We wandered along Dutch canals...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

We started our trip in Amsterdam on May 23rd, the Monday after our Thursday graduation. Given my luck with airplanes we were not overly surprised to discover that our luggage had not arrived with our flight, and we ended up waiting another full day before it would finally arrive at our hostel.

Despite lacking a change of clothes, we headed out into the city, walking by the Dom Square and around the canals. Our second day we visited the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum to culture ourselves and learn about some of the great Dutch artists. We also stopped by the Anne Frank House in the afternoon.

On our last full day in the Netherlands we took an organized tour of the Dutch countryside. We did typical touristy things like visit a wooden shoe making factory, a cheese farm, and even toured some windmills. All very cute.

Sailed by German castles...

The Rhine River, Germany

From Amsterdam we headed down to Germany. Our Eurail passes gave us free passage on the river boats between Koblenz and Mainz, so we took a nice river cruise for a day. As we traveled up river we passed what seemed like an endless procession of castles perched on hill tops beside the river. We were also lucky to have beautiful weather, although by the end of the day we were a bit burnt from all the sun.

We ended our river trip in Bingem and took a train to Frankfurt where we spent the night. We didn't get a chance to explore the city, but our hotel was very nice and only cost us $13 a night.

Visited the French...

Strasbourg, France

Our next stop was the city of Strasbourg near the French-German border. This was a nice city with both charming canals and the modern seat of the European Union. Unfortunately we had poor weather and a hostel far outside of the city center that gave wrong directions on its web site.

We took a boat tour of the city that gave nice historic anecdotes and pointed out a lot of the interesting buildings and architecture around the city.

 

Didn't swim in the Aare river...

Bern, Switzerland

Bern was a more modern city than some of the others we'd been in, but I still liked it for the many gardens around the edge of the city. Those Rose Garden up on a hill overlooking the city was full of blooming flowers, although the roses themselves were still a few days off.

We stopped by the Kunst museum which was a horrible disappointment since the regular collection was closed and only a small temporary exhibit was open and we were still charged the full entrance fee. More interesting was the Alpine Museum which had geological information on the formation of the Alps as well as an exhibit of mountain photography which gave us a taste of what we were going to be heading to in a few days.

 

Hiked in the Swiss Alps....

Interlaken, Switzerland

Our original plan had been to go to Zermatt to be up in some of the highest peaks in the alps, but due to bad weather we ended up going to Interlaken instead. Luckily, we still had a great time there and were able to do a lot of hiking that it would have been too cold to do in Zermatt.

Our best hike was from the town of Grindelwald up to the Unterergleitscher - a glacier working its way down next to the peak of Mt. Eiger. This was a beautiful walk first down into the river valley below town, up through cow and sheep filled meadows and hills, into a deep shady forest, and finally up above tree line where we had beautiful views down into the valley below, across to the cliffs and waterfalls off of Eiger, and of course up into the glacier filled valley below the snowy peaks. We'd hoped to get even closer to the glacier, but unfortunately that part of the trail had been wiped out by a mudslide.

We also went to the "Top of Europe". No, not Mt. Blanc, but Jungfrau. It's not the tallest peak, but it does feature the continent's highest train station. From the lookout we had great views of mountains in every direction.

 

Enjoyed a concert on the palace grounds...

Vienna, Austria

After roughing it in the Alps we came to Vienna for some culture. There were countless concerts going on, and we ended up going to one each night we were there. We heard Strauss in the Hofburg palace, the Vienna Philharmonic at a free concert in the gardens of Schonbrunn, and saw an opera at the State Opera House.

We toured Schonbrunn, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. It was impressive to say the least. Gives Versailles a pretty good run for its money.

 

Stormed the Karlstein Castle....

Prague, Czech Republic

The final stop on our trip was in Prague. Although a bit grimier than western europe, there are so many old buildings that the architecture makes up for any of that. The castle overlooking the city on the hill gives great views down into the city.

In Prague the streets are half filled with tourists and half filled with people trying to sell you concert tickets. We ended up going to one jazz concert as well as a marionette version of Don Giovanni which was fun.

We also took day trips to the Karlstein Castle where Charles IV kept his crown jewels and holy relics and to the Bone Chapel in Kutna Hora, a small church decorated with the bones of plague victims. It was a bizarre place with twenty foot high pyramids composed of human skulls and a chandalier supposedly made from every bone in the human body.