinner on the rocks as the sun set. We had gelato to top off the evening. It was probably the best day that we have had up to this point on the trip.

But then things got even better. We headed for Zermatt, Switzerland, one day early because of the upcoming train strike in Italy. People have told us that Switzerland is beautiful but we didn´t realize how beautiful until we arrived. Zermatt is a quaint little town (but not too small) that has a view of the Matterhorn. There are 400 km of walking trails. So far we´ve hiked about 20 km. The views of the mountains are breathtaking. The town is so clean and environmentally friendly. If you haven´t been here before, you should put this one towards the top of your list of cities to visit.

We have one more day here before we head to Montreux, Switzerland. We plan to hike some more but we won´t cover the 400 km of trails. We´ll have to come back.

Romantic Riviera

Cap d'Antibes


Monaco


Monte Carlo Casino


Colline du Chateau, Nice


Colline du Chateau, Nice

We arrived in Nice on the French Riviera on Wednesday. We scored on our accommodation as we had booked an apartment, which turned out to be huge, especially compared to some of our previous accommodation.

In Nice, we've walked along the main promenade by the beach several times, visited the Chagall and Matisse Museums (for those of you who visited our apartment in Westmont, you may remember the Matisse prints that we had), and seen awesome panoramic views from Colline du Chateau (Castle Hill). We did day trips to Antibes and Monaco - both cities are beautiful. We spent about 1.5 hours in Cannes - we had planned to be at the beach for the afternoon but it was so windy, you'd think a hurricane was coming (maybe a slight exaggeration).

In a couple of days, we will catch the train along the Italian Riviera to Cinque Terre.

Beautiful Barcelona, Cozy Carcassonne, Lovely Lourdes

Parc Guell, partially designed by Gaudi, Barcelona


Parc Guell, Barcelona


Do you see Klas sitting on the wall? He loves climbing everything he can, including this wall in Carcassonne.


Outside the medieval walls at night, Carcassonne


The Sanctuary, Lourdes. The Grotto with the spring is around the corner.

We had a fun two days in Barcelona. We stayed near Las Ramblas, a street filled with lots of activity. We did a lot of walking...what's new?! but at least it was mostly flat. The top sites were the Temple de la Sagrada Familia (a cathedral that was started by Gaudi in the 19th century and is still being built) and the Picasso Museum, which we visited as part of a Picasso walking tour around the city. The buildings in Barcelona are beautiful while the atmosphere is vibrant.

We were nervous about getting to Carcassonne, France, as we had planned because there was a train strike in France. However, everything worked out and we were able to spend the day in this cozy little medieval town. The walls surrounding the city are still in tact. We stayed at a cute bed and breakfast. We had 'fluffy' croissants for breakfast as Klas described them. It's exciting to be in France, especially for Melissa since this was a top destination on the list of countries to visit.

Yesterday we went to visit the Sanctuary at Lourdes where St. Bernadette saw Mary and the spring was formed. It was a lovely place - very peaceful with people from all over the world, both healthy and sick. The town has great views of the Pyrenees mountains.

Today we are going to take a wine tour through Bordeaux. Tomorrow we head to Nice.

Monkey Business

Apes´ Den in Gibraltar



Gibraltar


We had a great week in Marbella. The weather was perfect...25-30 degrees celsius every day with barely a cloud in the sky. Most of our week was spent relaxing at Cristina´s place and on the beach with a little bit of sightseeing.

We went to Gibraltar, a colony of Great Britain, for a quick day trip. Gibraltar is basically a big rock with a town on it. It´s 8 square kilometres with about 30,000 people and growing as they continue to add man-made land to it. We took a 1.5 hour van tour of the colony as it was a little scary to drive around. We could see Africa from Gibraltar and toured St. Michael´s Cave, the Apes´ Den where one of the 300 wild monkeys sat on Melissa´s shoulder to pick off some popcorn that the tourguide had strategically placed, and the Great Siege Tunnels that were built to defend Gibraltar.

Now we are in Granada. Yesterday we visited the Alhambra, which consists of Arab Palaces built in the 13th century. The detail on the walls and ceilings was amazing and not something that can be easily described - you just have to visit it. The nearby Generalife gardens, designed for the recreation of the Arab monarchs before the moors were driven out of Spain, were also beautiful. We could literally "smell the roses" as we walked through the gardens.

Tonight we´re catching the night train to Barcelona, which should be interesting and another first for us as we´ve never taken a night train.