carol

I just responded to a post asking for faux pas, negative experiences, etc. to help the person to know what to watch for.<BR><BR>But I feel I would like to tell about a couple of wonderful positives, and invite others to share a picture, view, smell, sound, etc. that inspired them and is a favourite memory of European travel.<BR><BR>Mine are:<BR>- Listening to a Kiwi opera star sing Puccini on the rooftop terrace at the Sultan Hostel pub in Istanbul late at night, while watching the gulls soar in the floodlights of the minarets of the Blue Mosque.<BR>- The day spent in Cravant-Bazarnes, France when the train split and we missed our destination.<BR>- The first view of David when you turn the corner and see him skylit.<BR>- The flying buttresses of Notre Dame.<BR>- Jamon serrano.

Lou

Xanadu Hotel in the Bahamas, 1978. Had dinner in the Escoffier restaurant and afterwards came out to the bar for an after dinner drink.<BR><BR>Sitting there was a couple from France, listening to a trio playing. The woman gets up and walks over to the band and says something to the leader. He nods his head and the band starts playing "As Time Goes By". She takes the microphone and sings to her husband... "You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh....". She sings the entire song in English with her thick French accent and we were just in awe. It was the greatest performance I have ever seen. <BR><BR>We never found out who she was but my wife and I will never forgot that special, magical performance.

Nancy

Sitting at the restaurant with the awning across from the Colossium in Rome, having a nice cool glass of wine and some melon and watching the most handsome man dressed in Armani waiting for his driver. It was like being in an old Italian movie. Funny how a little nothing moment like that sticks in your mind!

anissa

On a reunion trip with friends that I had gone to school with 10 years prior we were in the Berliner Dom (I think that is the name of it, where all the kings/queens of Prussia were coronated and buried). The church itself is magical and beautiful, but then when we were up in the balcony section, in fact right next to where the Royalty used to sit, the organist came out and began to play that magnificant organ. I later found out that the organ in that cathedral is the second largest in the world. Anyway, it was heavenly - pardon the pun. After sitting there in awe of her playing we finally went on up to the top of the Dom and as we were walking around the top of the Dom looking out over Berlin we could still hear snatches of the music.

jorge

they may sound wierd but I love contrasts and strange things<BR><BR>-A monk walking with a transexual, Bangkok <BR>-a 500 pound begger on 42st New york city.<BR>-listanig too spanish music especialy Cumbia, (Colombian) being played in clubs all over the world..

Uncle Sam

1. Sitting at night in a little restaurant eating mussles in Brugges looking up at the bell tower.<BR><BR>2. The first time you walk out of the train station in Venice and see the Grand Canal.<BR><BR>3. Nueschwanstein in the rear view mirror lit up at night.<BR><BR>4. The first look at Rembrandts "Nightwatch" or "David"<BR><BR>5. Standing in the Roman Forum and realizing that right in front of you is where the conquering generals and Ceasars rode their chariots.<BR><BR>6. Seeing Mammertine prison where the Apostle Paul wrote many of his epsitles.<BR><BR>7. Seeing Big Ben tower lit up at night.<BR><BR>8. The first beer at Octoberfest after having seen the opening parade.<BR><BR>9. Driving through the hauntingly beautiful Glen Coe.<BR><BR>10. Paying only 75c for a Budvar, the world's best beer in the main square in Prague.<BR><BR>US

Sherri

Waking up in my beautiful room in Positano by a fisherman singing in Italian; to this day I do not know what he said ; but it was a defineing Italian moment. <BR>la Dolce Italy!

Robbyn

I was walking around in a small village in Crete looking for my husband and son who had I found out later were in the next small village looking for me. Anyway, I walked past a tiny restaurant with climbing geraniums all over the outside wall of the shop. I was thinking how pretty it was when a sweet old Greek lady came out and motioned for me to come inside to have something to eat. <BR><BR>I tried as best I could to tell her I couldn't right then, that I was looking for someone and that we might stop back later.<BR><BR>Well, I eventually found my family and we stopped back at the teeny little resturant. We only ordered cokes (because of an earlier episode with food poison a couple of days before). We began to feel quilty as they brought us fruit, a little shot of some kind liquor and some peanuts. <BR><BR>We had an interesting conversation for about a half hour with a man from Ireland, and another from France that were sitting next to us. Across the room were 2 old Greek men that were fumbling with some worry beads while passing the time. <BR><BR>We left a very large tip, because the lady was so friendly and when we left she asked her son to ask us where we were from. We told him the U.S. The son repeated this to his mother and she didn't seem to understand. Finally he said, "America, mom, America". She smiled and then we smiled back. She hugged me, my husband, and my son as we left. It was the best part of our trip to the Greek Islands!

elvira

The Loons all scrambling over the boat, trying to keep it from crushing the little sailboats, as we docked in Murano.<BR><BR>The night we spent in the Atlas Mountains with a Berber family - the most profound silence and darkness I have ever experienced.<BR><BR>The sound of the camels as we went to sleep in our tent in the Sahara (they sound like Chubakkah).<BR><BR>The names of the Jews in Pere Lachaise lost to the Holocaust, many of them doctors, and thinking "which one of these could have find a medical miracle?".<BR><BR>Napoleon's tomb.<BR><BR>Sitting on our veranda on Naxos as the sun set, drinking wine and realizing how incredible it was to be sitting on a veranda in Greece with my best friends.<BR><BR>"My" apartment in Paris, when I first walked in, and it dawned on me "I'm living in Paris for FIVE WEEKS".<BR><BR>Sheila and I recognizing each other when I got off the train in Aberdeen (Sheiler, you LOOK like a Sheila!).<BR><BR>Lunch in the House of Lords dining room (great food, wonderful hostess, and ME in THAT dining room!).<BR><BR>da Vinci's tomb in Amboise.<BR><BR>Being awakened in Chefchouan by the call to prayer. <BR> <BR><BR>

DianeG

Indelibly imprinted in my memory is the moment shortly after we got off the Paris-Marseilles highway and entered Provence on our way to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. It was dark and we had suddenly emerged into the most incredibly fragrant country air, redolent of lavender and other marvellously rich scents!

Lexma90

Wandering around Siena after dinner one evening, and happening upon a dinner being held by one of the contrade in an out-of-the-way piazzas. Groups of men and women were singing to one another, each festooned by the scarf of their contrade.<BR><BR>Hiking from Monterosso to Vernazza, late one September, and being stopped by an old woman (in shapeless black dress & babushka) and her young grandson, asking by gestures if my husband could help the grandson lift a basket of grapes onto their grape "monorails." She paid him (us?) with a bunch of the sweetest, stickiest grapes I've ever had.<BR><BR>In the Borghese Museum in Rome one rainy afternoon, walking into a room to confront a favorite statue of mine from an art appreciation class in collge quite a few years before, "Apollo and Daphne," by Bernini. I had forgotten the slide I'd seen of that statue, probably forgotten I'd even taken the class, until I saw the figure of Daphne, desparately fleeing, and turning into a tree as she attempted to escape.

Cathy

Walking on the edge of the world in the Swiss Alps, after taking a tram up the mountain and finding an alpine lake to swim in, and watching the Swiss farmers work their fields on the steep mountainsides. It was the most glorious day I have ever spent, with the Alps soaring above us on one side, and the valleys so far below us on the other. I kept looking for Heidi and her Grandfather; I knew they must be there! It was so out of the way, the road wasn't even on a Michelin map! I still relive that day whenever I can't sleep, until I fall into a peaceful slumber.

Cathy

Sorry, but as soon as I posted that last one, I thought of another. Walking back to our hotel after dinner in Venice. We were on a backstreet, crossing a bridge, when we heard beautiful Vivaldi music. It was coming from the building right on the canal, and was a concert going on. We stood on the bridge, watching the gondolas silently glide by below us, listening to "The Four Seasons" in the moonlight. We will never forget it.

Linda

Of course "The David" as others have mentioned. Being on renovated posh train cars from the late 1800's with a continuous service of beverage and food and a dance floor as we traveled from Vienna to a castle in the wine country of Austria. We felt like royalty. Wonderful historic Berlin. The Charles Bridge at night in Prague. Auschwitz/Birkenau near Krakow. The waterfall at Lauterbrennan as the train moves up to the Jungfrau in Switzerland.

nancy

second night in rome;<BR>Walked onto the Piazza Navona,<BR>he first thing I see,<BR>set -up before <BR>the Fontana Quatro Moro, <BR>was a sizable chamber orchestra, playing beautiful music,<BR>with the fountain as it's background.<BR>Magic.<BR><BR>Following yr,<BR>last night in rome;<BR>Went to top of hotel early evening<BR>to enjoy the spectacular view and a drink of mandarinetto!<BR>A young woman was doing yoga, <BR>on her mat,<BR>and playing the Simon & Garfunkle,<BR>Concert in New York tape.<BR>[it was her parent's favorite, ACK!<BR> mine too ]<BR><BR>After assuring each other, that neither was an interferance,<BR>I sat back in a deck chair,<BR>and with the sound of the crowds down in Campo de Fiori , the S & G music,<BR>watched the sky change colors as dusk set in,<BR>and the quietness of that young woman going through her routine.<BR><BR>It was a very peaceful, AND ususal moment.<BR>How many "different" moments were playing themselves out across the city at that moment?<BR><BR>My first view of the country-side from the Abbezzia at Montecassino.

jw

Robbyn, have you done a trip report of your visit to Crete somewhere at this forum? It sounds like your Crete could be just the Crete I've dreamed about. If you have not already, maybe you could go to one of the Crete threads and top it with more of your impressions and memories. I'd love to read more. Thanks. J.

Suzy

I think it's those "little moments" that add up to those wonderful memories of Europe. <BR>On a late afternoon visit to Saint Germain des Pres in Paris, the only people in the cathedral were a mother and toddler singing softly together in a side chapel.<BR>On a street corner in Paris, being asked directions to a music lesson by two giggling school girls who assumed I spoke French. (Maybe it was the scarf.)<BR><BR>After 4 days of rain in Lakes Como and Garda, the sun came out as we entered Venice's Grand Canal in the Vaporetto. I felt like the queen of the world.

jen

The first time I walked around the Old Church in Delft, the Netherlands, and not knowing who was buried there, was utterly startled to see a simple wooden chair in the middle of the floor with a piece of cardboard propped up on it with the single pencil-written word 'VERMEER' and an arrow - pointing down. At that moment the organist started playing Bach.

Chris Spoor

A few come to mind immediately:<BR><BR>--When I was a child, we visited Stonehenge on a grey, rainy day (back when you could still go<BR>up among the stones, rather than looking at them from a distance behind a rope). The rain started<BR>falling harder, and I found a large standing stone that had eroded (been carved out?) near the<BR>base. By squeezing myself into that space, I could shelter out of the rain. Although I was only<BR>about 9, I remember realizing that that was a very primal moment, feeling that immensely ancient rock against my back, looking out at the other stones dripping with rain. Quite magical,<BR>and alas, not an experience that can be duplicated today.<BR><BR>--Flying into Athens for the trip that was my college graduation present. As the plane made its descent, the clouds parted, and out of the window I could see spread below me the entire<BR>Peloponnisos. I know I let out a cry. It looked exactly like all of those maps in my Greek textbooks that I had been studying for so many years. (I got my degree in Ancient Greek.) I<BR>think part of me had never believed it was a real place until I saw that very familiar shape stretched out below me amid the shining purple-blue water.<BR><BR>--Walking through the Agora in Athens on a hot, dry, summer day and thinking that the dust covering my sandals might possibly be some of the very same dust that had covered Socrates’s sandals too.<BR><BR>--Standing on the Areopagus, on the shoulder of the Acropolis in Athens, and thinking of St. Paul, from that very site, delivering his “Men of Athens, ye are in all things too superstitious” speech to the crowd below. And realizing the power of his statement “God does not dwell in<BR>temples made with hands” while looming over him was that greatest of all man-made temples, the Parthenon.

Mireille

Unforgetable: Auschwitz concentration camp - visited 20 years ago and I still choke when thinking about it.<BR><BR>Also unforgetable but totally opposite: - entering for the first time in the San Pietro Cathedral in Rome - the sheer size, and power....<BR> - laying on the cool, green grass next to the tower of Pisa and just watching clouds go by on a warm summer day<BR> - crepes from a street vendor in Paris [and finding a free parking spot 100 m from the Eiffel Tower ]