Our latest trip to Europe was in May 2008. This time we went to France, and took a short side trip to Bruges, Belgium. It was a two-week trip: one week in Paris, two nights in Bruges, and four nights in the Loire Valley.

This trip checked off several things on our Things We Must See & Do list. First - we'd never been to Paris. Of course we loved it! We'd never tried a short-term apartment rental before - and now we can tell you that an apartment has a lot of advantages over hotels, pensions, and bed & breakfasts.

We wanted to go to Bruges for two reasons. First, one of Karen's ancestors was a hero in Bruges history. We're not exactly sure why he was a hero, but there he is on a pedestal in the middle of the town square. Second, Bruges is a very famous tourist trap. And we wanted to see what all the fuss is about.

The Loire Valley made our itinerary because it's chock-full of castles. We love to visit castles, and there are over 40 of them in the Loire Valley to choose from. We got a book from the library and it was a lot of fun going through and picking out which castles we wanted to visit. And we figured that after a week in a huge city and two nights in a busy tourist trap we might enjoy finishing our trip by being out in the country a bit.

I had agreed to write a blog for the Statesman Journal about our travels, so while we were in France I sent some dispatches back. They appeared on the SJ web site, and some of them were later printed in the paper. I've copied the whole series of blog posts to this site, keeping the original photos with the text.

So here we are in July 2009. The trip is just a fond memory. But I've got a new Mac, and have learned a new web site technology (Joomla), so I decided to use them both to create this site. My plan is to collect photos and videos from all of our trips here, along with other great memories. We hope you enjoy it!

--Dave & Karen Votaw