On our hike from Vernazza to Corniglia early this morning we came upon what has to be one of my favorite views in the world. I set my camera up on the 200 year old rock wall that lines the entire path to capture our silent amazment of God's creation and man's hard work. We continued the hike through Manarola and Rio Maggiore before taking the train back to Vernazza for a sunset dinner.
Class is done! Now the vacation can start.=) We had our farewell
dinner on Friday night in munich and the German teachers wore their
traditional lieterhosen. We saw the olympic park and wandered some
more around the good parts of Munich. I also got to see Weezer!
Great small concert with some guys from class. Saturday morning he
headed up to Kaiserslauten to visit Carmen, a friend of Natalie's
family from Romania. She took us to the beautiful city of Heidelburg
and had a lot of fun hiking up to the good views of the old bridge and
castle. Then we ran back to get on the train to Switzerland. We were
able to get 1st class Eurail tickets for the same price as 2nd class
so it has been really nice lounging in the first class cabins on all
our train trips. We got in to Interlaken at 10pm and walked to our
convent/old folk's home where we stayed for the night. Now we're
checked in at the Backpacker's Villa and ready to walk around the
lakes and explore the town. A little foggy this morning but we hear
it will clear up in the next couple days. Natalie and I have had
colds the last few days, but we're getting much better now. Thanks
for your emails! Talk to you soon!
-dave and natalie
Nuremburg, Munchen, Dachau, Fussen, Kaiserslauten, and Heidelburg...
Saw the nymphenburger castle and did mike´s bike tour today. The bike tour hasnt changed a bit since I did it in 2000--just this time we had rain. Our whole group got to ride around in huge yellow ponchos, a great site to see. 
And of course we visited the hofbrauhaus. Now i´ve gotta write a paper for class tomorrow. We hear the one and only Rick Steves is in Munich at this very moment.... we äre keeping an eye out for him.
We've been enjoying prague this week! Saw the best jazz band we've ever seen last night and have seen about all the sights by now. Tomorrow we're going to check out Vienna, then Sunday off to Munich.
The Reduta is where Clinton played the sax when he was in town:
It's in a pretty bad area of town, down a dark alley, then down some stairs into the basement, then even once you're there it's tough to figure out if there's a band playing or how to get tickets, we didn't run into anyone who spoke English. But the difficulty was well worth it.
Saw an amazing orchestra performance tonight in this beautiful concert hall.
Natalie picking up some groceries for the week...
We just wanted to let you know we have safely arrived in Prague. The flight were great, no lines and no layovers (we couldn't believe it). This evening we roamed the beautiful and very romantic city of Prague, I felt like we were walking down the streets of Disneyland only 800
years older and more beautiful. The sunset was breath taking and the quaint ally restaurant had fabulous food. We even figured out the metro. Stay tuned for further adventures this is only the first night!
Below is our itinerary for the upcoming Europe trip. The places listed are where we sleep that night, in parenthesis are the day trips we may go on.
Aug.
7 Prague
8 Prague
9 Prague
10 Prague (Krakow)
11 Prague
12 Prague (Vienna)
13 Prague
14 Munich
15 Munich
16 Munich (Neuschwanstein)
17 Munich
18 Munich
19 Munich (Heidelburg)
20 Romantic Road
21 Interlaken -Backpacker's Villa
22 Interlaken
23 Gimmelwald
24 Gimmelwald
25 Paris -Laura's apartment
26 Paris
27 Train
28 Venice -Jim's house
29 Venice
30 Cinque Terra -Vernazza
31 Cinque Terra
Sept.
1 Florence
2 Florence
3 Siena
4 Sorrento (Capri)
5 Sorrento (Pompei)
6 Rome
7 Rome
8 Rome
9 San Diego!
