On our first outing during our time in Madrid we headed to the Royal Palace. Its front facade is shown in the picture at the top of this page. The Palace surrounds the gigantic Plaza de la Armeria, with the similarly imposing Catedral de Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena church nearby. This video … Continue reading Madrid Sights
We ate and drank quite well while we were visiting Madrid. Everywhere we went, one of the food specialities regularly on hand was Iberian ham, some of which is featured in the butcher shop above. If you look closely at the brightly-lit charcuterie shop below, you can see its name – Museo del Jamón – … Continue reading Madrid Food & Drink
We arrived in Madrid on December 8, a Sunday night during the Feast of the Immaculate Conception long weekend, which is a huge holiday in Spain. As our taxi drove us from the airport to our hotel, the boulevards were lit up with Christmas lights: When we opened up the balcony doors of our room … Continue reading Christmas Season in Madrid
Happy New Year! If all you had to go on was the picture above, you might guess that we were back home in Montana. But this was just our layover on the way to our destination. Here, this might be a better clue: We had a nice, long layover at the Zurich airport (“Flughafen” is … Continue reading On the Road Again…
In late August we made another of our return trips home to Montana. We’ve written about previous trips there, and we weren’t sure whether we had any special travel-related content to share. One evening during our trip a gorgeous sunset accompanied a combined birthday and anniversary celebration. That resulted in a series of photos that … Continue reading Montana (Mostly) Sunsets
As we have noted in our Trip Album page, we’ve enjoyed Viking’s Heart of Normandy cruise twice; once in 2012, and again a second time in 2015 along with Tracey’s mother and her sister so that they could also visit a family member’s grave at the American Cemetery in Normandy. This cruise is not that … Continue reading Throwback: In Rouen
We’ve had the privilege of visiting the American Cemetery in Normandy twice. Our first visit was on Easter Sunday in April 2012 during our first Viking River Cruises trip. We visited the grave of Tracey’s great uncle Merton McDonald, who had died in Normandy in July, 1944. We were the first members of the family … Continue reading American Cemetery in Normandy
Our vacation in France was all the way back in November, 2018, but at our usual non-real time pace, it’s taken nearly six months to wrap up the recounting of this trip on our blog. Our last stop was a pleasure. Coming in with little in the way of expectations, we found Lyon full of … Continue reading Last Stop: Lyon
On the afternoon of our first day in Lyon with Viking, we chose to take Viking’s optional excursion, “Timeless Tour of Pérouges” to the nearby tourist destination east of Lyon. This hilltop stone village from the 13th century dwindled into irrelevance as a travel stop on the trading route from Geneva to Lyon once railroads … Continue reading Medieval Pérouges
Our Viking River Cruises’ trip from Provence to Lyon gave us two full days docked at our final stop in the city of Lyon. We sailed the short distance from Vienne to Lyon starting before dawn. Our morning was taken up by a panoramic coach tour of the city. In the afternoon we toured the … Continue reading Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière
Halfway There Travelers 