Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam, Netherlands

As we made the rainy drive across the countryside from Bruges to Amsterdam I got more and more excited. We booked an especially nice hotel in downtown Amsterdam for our first wedding anniversary, and I was looking forward to a little luxury! 

A minor anxiety attack crept up on me as we entered Amsterdam. Roads were blocked off and people were EVERYWHERE.

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Bruges, Belgium

Bruges, Belgium

We had a great time in Brussels, drinking all the beer and eating way too much chocolate.  We got on the road, headed west towards Bruges.  I have been before, right after graduating from high school in 2007.  Fortunately, not very much about the city has changed.  It is a beautiful old city, protected by UNESCO, full of canals, cobble-stoned streets and medieval buildings.  We didn’t have the best weather, but fortunately we managed to stay mostly dry.

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Eltz Castle and Brussels, Belgium

Eltz Castle and Brussels, Belgium

After Prague, we decided it was time to satisfy Charles' desire for beer from Belgium, so we hopped back in our rental car and headed west across Germany. Along the way, we stopped at Eltz Castle, which was recommended to us by my mother, Barb, as one of her favorite sites in Germany.

We stopped for a single night to break up the drive in a tiny town near the castle called Macken. The town was so small we struggled to find dinner that night, but when we did we had another taste of traditional German schnitzel in a restaurant where everyone knew each other, except for us.

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The Romantic Road and Bamberg, Germany

The Romantic Road and Bamberg, Germany

After Munich, Samantha and I drove "the Romantic Road" north.  It's a tourist initiative to increase the flow of tourists to southern Germany, but it's also an unbelievably beautiful drive.  Due to some unforeseen events, we swapped out our Opel Corsa for a Fiat 500 soft top.  This obviously added to our enjoyment of the drive.  Its mostly through small agrarian villages, which are gorgeous in their own right,  but the real gems are Nordinglen and Rothenburg, two medieval walled cities dating back centuries.

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