My good friend Chase (a Cal Poly student who is also studying Architecture in Denmark) and I each got a 15 day global Eurorail pass which allowed us to travel almost anywhere in Europe over a 2 month period. To use the pass, we wrote in the date for the day we were traveling and it would be our ticket for any train we got on that day. We had to pay a small fee for reserving our seats a number of times, but the pass certainly saved us a lot of money and was a great way to get around Europe. We really enjoyed train travel and being able to see the scenery as we went by.
Cities we visited (in order):
Germany: 1. Berlin, 2. Munich, 3. day trip to Fussen (Neuschwanstein castle)
Austria: 4. Innsbruck (for Christmas), 5. day trip to Salzburg
Switzerland: 6. Zurich, 7. Zermatt (town under the Matterhorn)
France: 8. Paris (for New Years)
Spain: 9. Bilbao, 10. Barcelona, 11. Valencia
France: 12. Nice,
Monaco: 13. Monaco
Italy: 14. Venice, 15. Rome
We ended our traveling by taking a flight from Rome back to Copenhagen. We found a great cheap flight with a Dutch airline named Transavia.
This map shows the approximate route we went on. You can double click on the image to see it full size.
There is simply too much to tell to write all down in one post. I can say that I have begun to post pictures up on Picasa from our travels. Below are the links to some of the albums. I have not "captioned" the albums yet... but I hope to do so soon.
Innsbruck: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/Innsbruck
Zermatt: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/Zermatt
Bilbao: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/Bilbao
Nice and Monaco: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/FrenchRivieraChase
I have many more pictures to post, and will let you know as they are put up.
Since returning to Copenhagen, I have been busy with another semester as an architecture student. So far the semester has been going pretty well. The weather has been cold, dark, wet, and snowy recently so that has been a little depressing but it is starting to get better. A couple weekends ago I had the opportunity to travel to Berlin with the other full year architecture students at my school in Copenhagen. It was my 3rd time in Berlin and was fantastic as ever despite fighting a cold the whole time. Because I had already been there, I spent my time seeing many things in Berlin that I had not seen before such as Potsdamer Platz, the 1936 Olympic stadium, as well as a day trip to Dessau to see The Bauhaus.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit a family I knew from my home church in San Rafael. The father works for Chevron and because they are Dutch, the company moved him to work in Rotterdam for 3 years. They had invited me to visit them sometime when I was in Europe. I had a couple extras days left on my train pass, which expired the monday after the weekend... so I had to use it up that weekend. It turned out to be a really good time to visit with them and I took a day trip to Brugge, Belgium. I enjoyed some amazing Belgian beer, waffles and chocolate as well as some Dutch cheese. The only hard part was I had a lot of schoolwork to catch up on when I returned.
Last week was also a great week because my mom came to visit! She really enjoyed meeting my family and getting to see Copenhagen. I took her on a day trip to Malmo, Sweden which was great as well. Malmo is only a 30min train ride from Copenhagen and so it would be silly not to go since it is so close. Besides... now my mom can say she has been to Denmark AND Sweden :)
I have posted pictures of Berlin, Rotterdam, and Brugge on my Picasa page here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04
Eventually... I hope to write more about the 5 week trip around Europe, so stay posted... :)
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