So how's about a re-cap of everywhere we're been. Are ya ready?

England - London, Canterbury, Windsor
Scotland - Linlithgow, Edinborough, Dunbar, Glasgow, Sterling, Inverness (Loch Ness), Aviemore, Boat at Garten
Germany - Berlin, Dresden, Meissen, Pilnitz
Czech republic - Prague, Ceske Budejovice, Cesky Krumlov, Cesky Trisov, Cesky Hlubokov
Austria - Vienna, Bregenz, Lindau
Lichtenstein - Vaduz
Switzerland - Zurich, Bern
Italy - Bologna, Florence, Venice, Rome
Egypt - Cairo, Luxor, Edfu, Esna, Kom Ombo, Aswan
Ireland - Dublin, Killarney, Dingle, Blarney, Cork, Cobh,
Hawaii - Oahu, Waikiki, Ko Olina
Japan - Tokyo, Inari, Kyoto, Takayama, Kanazawa, Yudanaka (Nagano), Osaka

Not bad for a couple of months wandering without any game plan. There were times things could've been planned a little better, but then, that was the idea, not having any plans.

Booking Europe, well there are enough places that it's pretty easy to find a place, (Exception - Rome when the Popes' in town is a tuffy, but we still found a room 3 blocks from the vatican:-)

If you decide to go to Japan, book ahead of time. Finding hotels on the weekend is tough. If you're going to travel at all, day trip etc, buy the Japan rail pass, it makes life very easy. Be prepared for the train terminals, some of them are small cities and it's real easy to get turned around.

It would be a tuffy to choose our favorites but, Japan first, Ireland second, Lake Constance Austria 3rd (Lindau / Bregenz). Does it matter after that?

What more can we say? If you see us, plenty, and there's a couple thousand pictures that we'll bore you to death with. Otherwise all we can say is, if you have the wanderlust...GO, as soon as you can. Hauling your bags around is a lot of work. We're probably in the best shape we've been in years. But, 5-10 years from now, we probably wouldn't have had the same experience.

Til the next adventure
May the road rise to meet you
May the sun be always at your back
GO

Okay so it appears that some people (hello beth) are reading this thing so I'll finish up our little trip.
So last time we communicated (so I wrote you read, that's a form of communication isn't it?)we we're having to spend some time tannin, drinking frew frew cocktails, climbing volcano's, hiking through rainforests, drinkng cocktails and well, just generally having a lousy time in the sun in Hawaii.
We came home for a couple of days to mooch a room off of some friends, (thanks friends) and then we were off again. This time.....Japan.
We started in tokyo.
The Imperial palace, Tokyo, Ueno park, well...skip em. If you only have a little time ( 2-3 weeks), go to Kyoto, there is sooooo much more to see. You can day trip to alot and I mean ALOT of things from Kyoto. There's a lot just to see just in the Kyoto area.
Fushimi-Inari area was wonderful. Thousands of Torii gates all stacked next to each other and paths that wandered through them. Cool.

Geeze the temples. Actually the gardens. Maybe the shrines well.....each temple / shrine / garden was really beautiful and very calming. Didn't matter where you were. Each one was different, pleasant, and well....beautiful.

Don't know really what more to say. Met Geishas, (took their picture, they took ours:-)wandered a local morning market, visited the temples of Takayama and Arishiyama, Tsubakino, Kokubunjioh and alot of others. Saw Nijo castle, Osaka castle, old geisha and samurai houses in Kanazawa, a temple with 1000 Kinnon statues and their guardians, lots of Japanese breakfasts ( WONDER - FULL). The Nikko world heritage site, the snow monkeys of Yudanaka (outside Nagano, remember the olympics?) and, well a bunch of other stuff. We also did the tacky tourist thing...Tokyo Disney. ( If you've ever been to Disney anywhere in the states then don't bother, but Country bear Jamboree and the Tiki room in Japanese were kinda fun).

Okay, so we've dired out a little (hey I said a little) since Scotland so I'll doa little catching up for those of you paying attention. Scotland. Back to Linlithgow (cause it was cheaper and the folks there were very nice, I also liked their haggas). Then Edinborough again, nice city. Went to Glasgow, it was soooo much fun, we went to the movies.But there was the Glasgow cathedral which wasn't too bad and a few other things to see but like I said, we went to the movies.

Went to the Highlands of Scotland, the Cairngorm mountains. There were a couple of nice walks but mostly, don't bother ( although the bubble and squeek at the Boat at Garten was pretty good). Went on to Inverness, of course. Nice enough little city. Took the tour of the loch and inverness castle. Took the over night from Inverness to London, not as nice as the Austrian ride.

London - Went to Windsor better than I thought It's be. Winchester - cathedral was nice, Canterbury was nicer, (saw Becketts murder spot - coool), but the town (Canterbury) was full of teenagers for some reason, and the city has been Starbucked!
Oh the pictures. Windsor Castle, The Queens Guards who were at our hotel having a party, and a nice day in Hyde Park.

So what else - Oh yea. went home for 4 days so we could check our mail and then we had to go to Hawaii. What can I say..lots of sand, sun, beer, cocktails, mountains to climb, lagoons to snorkle, steaks on the BBQ, more cocktails, sun lagoons etc. It was torture. Had to do that for a week then home again to mooch a homestead from some friends for a few days. Then do a little responsible stuff then....( but you've probably already seen the pictures for that).

Off to Nihon (Japan) for Sushi:-)

Well hello and how do. So we were in Killarney the last time we wrote. We could've stayed there longer but we got the wandering bug so, onto Cobh (that's pronounced Cove for you non-Gaelic speaking folks). Nice little seaside town. It's claim to fame is that they buried many of the folks from the Lusitania, and it was the last port of call for the Titanic. So, rather a gloomy past but a pleasant little place. There's a picture in snapfish (if your getting it, please let me know, and if yournot getting it, please let me know, seems somepeople do and don't), that show's the street with 4 pubs all lined up next to each other. The first 2 are the Mauritania and the Lusitania, then the Titanic and I don't remember the name of the last (it wasn't a famous ship). We tried each and the Lusitania had the friendliest people.

From Cobh we did a little day trip into Blarney. Didn't kiss the stone though. If you would've seen the glop that was on it you wouldn't have kissed it either. The town of Blarney is nice, maybe overnight, but not longer.

Then onto Midleton. The home of the Jameson distillery YEA!!!!! Wonderful time, became an official whisky taster, (thought I was already but they gave me a piece of paper that makes it official).

Then Dublin. Don't bother, little city with a big city nasty attitude (although the people were friendly "the city" fathers don't seem to care about tourists). The tourist office is in the center of the city. But you can't find it because you can't find any tourist info/map to tell you where it is. It's also an extremely noisy city, and we've been in enough cities that by far this was the worst as evidenced by the fact that this is the first time I've mentioned noise. We did however catch some good music, but it was just as good in Killarney and not as crowded. So, don't bother with Dublin, unless you want to see the book of Kells (that's pretty cool).

From Dublin, for some reason we're still not clear on, we went back to Scotland. But more on that next time.
TTFN
The slightly pickled wanderers

So Rome. Bunch of old stuff, built by long dead guys that mostly hated each other, especially Michealangelo, who then went on to show them all up. Raphael, who tried to make Mike look like a fool, died a few years later a defeated man. By the way, when Raphael was my age, he'd been dead for 10 years. So onto Egypt. What can ya say that hasn't been already. Bunch of guys with their hands out looking for tips. Pick up your bag at the airport, tip. Say hello, tip. constant barrage of would you like a carriage ride, taxi etc. But all in all a great trip. Took a balloon trip over the west bank of the Nile in Luxor. valley of the Kings, Queen Hauptshetpsut (they call her hot chicken soup). went back to the JW Marriott just cause se could in Cairo. went to the Cairo museum and the pyramids. Went into the middle pyramid just to say we did it.Hot. Dead horse on the side of the road near the canal next to the museum. Wonderful.
Cairo to Rome, spent the night. Rome to Dublin, caught the bus to the train and the train to Killarney. Killarney is wonderful. Thought we'd stay 3 nights, decided to stay 5. Just finished an 8 mile walk through the mountains (you'll get the pictures later). Starting to count down to our brief return to the states before heading to Hawaii. Geeze, what a sucky life. Anyway, if you haven't received the snapfish notice let me know (that's where the pic's are posted).
Hope your all having as much fun as we are
Me and Her

So Rome. Bunch of old stuff, built by long dead guys that mostly hated each other, especially Michealangelo, who then went on to show them all up. Raphael, who tried to make Mike look like a fool, died a few years later a defeated man. By the way, when Raphael was my age, he'd been dead for 10 years. So onto Egypt. What can ya say that hasn't been already. Bunch of guys with their hands out looking for tips. Pick up your bag at the airport, tip. Say hello, tip. constant barrage of would you like a carriage ride, taxi etc. But all in all a great trip. Took a balloon trip over the west bank of the Nile in Luxor. valley of the Kings, Queen Hauptshetpsut (they call her hot chicken soup). went back to the JW Marriott just cause se could in Cairo. went to the Cairo museum and the pyramids. Went into the middle pyramid just to say we did it.Hot. Dead horse on the side of the road near the canal next to the museum. Wonderful.
Cairo to Rome, spent the night. Rome to Dublin, caught the bus to the train and the train to Killarney. Killarney is wonderful. Thought we'd stay 3 nights, decided to stay 5. Just finished an 8 mile walk through the mountains (you'll get the pictures later). Starting to count down to our brief return to the states before heading to Hawaii. Geeze, what a sucky life. Anyway, if you haven't received the snapfish notice let me know (that's where the pic's are posted).
Hope your all having as much fun as we are
Me and Her

So, we were in Bologna Italy, in a very nice apt. but unfortunately it was time to move on. As I mentioned the new (1 night) apt was pretty close to the train station so after a lite breakfast we caught our train to Roma.
Pretty uneventful, mostly boring countryside.
Rome - The hotel that we thought we booked, wasn't booked. Luckily the hotel mgr. knew a girl next door that rented rooms. Not the greatest of accomodations (especially the last night, it was a sleeper sofa, with out even a fan in the room, and right on a busy street. Not too much sleep that night), but all in all it worked out well. We were ~2blocks from the Vatican. So we visited St Peter's basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Castel San Angelo, the Trivi fountain and a host of other old things. We put in a lot of mileage on the shoes.
From Rome we set off for Cairo, not knowing what to expect. Very hectic, left us a little dazed. checked into the JW Marriot Cairo ( you can look it up to see it). VERY NICE! But we only spent 1 night, we were going to Luxor where are room cost less than cocktails in the bar at the JW.
Luxor - walked out and met a taxi driver that took us in hand and talked us into hiring him for 2days. I'm running out of internet time so I'm cutting off here.

To begin, I have given up on trying to post photo's to this blog site. The computers don't seem to like the server for some reason, so I'm posting photos to the snapfish site. Look in your e-mail. Let me know if you didn't get it.
So, where was I. Down time in Vienna. Well we caught the overnight train to Bregenz. It was very nice, car to ourselves with beds, and coffee and tea served to the room first thing in the morning.
Arrived in Bregenz and couldn't get into the apt. we rented until 14:00 so we wandered around town for awhile. Found a cable car that took us up the mountain about 1100meters. Great view. there's pictures in the snapfish. (unfortunately I can't title the pictures so you'll have to guess what's what) but it's pretty obvious. It's where I got the picture of the owl. There's a photo of the apt in Bregenz that we rented. really nice, except for the ringing of the church bells right next door. Why Bregenz, cause it was centrally located off the train line to other locations. Or I guess I could say...why not Bregenz, we don't know anything about where we're going until we book the trip. Generally no more than 2 days before we decide to leave.
Wandered into Vaduz, Lichtenstein for the day, if your going to visit, plan a day, there's not much to see, it's a tourist stop, and expensive. There were a couple of other towns nearby that might have been interesting but we didn't find out about them until we got to Veduz. We did find a nice winery, the wine was so, so. We also made a trip a short distance around Lake constance (the Bodensee) to Lindau. If your going this is a really nice little tourist resort town with hotels and restaurants on the water, and picturesque little alleyways/lanes.
Saw fireworks in Bregenz (after standing in the cold and eventually rain which stopped just before the show). You could easily spend a couple of weeks wandering around the Bodensee, but again we didn't find that out until we were there. We might have to go back, shucks.
We then headed to Zurich- EXPENSIVE. We only spent 1 night and really, unless you plan to shop, there are better places to be (see linlithgow, lindau, bregenz, czech repub and even Bern). If you're planning on going to Switzerland, go to Bern skip Zurich and then head south into Heidi territory.
The train trip to Italy went through some beautiful areas. But you could tell when you were in Italy. So Bern to Milan and then Bologna, why Bologna (see above). We had to wait 2 hours to get our apt. Then the rental agent didn't show up when he was supposed to. Deb calls them, they can't find the reservation, speak just a little english. Fortunately their office was nearby. They ended up renting us an apt that usually sleeps 6. It was a little farther away from everything, but as it turned out, that was good. It was quiet. So 5 nights in that apt. then we had to move to the original apt that we booked for the last night. Worked out well because it was closer to the train station and we could catch an early train to Rome.(It's turned our really nice to be able to cook for ourselves in the apartments. A nice plain dinner is really appreciated after all of the dining out).
So figuring out the schedule for meals took a bit. Restaurants close at 15:00 and then re-open at 18:00. Alot of the museums and stores also keep the same hours, closing 2 hours for lunch. You have to plan your day in order to visit the museums. Well I'm tired of writing and sitting in this internet cafe. Deb and I haven't gotten our 300 stairs, and 3-5 miles of walking in today. So we'ìll say goodbye for now.
çiao