October 2nd, 2002
Hi Everyone
Just trying to re-adjust from living out of a suitcase and sleeping in strange beds for the last 3 weeks. There are some definite advantages of being home!
However, as I look through some of my pictures that I took with my new digital camera, the memories come flooding back and I look forward to the next time we can visit this wonderful area of the world that we love so much.
I'll keep this e-mail brief. I hope that you will get the chance to look at the pictures and other info that I will be including on our trip. It will be posted on my website in about 2 weeks.
Europe for us is the perfect area of the world to visit. It offers not only fabulous physical geography, but also a mix of cultures that have a history going back centuries. I will be the first to admit that I have seen little of the rest of the world, however, I have talked to many people who have travelled in Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand and while they all offer their own unique travel experience, for us, Europe appears to offer the best mix of new experiences with comfort and convenience.
There is no question that as I have gotten older, I am looking for more comforts and conveniences and less of the raw, uncharted experiences that Jeff and Nancy have experienced in South America and other people that I have talked to who have travelled in less developed areas of the world. There is obviously a trade-off : the more familiar and comfortable western culture of Europe compared to the unpredictable but more exotic cultures of many third world countries.
I can only offer up my pictures to you and after viewing them and reading the short descriptions that I plan on including for most of them, you can decide if a European vacation has the appeal for you that it obviously has for us.
In closing, our last 10 days were spent in Austria and Germany - Salzburg, Vienna, the Danube river, Munich and the Rhine. Eight straight days of cold, cloudy weather before sunshine on our last day along the Rhine. Despite that, we visited many wonderful cultural sites in the big cities, visited the one and only Oktoberfest in Munich - amazing. It was a disappointing end to our trip in some ways but made us appreciate those wonderful, sun drenched days high up in the mountains of Switzerland and Northern Italy. They give us memories that we will always cherish and provide us with dreams of returning some time in the future.
Best wishes to all,
Larry