Better Late Than Never

Since I never got to writing my final Europe post, here goes:

Amsterdam

From Copenhagen we boarded yet another overnight train to The Netherlands, landing the next morning in Amsterdam. Since the bad weather was still following us we spent our first morning settling into our hotel, resting a little and catching up on laundry, but when it cleared up we had some time to explore. The entire city is covered in canals and bicycles. From Dam Square to the Red Light District you see your fair share of interesting things, but Amsterdam has some of the most talented street musicians I’ve ever seen.

We went on a countryside bike tour, seeing a lot of the houseboats and windmills on the outskirts of town and visiting a nearby cheese and clog factory.  Later we got schooled on drugs at Cannabis College, where an obscene number of random marijuana facts are available to visitors. We had dinner at my new favorite fast food place with to-go noodle dishes called Wok-to-Walk.

The Anne Frank House Visiting the Anne Frank House was one of the highlights of this city and one of my favorite historical sites from the whole trip. Another Amsterdam favorite was a wine and local cheese pairing at Reypenaer Tasting Room. The best restaurant was the Pancake Bakery where, even though they are more like crepes, the pancakes are to die for. 

Brussels

For spending only one night in Brussels, we definitely covered a lot of ground. We visited the Charles Buls statue,  Grand Place and the Manneken Pis before heading to the Cantillion Brewery.  Our tour of the 111 year old brewery showed off the entire beer creation process and to finish it off, we got to sample some interesting Belgian beers.

We decided to splurge on an incredible seafood meal, complete with lobster and escargot, but we also made sure to have Belgian waffles and some Belgian chocolates while in town. We spent most of our evening catching up with some other travel friends from TCU at the Delirium brewery. Don’t worry, we didn’t leave Belgium without drinking out of Das Boot!

Paris

We kicked off our first night in Paris by visiting Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle, which is made almost completely our of stained glass. Afterwards we went on the Fat Tire Bike Tour of the city that included a perfectly timed canal tour where we got to watch the sun set over the city and see the Eiffel Tower’s nighttime light show.

We spent almost an entire day at Versailles, seeing not only the palace and gardens, but also The Grand Trianon and Marie-Antoinette’s Estate. After a long day we made our way to a restaurant called Le Refuge des Fondues near Montmartre where we were served wine in baby bottles and had an incredible fondue style dinner.

The next day we visited the Louvre, where my favorite exhibit was Winged Victory, and got an incredible view of the entire city from the top of the Arc di Triomphe. After an excellent French dinner, complete with onion soup, we explored some of the Paris nightlife. On our last day, we had lunch at Montmartre before checking out the Moulin Rouge and Luxembourg Gardens. To celebrate a successful trip, we had our last dinner at Café Le Malakoff and made our way to the place du Trocadéro, which had an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower as the sun set behind it. Ending our trip in such a beautiful place made it tough, but it couldn’t have been a more perfect close to the most incredible adventure I’ve ever had.