We're Off Again!

One week to go before Geoff and I are off on another adventure.  This time, Europe.  What started out as a 10 day bike trip has turned into a month of biking and touring.  Last spring Geoff and I were making noises about doing the bike/barge trip from Amsterdam to Bruges.  Many of our biking friends have already done this trip and it sounded great.  Then a friend of ours said "Hey, if you guys go next year, I'll go."  Well one thing led to another and before we knew it we had 22 people interested in the journey.  We decided to rent out the whole barge - which looks to be pretty cool. Click here for the story of the Magnifique - be sure to check out the pix.  We have a very interesting group of people, some of which we have met for the first time.  There are only a few of us from our bike club.  Really looking forward to spending time getting to know these new folks.  One gal is joining us from Arizona.  Geoff and I met her on our South American trip this past February.

So that was it - we were booked for a few days in Amsterdam, biking down to Bruges with a few days down there and then we were going to head for home.  Until we heard about a tour that friends from our bike group were doing which included biking from Vienna to Budapest.  That sounded too good to pass up and the timing was pretty much perfect.  We could hook up with them in Vienna which left us a week of free time by ourselves in between.   No brainer - another day in Bruges, another day in Vienna, with 5 days of Paris in between!  There will be about 7 of us biking from Vienna to Budapest and this is a self-guided trip following the Danube, staying at various inns.

I will be posting as much as I can throughout the journey.  Check out the new weather widget on the left.  If you click on it, you can get the full report.  The photo albums will also appear in the left column as soon as I start adding albums.  These links will take you to each photo album on my Picasa site.

As many of you know, I turn these blogs into books.  If there is enough interest, I will make separate editions for just the barge segment and the Vienna segment.  I include the comments, so please feel free to participate and add your comments- we all love to hear from friends and relatives.  Click on the link if you would like to be notified of new postings or just check in from time to time.

Some folks from each of these groups will be doing their own pre-trips to various places.  We wish them safe travels and good times.

Next time.... Itinerary