Since I have not been to Europe yet, my moments are based in this hemisphere, north and south. <BR>The most astounding one, I still see vividly in my mind occured in 1971. <BR>I was doing a cross-country trip in a van with three other friends. <BR>We were driving late at night, approaching the Canadian Rockies. <BR>Outside the landscape was changing, bigger and higher hills, <BR>Suddenly we were upon the Rockies, and we stopped , got out ,looked up. <BR>Not only were the mountains right in our faces, but the most spectacular, active Northern Lights were happening at that moment all around the mountain tops.The sky was white, green and purple swirls. <BR>It was unreal. <BR>Nancy

Okay...I've had so fun much reading all of the special moments, I believe I'll share one of my surreal moments. I took a trip to Austria alone (very brave I thought for a young woman in my early twenties). One day, I woke up with a terrible cold but didn't want to let it spoil my trip. In Innsbruck that morning, I decided to take a walk over to a lovely church I had seen earlier (it was painted a deep orange color). I walked in to the church and found myself completely alone to explore and marvel at the beautiful painted ceiling and artwork. I was so moved, I had to sit down and 'drink it in'. While sitting there alone, someone started playing the organ which was located up on a floor near the rafters. I couldn't see who was playing it but he or she played for about twenty minutes. The music included several of my favorite Mozart pieces. All of a sudden, my emotions took over and I started weeping. I cried for most of the 'concert'. I started thinking that perhaps Mozart even played in this church. It was almost overwhelming. After the music stopped, I tried to see who it was but couldn't see up past the bannister. I felt I had had a special gift given to me. I'll never forget it.

I have two incredible surreal experiences. In Paris last spring I went to the Paris Mosquee to experience the Hamman. The Hamman is a turkish bath that was unlike any thing that I had seen in the U.S. in any spa. The room is filled with womrn of all shape and size, walking with towels and some naked, in a room full of steam and water. I flet like Martha Stewart in a Fellini movie. <BR> <BR>The other surreal spiritual moment was 10 years ago in Cairo Egypt. We went to visit the pyramids at Giza. Very typical and something that I expected to do. What I never anticipated was at that time you could climb down into the pyramid. Straight in and down to the very center of it. That was incredible. to be in the center of that mass of granite and know that the Pharoh had lain buried there for centuries. To imagine how many people had been involved in the building of the structure and to wonder how it happened.

Any more Surreal moments??

In Venice, the moment you walk out of the train station and down the steps toward the Canal - it's just like Katherine Hepburn in that movie who's name escapes me - all of the sudden, YOU'RE REALLY THERE!! Nothing quite prepares you for that. <BR>And also in Venice - about 6 a.m. in the pre-dawn darkness on December 31st - St. Mark's Square - freezing cold, and nobody there except my friend and I. No pigeons or anything, and watching the sun come up and illuminate the facade of the church. We're going back next year to try it again!

Janice, I know what you mean about exiting the Venice train station into the wonderful magical city. The movie Katherine Hepburn was in was 'Summertime'. The first time I went to Venice, it was in early March. There weren't a lot of tourists and it was very cold (the air was wet with mist). I can't forget the haunting and beautiful site on San Marco Square covered in a magical mist.

Does anybody else walk around on their vacations, saying to their companions (or themselves) the entire time: "I'm in Paris (or Venice, or Rome etc.)I can't believe in really in Paris." <BR>Or am I alone in this inability to really grasp that this trip that I've been planning for and dreaming of is finally happening? Tell me you've felt this way too!

Janice...yes...I also find myself amazed that I am actually looking at something I've read or dreamed about. I remember being amazed that was actually in the Coloseum, or actually looking at the Eiffel Tower. When I saw Michelangelo's David, I just kept saying, 'I'm actually looking at the David!'. I get flooded with emotions when I see certain sites. Isn't it wonderful?!

One of my surreal moments came last Saturday in Syphony Hall, Woodruff Memorial Arts Center, Atlanta Georgia. <BR>Yoel Levi lead the orchestra and the ASO chorus in Beethoven's 9th Symphony. <BR>The cummulative effect was powerful. <BR>A second one, also related to a concert, came last year in Ste. Chapelle. We entered just before dark and watched the fading sun play on those incredible stained glass windows. Then the Violins of France played Mozart's A Little Night Music, followed by Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. <BR>Other than that, how about the first look at Lake Louise in the early morning or a view over the Grand Canyon in the morning, or Grand Geyser by the light of a full moon? All qualify.

my most surreal moment happened years ago. We were stopping in a small quaint hotel in a medieval village. Looked out the window at dusk, and in the shadow of the great cathedral, Chartes, there was a young priest, in the stone courtyard, shooting baskets with a few raggedy kids. In the light of one faint electric bulb.

I have been following this thread with interest and have really enjoyed reading all of the surreal experiences that have been had by all the other Fodorites. Actually I find all travel slightly surreal,but this seemed the strangest. The first trip I took to the UK with my husband in '95, we were both very into Shakespeare and theatre and all of that, and we were just tooling up the motor way with a vague notion of going as far north as possible. We started reading lines from MacBeth back and forth.. to put us in the mood as it were. We spent the better part of an hour discussing Macbeth, the play and the historical situation. I suddenly decided we had to walk (I am an exercise junkie), so we just pulled off to the side of the road by some trails and started hiking through dense woodland trails (extremely beautiful) we trekked around for a few hours chit chatting about Macbeth, we kind of creeped ourselves out talking about the show as it grew darker, we actually both got kind of scared and decided to hightail it back to our car when we noticed a tiny sign by the trail said Birnham Woods Trails! We'd been hiking through Birnham Woods! If you've read the play a lot of it takes place in Birnham woods! We tripped out on that for the next 2 days, We hadn't even been looking for it! Very surreal and certainly a magic place.

My wife and I have had many great moments in Europe over the last thirty years but I still remember one: I had been drafted in the Army in 1969 after only being married one year. We were sure I was headed to Viet Nam. Instead I got sent to Germany. We scraped all we had to get my wife over there to join me and to buy a VW Beetle. One of our first trips was to Lucerne with no money. I still remember standing on a street corner in Lucerne, together again at last, in Europe and not Viet Nam, and both saying "This Army deal may work out okay after all." We now get back to Europe frequently and are leaving again on June 30. But none of the trips now beat the many trips we took in 1970 and 1971 with no money and seeing the sites of Europe. We climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa when you still could, we saw the Pieta in the Vatican up close when you still could,we did the Zugspitz when it was on $4 for a ride to the top and we drove all over Europe in an underpowered VW. It doesn't get any better than that.

Nafplion, Greece, May 1987 - my 3 companions and I had a night of Greek dancing and drinking with Nikos, a local shopkeeper. On the way back to the hotel he picked us all a flower (even my male friend got one!) and said such things as "I was born a thousand years ago" and when we remarked on the northern hemisphere's stars, he said "but we are all born under the same skies". To add to the magic, the islet of Bourdzoi (spelling?) was all lit up and surrounded by inky black water - it was after midnight. The hotel was locked, but we were let in and collapsed in a heap in the lift! It was the best night of our month in Greece.

It was about 5 years ago. I was traveling alone for the first time in my life and I am no spring chicken. Turned a cornor and saw the coloseum (Roma)and all the assorted ruins of the forum etc. Couldn't speak and cried for about 10 minutes- everything in the human past became real for a time, could feel all the lives and struggles for some "better order."

St.Petersburg in 1987. I was 17 and it was my first vacation without parents. My friends and I had a late night flight and slept on our way from airpotr to the city. Next morning we had to wake up early to meet a rest of our company and we were really unhappy and grumpy. We loaded city bus still drowsy. Then I looked out of the window: It was white night still and river, bridges, palaces, cathedrals and memorial columns - everything - were in surreal gray-blue moonscape light. I was completely stunned and missed my stop.

Midnight in central Germany, out in the fields by those big, black German woods...everything was so clean, the air was so crisp, it was so wonderfully quiet and peaceful - I'll never forget it.