Amsterdam then an overnight train to Milan, Italy

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First thing we had to do this morning was to go to the train station to store our luggage since our train wasn’t until 5pm but we had to check out by 10am. It costs 4.5 Euros per day to store luggage, pretty cheap.

We had a quick bite and coffee while we waited for the tram to the Van Gogh Museum. Once we got to the Museum though, I was still hungry so we shared a hamburger and a non-alcoholic beer. We attempted to go the Heineken Museum but unfortunately it was closed for renovations! So that was a bust.

We ended up back in town and went to Lanskroon, a fabulous pastry shop! The sell these very special cookie called stroopwafels. There is original honey, cafe caramel, and fig. At the cafe we had the cafe caramel and bough some honey for the train ride. They were out of the fig but they make some for another cafe nearby so the owner kindly called them to reserve some for us. The cookies we had were crispy and sweet and oh so delicious!

The other cafe ended up not being that nearby and we were almost late getting back to the train station by 5pm. We rushed to the station to get our luggage from the storage and found out that our train was actually dealyed by 1.5 hours! Oh well, at least we didn’t miss our train. To entertain us while waiting, there was a theater production inside the station. We finally left around 7pm and we’ll arrive in Milan around 9:30am. We unfortunately don’t have a cabin but reclining seats and as we’re going through each country, there are passport checks and sniffing dogs. Some kids got taken off the train at some point, curious stuff.


If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

Paris to Brussels to Amsterdam

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Today we did a lot of traveling.

We checked out of our hotel at 7:15am to catch our train to Brussels at 8:25am. We had a quick breakfast at the train station before boarding the train.

We arrived in Brussels, Belgium at 9:45am and took the metro into town (4.5 Euros for a 1-day pass). We first had Belgian waffles at Agora Place. You choose your own toppings and pay for each topping. Afterwards we went to check out the chocolate places and bought ourselves some snacks for the road. We visited the famous Manniken Pis (the statue of a little boy peeing). We had a wonderful lunch of mussels, stewed beef, gin, and beer. We visited the chocolate museum (5 Euros) and beer museum (5 Euros, includes one glass of beer!). We then headed back to the train station to catch the 5:15pm train to Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

We arrived at 8:30pm and had a hard time finding our hotel, the Bulldog Hotel & Hostel. We went to have some dinner of falafel and schwarma pita before visiting the red light district. It started raining though so headed back to rest after our long day of traveling.


If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

Paris and Versailles

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Today we thought we’d take a trip to Versailles even though the chateau itself was closed, at least the parks were open. We are leaving France tomorrow so this was our only opportunity.

We had lunch first in St. Michel at a kebab place. We had the pita plate and kebab plate and they were huge! It came with a ton of frites (fries) as well. We had a nice full stomach for the short train ride to Versailles.

When we arrived in Versailles, we stopped by the McCafe (yes, McDonald’s has cafes) and they had yummy macaroons!

We walked to the grounds of the Versailles chateau and saw electric bicycles for rent (10 Euros per hour) but it was a bit drizzly so we read that they have electric golf carts for rent inside. It ended up being 28 Euros per hour so a bit too expensive and the route through the grounds was VERY limited. We ended up renting conventional bicycles for 6 Euros per hour. We saw all the beautiful gardens and buildings until 6:30pm then went to have a pre-dinner snack of a citron macaroon and apricot tart.

We headed back to Paris and stopped by the Arc du Triomple, Champs Elysee, Moulin Rouge, Pigalle, then finally to have dinner at Frog & Rosbit, a business started by INSEAD graduates. Ron ordered some funky blue drink, I tried their Dark du Triomphe (yum!). We had the hot chorizo salad and fish & chips. An English pub in Paris, interesting concept.


If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

Paris Day 2

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This morning we visited the Musee d’Orsay. Most museums are free on the 1st Sunday of the month so at first we didn’t think we could get any benefit from the Museum Pass we bought but we still were able to go through the special side entrance and didn’t have to wait in the long long line!

We spent all morning there before heading somewhere near the Louvre to first have lunch. We ended up with a simple lunch of baguette poulet (chicken sandwich), hot dog avec formage (with cheese), and beer.

After lunch we headed through the park to the Louvre and again had a special entrance with the Museum Pass so didn’t have to wait in the hot sun. We feasted our eyes on famous paintings, Italian sculptures, Hammurabi’s stone, etc. We caught a quick glimpse of the Mona Lisa and it is really smaller than I thought it would be.

We were pretty pooped out so headed to the lawns near the Eiffel Tower for a nap in the warm sun before waiting in line for tickets up to the tower. While waiting in line, they stopped selling tickets directly to the top but only allowed us to buy tickets to the 2nd floor (7.8 Euros). Once we got to the 2nd floor, we were able to easily buy tickets to the top (additional 4.2 Euros).

After our visit to the top of the tower, we met up with Timo and Elina for a simple Italian dinner before heading to Crazy Horse for a caberet show. They were having a deal of buy one tickets, get the second 1/2 off, including a 1/2 bottle of champagne per person. The show was interesting, the best part were the tap dancing twins.


If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.

Paris Day 1

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We took the morning train back to Paris and arrived at our hotel around 11:30am. Our room wasn’t ready yet but we left our luggage there so that we could go explore. Our first stop was for some light lunch at a sandwich place around the corner. The shop owner noticed me taking pictures of his sandwich display case and wanted me to take a picture of him too!

It started to lightly drizzle so we headed into the subway to see St. Chappelle and the Conciergie. At St. Chappelle, we bought tickets for ourselves for 10 Euros each then realized that it’d be cheaper to get the Museum Pass for 30 Euros since we’d be there for a few days. We ended up hawking our original tickets for 7.5 Euros each but I think we’ll still benefit.

We also visited Notre Dame Cathedral and Tower. Yes we did climb the 422 steps! We fortified ourselves before the climb with a croque monsieur and coffee.

Other stops for the day included Hotel de Ville (City Hall), the Picasso Museum and Centre Pompidou. Before Centre Pompidou we did some people watching and had an apple crepe and coffee at a sidewalk cafe.

We met up with Timo and Elina at St. Michel around 8:30pm and it was still bright out! We tried a restaurant with sidewalk seating and had their prix fixe set for 18 Euros which included an appetizer, entree, and dessert. We had onion soup & escargot, beef burgundy & steak, creme brulee & apple pie and ice cream.


After dinner we walked over to where we could see the Eiffel Tower all lit up. So beautiful.

If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.