Paris / Belgium / Cologne / Amsterdam

Yes it was a very busy week. Scott and I flew back from Spain on Saturday night and got to bed around 1am to wake up at 8am and drive to Paris. We picked up Dan and Pam (Scott's dad and stepmom) in Paris and brought them back to Brugge for the week. They flew to Paris Saturday morning from Dublin. I was hit with some bad migranes this week and couldn't do my usual tours. However, they did excellent finding their way on the bus and train to Brussels and Gent. Pam owns and boards horses in Minnesota so a carriage ride through Brugge was a must.
On Saturday Scott drove us three hours to Cologne, Germany. This is a very tourist friendly city on the water but known most for the Dom Cathedral. The Dom cathedral is the world's largest Gothic church and has a shrine to the three wise men (it is believed to hold the bones and remains of them in the gold chest pictured below). The Dom was the world's tallest structure until the Washington monument was built back in the 1884. In WWII it was hit by 14 air bombs but never collapsed. As beautiful as this church is it still dosen't compare to the Duomo in Milan. Below are some pretty good night photos of the cathedral.






So the week wouldn't be complete with some wierd story. Well can you believe we had another flat tire (that's two in less then a week)! This time it was with our car so we did have a spare and Scott was able to swap them out. With a twenty minute delay we were on our way to Amsterdam.

Sunday morning we drove to Amsterdam and gave our standard tour of the Anne Frank House, Dam Square, the Red Light District and the flower market. This time we did find a great Chinese and Noodle place which we will definately return to. After a day of touring we said goodbye to Dan and Pam and dropped them off at the airport in Amsterdam. We hope they had a great Euro Trip and we see them again next year.