I'm not one for long reports or keeping a journal while traveling, so I'm just going to type my impression of each place we visited on our trip.

London - fantastic public transport. It seemed as though everywhere was within a few blocks of an underground station. We saw all of the big sights and enjoyed the convenience of getting breakfast food at Tesco each morning. The city itself seemed generally clean and safe. We spent four days there and I kind of wish we had spent more. The only downside was being ripped off by a ticket agency for a show in the West End. We paid a high price for pretty bad seats. Oh well, now we know not to buy from the agencies.

Paris - outdated and confusing metro system. The lines seem to be laid out randomly, with no rhyme or reason for the directions they go in. Still, we managed to get around on it and the RER. The smell of urine and the mass quantities of beggars and homeless in the stations was a bit of a downer though. We saw the main sights. Musee d'Orsay was great and not too expensive. We skipped out on going into the Louvre since we felt a few hours would be a waste. The river cruise of the Seine (sp?) was nice and gave a different perspective of the city. It was also neat seeing all of the houseboats. However, we couldn't get away from the large number of homeless people. Everytime we went under a bridge there was a large network of cardboard box shelters which took away from the magic of seeing the city pass by. Also, we quickly learned to say "No" to the beggars who approached us at every single tourist sight asking "Speak English?". We also encountered a rude waiter who refused to recognize that we had sat down. Once we flagged him down for a menu we said "Bonjour" and then "Parlez vous Anglais?" He responded in French with "No, but you speak French." He then handed us a menu written in Greek (I'm not joking here, it was in Greek with French subtitles) and walked off. Needless to say we got up and left. Overall impression of Paris was a dirty, smelly, and exceedingly poor city. We probably won't return.

We then took a night train from Paris to Stuttgart and then caught a train from there to Wurzburg. In the future we agreed to only take night trains when the trip was longer than 8 hours. As it happened, we got on the train at 22:30, got settled in and ready for bed (we had a T-2) and went to sleep. Of course, the train got us to Stuttgart at 6:15 so we didn't get much sleep. Overall a very neat experience.

Wurzburg - great small city. The wine is fantastic! We toured around die Residenz and walked along the Main. It was just what we needed after the depressing time in Paris. If anyone is looking for a place to stay in Germany that is bigger than a village but smaller than Munich, pick Wurzburg.

Rothenburg o.d.T. - Kind of cheesy since the old town is now surrounded by the new town, but it was definitely a lot of fun walking around on old cobblestone streets lined with 500-800 year-old buildings. The night watchman tour was very informative and entertaining. I highly recommend it. We stayed at Hotel Gotisches Haus and had the top floor suite. It was fantastic, with a great view of the valley. The restaurant at the hotel was also good, with more fantastic wine being served. I'd have to say that this is the best wine I've ever had. So smooth and just the right sweet/dry mix. I wish we had stayed here more than one night.

Munich - I was looking forward to coming here but once we were there it was kind of a disappointment. The buildings are all built since 1945 because most of the city was destroyed by bombing in WWII. Highlights were Schloss Nymphenburg (which is enormous - we couldn't bring our tired legs to walk around the entire grounds) and die Frauenkirche. The public transportation here was very modern and easy to use. We bought a Partner pass which lets up to 5 people ride the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and Tram, which go everywhere as they're used by tourists and locals alike. Outside of the tourist areas, there's not much to do in the city. In the area we stayed (about three blocks from the train station) there was nothing but hotels, strip clubs, and casinos. We ate at the Hofbrauhaus and had our liters of beer and giant pretzels at the Chinesischer Turm in the Englischer Garten. We picked up our breakfast at a cafe near the hotel. The food in Germany was fantastic everywhere we went.

We took a day trip down to Fussen to see the castles. The train stopped three towns early and we were informed that because of track work they would have to bus us down to Fussen. Annoying yes, but a bus showed up about 40 minutes later and took us to Fussen. Once there we ate at a Chinese restaurant in the main pedestrian zone and then went to the tourist info office to find out how to get to the castles. The lady was very polite and responded to my German in German (always nice to hear) and told us that there was a bus that would take us from the Fussen train station to the castles. So we went off to the train station to wait. We waited over an hour before the bus came. This is because the bus system in Fussen makes no sense. The bus runs once an hour (with a lunch break from 2-3) to make the 8 minute drive through Schwangau to the castles. Then the bus would drive back to Fussen and sit in the parking lot at the train station for 45 minutes. Why they did this, I have no idea. All it did was make us not want to come back. The castles were fun to see. We didn't take the tours because we had walked around enough ruler's houses in Wurzburg and Munich. Marienbrucke is extremely scary if you're afraid of heights, but the view is worth it! We took our photos and climbed back down to get some ice cream and wait 40 minutes for the bus to come. The train tracks were fixed by this point so we hopped on the next train back to Munich.

We also took a half-day trip out to Dachau. I really enjoyed seeing the old town. My wife is super interested in the Holocaust so we made the walk out to the concentration camp. Let me give some advice: take the bus. The walk looks short on the map but in reality it takes about an hour to get from the old town to the camp walking at a leisurely pace. It then takes about 90 minutes to walk from the camp back to the train station. The camp was interesting to see, if a bit depressing from all the horrible things that went on there. The buildings all seemed to have their original paint so everything was dirty and chipping, which really added to the experience.

We then took the S-Bahn out to Munich Airport to fly back to London to catch our flight back home. There were no problems and everything went smoothly. It was my first British Airways experience and I must say that I was thoroughly impressed. It was the best airplane lunch I have ever had.

In conclusion, we both had a lot of fun and were sad to leave. My wife's favorite place was London; mine was all of southern Germany. All of our hotels were what we expected for what we had paid. German trains are (mostly) on time and efficient. Paris metro is disgusting and antiquated. London tube is fantastic.

Here are my overall ratings of each city we visited (1 being "Burn it all down", 10 being "I wish I lived there&quot:

London: 8
Paris: 5
Wurzburg: 9
Rothenburg: 8
Munich: 7
Fussen: 6
Dachau: 8

Feel free to post any questions. I'll simply ignore any rude posts, since they seem inescapable on this board.

Thank you for posting.

I'm glad that overall your European honeymoon was rated above 5!

Where were you staying in Paris? I've been to Paris 4 times now and while I agree the Metro can be smelly in places, I've never had the sort of experiences you've experienced. I'm sorry because Paris can be lovely - do reconsider giving it another chance one day, because it deserves it!

Finally, congratulations on your marriage, and all best wishes on a long and happy life together. Bon Voyage!

We stayed way up near the Boulevard Peripherique in Montmartre. The last stop on the number 4 line if I remember. It seemed that as soon as we got away from the main tourist lines (RER C and Metro 1) that the beggars came out in force. I read that Paris has something like a 40% unemployment rate, so perhaps the new president will fix things up. I may go back in the future, but I'd definitely want to learn some French first.

Paris is a gourgeous city but I agree with you about the bums and beggars. They have people living in boxes right on the main intersections now. It's unreal that they allow all that but, welcome to socialism in Europe and it's moving more and more in that direction.

It only left an impact with us because of all the places we went to it was the only one with a noticeable problem. Every large city has beggars but Paris just seemed to be teeming with them.