Dahlia & Lance's Travels: July 2005

Paris - 10 July

It is hard to believe that we have been in Paris for a week and a half already. Our daughter Sue, her husband Paul, our grandaughters Amanda and Grace have come and gone and we had a wonderful time with them. They enjoyed themselves emensely, both here and London. Fortunately they were in Paris during the terror attack in London. We spent a couple of days before they arrived and a couple of days after left sightseeing on our own but did a lot of sightseeing with the Sue and her family. Tomorrow my sister Pat and her two daughters arrive and we are looking forward to seeing them.

We are enjoying Paris, but are beginning to look forward to going home. After more than three months of traveling things are becoming a bit of a blur. We need a little time to assimilate the trip and rest up for the next one. We will leave Paris on 27 July by train and will stay with Dahlia's family friend Sandy Amber for four nights in London and the night of 31 July at a hotel at Heathrow Airport in preparation for our flight to Washington, DC on 1 August. We will stay in Baltimore until 8 August and the return to LA.

Isle de Cite on the Seine

Base of the Eiffel Tower by Night

Anderson Family on Boat Near Eiffel Tower

Grace Riding a Pony at Luxembourg Gardens

Luxembourg Palace Gardens

The Eiffel Tower at Night

The Anderson Family in Our Apartment in Paris

View of Eiffel Tour from Our Apartment in Paris

Prague - June 30

What a beautiful city Prague is! It has so many interesting things; an imposing palace/castle on a hill from which you can see the whole city, a big river (Voltava) with interesting bridges and small islands, big boulevards, quaint alleys great monuments, many shops and restaurants. It has lively crowded cafes and pubs with partying folks downing huge mugs of Pilsner beer, and gorgeous vibrant Art Nuveau buildings as far as the eye can see, with elaborate decorations, lovely balconies, statues and relief sculptures on every corner. We found ourselves wanting to take pictures of almost every building. The main square was the most beautiful we have ever seen. It was huge, open and centered around an impressive church with an interesting and very complex astronomical clock. It is surrounded by sidewalk cafes dozens of buildings each prettier then the other, in a mixture of styles and colors (we can site the styles, but are not sure we can actually identify them correctly, before our next trip we need to take a course on architectural styles ).

We stayed in an Ibis hotel (with AC thankfully!) on the outskirts of town and took the trams or subway everywhere within a few minutes. The public transportation was excellent as it was in the rest of Europe. The subway was a bit intimidating though, it is in a very deep tunnel and is accessed by a huge escalator that moves very fast, you feel like you are descending into a dungeon and then Lance was pick-pocketed in the subway. Fortunately our valuables were safely tucked away and the losses were minor. Rick Steves our trusty guide warned us about these guys and the propensity to cheat tourists in this town and indeed we got to experience all of them.

Dispute the pick pocketing and price gouging in certain places; in general the prices were low and the city very enjoyable.