Venice, Italy. Venice is Europe's best-preserved big city. A hundred islands linked together by 400 bridges and 2,000 alleys. This is one of the cities I have dreamed about visiting. Someone described it as being "magical" and after spending a couple of days there, that is the perfect word for it.
Our first night we took a gondola ride through the canals.

Eating gelato! I think we ate gelato everyday sometimes twice a day. Thank God we walked so much, our pants were getting a little tight!

Chris and I in the amazing St. Mark's Square. The square is lined with cafe's and every night the cafe orchestras compete for an audience. We spent hours just enjoying the music and more gelato!

Standing in two countries, Austria and Germany.

On our way to our hotel in Austria we stopped for some fun, the luge.

Once again, a beautiful country. Everything is so clean.

We hiked a few miles along a lake to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle. There are gorgeous castles scattered all through Austria.

I took this picture from our bus, so excuse the water running down the windshield. I thought this was so cute, just taking his cows out for a morning stroll.

The Swiss Alps, probably one of the most breathtaking places I have ever seen. The pictures don't do it justice, you'll just have to go there and see it for yourself one day! This is where one of the James Bond 007 movies was filmed.

Angelsea, Marcella and me. We met some really great people on our trip and one of those couples were Brandon and Marcella from Chicago. Her husband is below between the boys.

We took a gondola lift up to the Schilthorn at 10,000 feet. It was incredible. People actually paraglide from the top spending 45 minutes flying down to Interlaken (town we stayed). The Alps are also filled with mountain bikers, hikers and skiing in the winter. Living in the Northwest I get to enjoy our mountains but they hardly compare to this.

Once we got down we walked back to our chalet and along the path they had "water holes" with crystal clear drinking water.

Swiss cows! I love cows and this guy even kissed my hand. We had fondue our first night and of course swiss chocolate, yummy!

Our last night in Paris was pretty exciting. France was playing New Zealand for the World Cup playoffs and the entire city was celebrating their victory. They weren't expected to win and when they did everyone went crazy.

We left the city and drove through beautiful country side full of vineyards and pastures. Beaune was a completely different place. A much quieter place with cobblestone streets and wineries just waiting to be visited!

All of the food was delicious but I especially loved all the cheese.

Couvent Des Cordeliers winery. This place was beautiful. Beaune is famous for its wines and this was a big highlight for Chris. He was actually in France 5 years ago and couldn't wait to come back a visit the vineyards.

Yes, these are the tongs that Angelsea and I used to eat our escargots (snails) and cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs). The snails were really good. They were covered in garlic butter and once the meat was gone you could pour the sauce from the shell on your plate and dip your bread in it. The frog legs were really hard to eat because they were full of small bones and didn't have much flavor. I had to try it!

Bonjour from Paris! I still can't believe we were there! Chris and I, along with our jet-setting friends, Chris and Angelsea spent 15 days traveling through France, Swizterland, Austria and Italy. It was an amazing trip to say the least. This has been a dream of mine for a long time and it was everything and more that I hoped it would be. I have so many pictures to share and I hope I don't bore you for the next few weeks!
All of the buildings in Paris are beautiful. This city is full of structures that are over 2,000 years old and they are still standing. Everything is so well maintained and you can't help but fall in love with the architecture.

We arrived in France early Friday morning, dropped off our bags and walked, got lost a few times, but finally found the famous Eiffel Tower. The tower stands 1,000 feet tall and wasn't built to serve any function but to impress.

Arc de Triomphe. This is the city's largest square and most congested with traffic. This is where the Tour de France bicycle race ends along with any parade of significance.

Our first night we too a cruise down the Seine River. Everything was lit up and even more beautiful. The french don't neglect details!

Sainte Chappelle is a Gothic church which was built to house the Crown of Thorns. It took only six years to build, which is unheard of Gothic times. There are fifteen panels of stained glass (6,500 square feet) that tell different stories from the Bible.

Notre Dame. This cathedral is 700 years old and only took more than 200 years to build! Can you imagine working on this your entire life and never seeing it finished?