Tower of London

Embarrassing confession of the day: I used to think the Tower of London was one of the towers on Tower Bridge.  And I thought that up until the day my tour guide said "here's the Tower of London" and pointed at what would generally be described as a castle or fortress.  Whoops.

Due in part to my ignorance and in part because it is Sar's favorite part of London, I took a tour of the Tower.

Top left: Traitor's Gate
Bottom left: My tour guide
Top right: The White Tower and Tower Bridge
Bottom right: Old meets new. Tower of London in the midground, the Gherkin in the background

Castles and Haggis: It's Scotland!

Scotland is absolutely beautiful.  It's green, there's cliff's everywhere, and there's centuries of architecture smooshed into Edinburgh.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein is supposedly where Walt Disney got the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland.  More exciting -- to me at least -- is that it is the castle is where Chitty Chitty Bang Bang landed.  You know, when they get into the castle designed as wind up dolls?  No?  Ok, here, look at my pretty pictures on the hike to the castle.

Willkommen in München!!!!!

I took the train from Zagreb to Munich today.  First class baby!  (Because I am an old woman so I don't qualify for 2nd class passes)

I had the entire compartment to myself: six seats and they all could lie flat.  After spending the last couple nights in a stifling hostel with seven guys, one of whom sounds like he is actually sawing logs when he snores: this air conditioned compartment was heaven.

After we crossed into Slovenia, and thus went through my last passport check while in the EU, I took a long nap and awoke in the middle of Austria: