Scotland...again

We made trip number 2 to Scotland to visit Edinburgh and travel North to Loch Ness and Inverness. We got to see a lot of the Highlands which is a beautiful unique landscape. You may be shocked by what you see in some of our Loch Ness photos. I'm working on selling them on eBay as we speak!

Bordeaux

I've had some trouble with uploading our videos but finally here is Bordeaux. This is one of the areas of France I wanted to visit the most. We flew into La Rochelle and took a 2 1/2 hour train ride inland to Bordeaux. I didn't realize that Bordeaux was the 5th largest city in France but with all of its grand architecture and populace it didn't have the busy feeling you get from most big cities. The French people there were much friendlier than those in Paris as well. We took an amazing wine tour while we were there. The city existed simply as a wine producing region full of chateaus with owners, buyers, workers and sellers of wine. We started off in an old chateau that has been converted into a museum. We learned about the history of the region as well as how wine is produced, aged and stored. That ended with a wine tasting of a white and red wine from the region. We then walked through the area where the many of the chateau owners and buyers lived, many of which are still owned as family estates in the heart of the city. We then had lunch at this little whole in the wall place that you would never find out on your own. We had an excellent meal, lots of wine and access to a cheese room (see photos) with over 150 type of cheese some of which were mold city! We then went out to the region of Saint Emilion, the oldest vineyard region in the area. We took a tour of a working chateau complete with a wine tasting. Bordeaux is a must for wine lovers in my opinion. It was a great trip and now instead of rambling on any longer I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Restocking

My mom is here and she brought with her some goodies! Here are some of my favorites.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 1 year anniversary in Ireland. It is a strange thought because it feels like yesterday that we packed up our lives and moved out here and yet it seems like we've been here a lot longer than a year. When we decided to move we wanted to take in as much of Europe as we could and below is a map of where we've been this past year. We'll be adding 2 and possibly 3 more locations before the New Year. There are so many places to go and see that we have no plans of slowing down. Next year we hope to visit Northern Africa, Maldives, Greece, Israel and hopefully more of Europe. If any of that sounds good let us know and we'll be glad to coordinate!


View Larger Map

From here to there

For those of you we haven't talked to real recently and who don't religiously check my calendar we have a few trips coming up. They're kind of in rapid succession. Next week we're back to France this time exploring the famous wine region of Bordeaux with a day at La Rochelle which is supposed to be beautiful. Next we're going back to Edinburgh with my Mom. If you've ever been there you'll know why there wasn't any arm twisting to get us to visit again. In October we are going to visit another famous port city, this time in Spain! Barcelona will complete our "planned" European trips for the year but there is a chance we'll get to Copenhagen in November if I get to go to a work conference there. That's life here as we know it.