The time has come...

We cannot believe that we are now on the last night of our trip, day number 55. Tomorrow we fly back to Canada and our European trip will end. The time has flown by!

Our last day in London has been wonderful. We went to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Both museums were far beyond our expectations and our half day planned in the museums turned into a full day. We also had the fun of a London downpour, which starts as suddenly as it stops, but is an absolute drenching while it lasts. The best thing to do is to find shelter and wait it out. On a strange but true note, we saw a man walking next to us on the sidewalk slip on a banana peel...didn't think that happened in real life, but it did. He went ass over tea kettle.

We have so many great things to list from this trip that it will take us a few days of being back to really sort through the highlights. For now, a brief list (in no particular order): the Greek Island cruise, the hiking in Italy and France, the winding streets of old Lyon, the amazing architecture in London, the Roman sites of Provence, ancient Greek sites in the Peloponnese and, of course, the food that we have enjoyed over the last 8 weeks has been fantastic!

We will post a few more photos and a few more thoughts once we have had a couple of days at home. We have a few things up our sleeve(s) for the summer, and we will update everyone with our other plans as soon as they have been solidified.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read our blog!

The Eye

Our very clever friend Rodger booked tickets for the three of us on the London Eye, on-line, prior to leaving Calgary. Instead of being clogged up with 35 other patrons (or however many fit in one of the pods) we got to jump the queue and were reserved a pod with only one other person! We were able to walk around and gaze out in every direction, we could take photos where ever we wanted to and we didn't have to try to sneak a shot over someone else's shoulder. It's an expensive ride on a ferris wheel juiced up on steroids, but magnificent.

After the Eye we walked to the British Museum for lunch and a took a circuit through (what a museum!...the Egyptian collection is something we will never forget). Being in museum mode, we continued on to the British Library, where we saw old maps, old illuminated bibles, a copy of Magna Carta, and some lyrics written out by the Beatles! There was something for everyone.

Earlier in the day we walked the creepy streets where Jack the Ripper once lurked, as well as the original site of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It is IMPOSSIBLE to not be tripping over history here.

London Blitz

We are continuing with our mad dash through London. We spent one day hitting St. Paul's Cathedral (including a round trip 1060 stairs to the top of the dome), the London Bunker and Churchill Museum and the Imperial War Museum. We spent today doing the most touristy thing imaginable: we took a double decker tour bus around the city. We enjoyed the first one so much that we ended up taking another tour of a different route.

No matter how cliche it is to climb up to the open deck of the bus and listen to commentary while clicking away at all photos ops as they whiz by (most of them ending up quite blurry), the tour was invaluable and we would recommend it to anyone. We saw many sites that we could have not got to on our own and we also got a sense of how London is laid out. The relative proximity of everything is very surprising, since taking the tube so much doesn't give us a sense of how close, or far, the older sites are. We never knew how far Buckingham Palace was from the Tower of London, or how large Hyde Park is or how much is concentrated in the area of the Parliament Buildings.

We have had surprises on the trip: on the first day the three of us had to run for our lives to get out of the way of a rogue pelican that was rushing through crowds trying to get back to his pond; we had dinner at a French restaurant that was run by the most militant group of French people on the planet: 45 minutes to eat, no choice for food ("take it or leave it" was the only choice) or wine ("house red")...but the meal was surprisingly good; and walking through Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park when all the crazies were out preaching their words. After 7 weeks of travel we thought we were pretty seasoned, but we had never before run into anything like it. We heard and saw everything from a man explaining the Big Bang theory, to a debate about democracy in the muslim world, to the people in the crowd who argue with the Speakers, to random yelling and, of course, the guy who was giving away free hugs. None of us took him up on the offer.

The best part was that someone took the time to tell us that Jesus loves us, so at least we've got that going for us!

London

We are now in London, the last stop on our 8 week trip. London is very different for us for a few reasons: we can speak English in hotels and restaurants, we have to look the other way before we cross the street and, the best thing, we have been joined here by our friend Rodger!
We have already seen Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London and the Tate Modern. We have been zipping around on the tube like pros (thanks to Rodger). Joanne has stepped in gum twice (once for each shoe) and managed to walk about three blocks with a cigarette butt stuck to the gum on her right shoe...classy!
London is such a beautiful and vibrant city. Like everywhere else we have been, there is so much history here that it gets overwhelming. It has extremely old buildings and uber modern buildings right beside each other, and somehow it seems to work. Everyone seems to be in a great hurry, but still take the time to say "excuse me", when they need to squeeze past on the sidewalk.
The food here has been very good. There are restaurants serving every kind of ethnic food, traditional pubs and, our favourite so far, a wine room lit only by candles, in an ancient cellar with a ceiling only 5 feet high.

Lille Photos

Lille

We are in Lille and our last stop in "Europe". Tomorrow we take the Eurostar to London and a week from now we are back in Calgary.Lille is part of the Flemish area in France and, architechturally, reminds us of Brugge. The language is French, but there is a different accent and there are many words on menus that we have never seen before. As a culturally rich border town with a major railway connection hub, Lille has great shopping and is teeming with outdoor cafes and Belgian brew.
This is a great city for a layover. It is easy to walk around and there is just enough to do to fill a day without it being too much activity, nor too little so that you're done by mid morning. There is a surprisingly wonderful museum called the Palais des Beaux Arts, containing the second largest collection in France after the Louvre, and without anywhere near the same crowds...nice!

* - Technical difficulties with photos, will post when possible!

Lyon at Night

Lyon is really beautiful at night. Every building, old or new, and every street is lit. It's not lit so blindingly that it feels like noon, but the lighting really captures the grandeur and detail. This is a fantastic place to take a walk after dark. Lyon is so well known for their outdoor lighting of monuments that they hold conferences on landscape lighting which are considered "elite", and are extremely well respected and attended.