Mary Harshfield and I, LeRoy Rupright, both of Findlay, took the Rick Steve's "Back Door Through Europe" (http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours10/) tour last year, it was a 21 day tour starting in the Netherlands, then onto Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and then France. Mary does not like to fly, so we crossed on the Queen Mary II, the six day trip allowed us to acclimate to the change in time.
The ship arrived in England six days later and we spent a day in London, we went to Buckingham palace and seen the changing of the guard, that particular day was also being celebrated as the Queens birthday which is an event also called trooping the colors.
We met our group in Haarlem, the Netherlands, the next day we went to Amsterdam and went to the Anne Franks museum. The city was all done up in orange because of the world soccer championship games going on.
We went on by bus to Arnhem which is a open air museum including many windmills, Rick Steve's keeps the groups small so the bus trips are more comfortable, about 20 people.
Next we went onto Bacharach, Germany which is on the Rhine River. The next day we toured St Goar and hiked up to the Rheinfels castle overlooking the Rhine, ending the day with a cruise back to Bacharach.
At this point I won't overload you with the tour, there is much more. Germany, Austria. We stayed in Venice Florence and Rome. In Venice we took a Gondola on the Grand Canal, seen David in Florence. In Rome we went to the Colosseum, Pantheon and of course the Vatican.
Next we went onto Cinque Terre, the Italian Rivera.
Then it was onto Switzerland and the fabulous Lauterbrunner valley, home to 72 waterfalls cascading from the beautiful Alps. We took a gondola up 10,000 feet to the Schilthorn, what a magnificent view.
After a few days, it was off to Paris! Paris, home to the Louvre and the Mona Lisa, Notre Dame cathedral and of course the Eiffel Tower. Our last night on the tour with our group, we spent drinking Champagne at the Eiffel Tower with a beautiful sunset.
Thus ended our Rick Steve's tour, however we had ten additional days before we caught the QM 2 back to the states. So we rented a car and went to the Normandy beaches and the American cemetery, toured many French castles and went to Mount St Michel on the coast.
We then took the train through the Chunnel back to England. We visited the Windsor Palace, London Tower, the Roman Baths and then Stonehenge.
This is of course a brief, there is so much more with more than 2000 pictures.
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