Back at the Ranch: Europe

We spent a wonderful two weeks touring Europe. First stop, England. We were all over London and had day trips to Stratford, Oxford, Stonehenge, Bath, Canterbury and Dover.

Your standard Brittish phone booth photo!

Shana & Ally at the Roman Baths in Bath, England.

Bath, England.

Ally at Stonehenge

Ally at the Tower of London

This armor cracks me up. I think it is Henry VIIIs armor, but my eighth grade mentality cracks up at his package armor.

Speaking of immature humor, Ally was pretending to use the 15th (?) century toilet in the Tower of London.

Here are the Cliffs of Dover as we loaded a boat for the hour ride across the English Channel into France.

Onward to Paris. We hit the Musse d' Orsay, House of Versailles, Louve, a cruise down the river Sienne and many other hot spots!

Ally & Shana at the Eiffel Tower.

Our group at the Louve

Ally at Montmarte overlooking Paris.

Now is where the real adventure begins. We board a train in Paris for a 14 hour trip to Rome. By this point, we have spent about 9 days together, so we were all pretty well bonded and comfortable with each other, which proved to be a good thing. As we lug our 50# bags onto this train, we quickly realize that 6 of us, with our huge luggage will be spending over half a day - some without air conditioning - in a 6 x 7 train car. It was a long hot night!

Notice the feet dangling from the top? They cram you in three high bunks. I am just glad we shared with our group, this could be a nightmare with people you don't know!! But look at us, we all wanted to huddle in one car together. A few of us jumped off the train in Switzerland at midnight just to say we had been there, but also to get 5 minutes of fresh air.

Now onto Rome! After our 14 hour, hot, crammed train ride with no showers, we hit the ground running in Rome straight to the Colosseum. Boy were we a pretty sight. Plus is was 90 degrees with about 90% humidity. Rome - the Colosseum with the girls.

Our crazy group in Rome.

Trevi Fountain - Rome - the water that pours from the aqueducts is amazing. Around every corner you just put your water bottle in and fill with fresh ice cold water! This was awesome since it was sweltering.