Having dinner on the Carlton Hotel Beach in Cannes enjoying the fireworks and celebrating Bastile Day with my wife and some very good friends.

Walking around Nanzenji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. We had the temple almost to ourselves, and the beauty of the temple, the beautiful painted silkscreens and the serenity of the gardens made for a magical experience.

Tracy

Definately picking tomatoes on an organic farm in Corsica. Warm days, swimming in the afternoons at the local creek and drinking beautiful wine with great people in the afternoons until late... :)

Stopping by St. Eustache when the choir was rehearsing. Beautiful music in a beautiful setting; I could have stayed all afternoon.

there were so many but ...
having sonia tavoleta as our tour guide for the vatican..priceless!
anyone ...and i mean anyone who is planning on a vatican tour (she also does other tours as well) but especially the vatican when lines are long, time is short, and as you know the collection is vast and one can quickly go into museum overload mode...you simply cannot beat sonia for her knowledge and of course the time saving logistics of even getting in especially on a saturday.
With sonia you simply do not get a tour ...but you get a history lesson, and wonderfully integrated experience.

tcreath wrote: "Walking around Nanzenji Temple in Kyoto, Japan."

That is indeed a memorable European travel moment!

2 different towns, 2 moments:

Seeing Jean Fouquet's Diptyque de Melun for the first time at the Antwerp fine arts museum (a real treasure house).

Spending the early evening of May 10th at the jardin des Tuileries. There was a special light that day that was pure magic.

The Alps in Switzerland. Many moments ~ the walks and hikes, the sound of cowbells, Schilthorn on a blue sky day, Mt Rigi at Sunset, Guarda in a snowstorm, and every moment on our apartment balcony in Grindelwald with the Eiger and Monch so close you felt like you could touch them. And having family there to celebrate our 25th with us made it even more special!

This past June, my husband and I walked into Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris where a priest was singing, the organ was playing, and the smoky incense filled the air. I lit a candle for my Mother near the altar. My emotions overcame me, and I broke down in tears. It was a moment that I will never forget.

Actually two...My passport being stamped, for the 14th time, allowing my entry to Great Britain. Arriving by train in my favorite town, York!

Sitting in the window of our rental apartment in Seville listening to the Flamenco singers in the bar across the street.

Watching the sun come up while the swallows swooped on the balcony of the beautiful Los Castanos Hotel in Cartajima, Spain (near Ronda). Then that evening going for dinner in the town's only restaurtant for a four course meal served outside with wonderful food, wine and service but no menus as you have what's made that night which only added to the stunning ambience.

1. The town square in St Etienne, France, before the Scotland v Italy game in the rugby world cup, with pipe bands playing and everyone drinking beer/red wine and having a ball.
2. Hearing the cars at full throttle behind us at the start of the Monaco Grand Prix and then watching them tear round the harbour in front of us.
3. Evening snowfall in Krakow Old Town - cold, but beautiful.

Dinner at Trattoria Monti in Rome. I felt like I was in a movie. Large Italian family was celebrating a birthday of one of the older women. There were old men, old women, beautiful younger woman and children running around everywhere! Loved it!

We discovered such great natural beauty and fine people in Ireland this year, it's difficult to choose a favorite experience. However, my most memorable moment was probably standing on the grave of my great-great-grandfather on a small tidal island off the Connemara coast, smelling the salt from the sea and thinking about how amazing it is to come full circle and return to one's homeland.

..last month taking off from Le Bourget at 7 pm and not getting stuck in traffic. The magical moment(not that the above wasnt miraculous as opposed to magical) was just after takeoff. The flight path was right over the city and the sky was exceptionally clear. The streets were outlined by lights and it was easy to pick out the arc de triomphe and the eiffel tower...a real google earth moment!

Standing in the main Christmas Market in Vienna last week. Light snow falling and the colored lights shining and christmas music playing. What a magical experience.

My first trip to Paris with my 15 year old daughter and 20 of her french classmates. Our first sighting of the Eiffel Tower from the plane as the sun was rising over the city. Walking around the corner from our hotel and seeing Eiffel lit up at night, always took our breath away. The view of Champs Elysee from the ferris wheel on a freezing cold day. Seeing the city almost totally by foot...we were there in November during the metro strikes. Cooking school in Lyon, Chambord and Chennoceau (sp?) We can't wait to get back!

Being in London with my kids and husband. It's a great city and it was our first visit - and the first time to Europe for our kids.

I can't wait to read all of these..I was thinking of posting similar with my '07 travel highlights to make up for not doing a trip report. Hope its ok if I list several...

Barcelona - lunch at the counter of Cal Pep; the food (amazing!), atmosphere, talking with others all around me..a couple from Sweden, a boy from Italy who was motorcycling across Europe..this is why I travel! Breakfast at Pinotxo first morning, meeting an amazing couple from Barca who adopted me during my one week stay..the xixos (best here)..cava cava cava. Spa at Hotel Om. Seafood platter at the bar in back of la Boqueria washed down with Spanish beer and followed by a misguided exit into the Raval quarter and right down the middle of the infamous street of ill repute..ha ha. Watching the Flamenco Ballet Sara Baras at the opera house. Passing by an open window and hearing the most angelic music being sung by a choir one evening..I was mesmerized and frozen in place for a few minutes.

Positano - getting picked up by some new friends in their boat down at the docks and spending the day going up and down the Amalfi coast, swimming in amazing coves, docking at the Covo di Sogni for a long and lazy lunch with amazing sangria, an impromptu disco dancing party on the prow. A day on another boat with the hilarious Salvatore and Gloria, meeting some new friends Dougie and Ursula from the UK..jumping off the kissing rock...having too many glasses of wine and prosecco :-). Finding a fabulous pair of Paciotti shoes on sale on Capri. Motoring along the coast with some local friends one evening and eating at an ancient pizzeria...pastries from Andrea Panzi (sp). OMG there are so many, I could go on forever.

Amsterdam - Strolling the lovely canals..realizing I loved this city that I added on to my trip at the last minute and had no "plan" and no expectations.

New York - girls trip..our stay at the Giraffe, what a wonderful discovery..staff, happy hour, room, location..burger from Shake Shack (the best burger I've ever had bar none). The new MOMA..amazing. Showing a first timer my favorite city in the world and hanging with my girls :-)

Sonoma - first time in wine country for a bachelorette pary..best memory is driving down the country roads, head out the window, jazz music playing and a feeling of total calm and contentment wash over me..one of those "it is so great to be alive" moments.

Wow, I am a yarner when I get started.

Thanks for starting this thread missypie and to all those that contributed..may you all have many more incredible travel moments in 2008.

JenV

This year I took my granddaughter to Europe for her first trip. She was almost 12 - and we have been planning this trip for about 8 years. My single favorite moment for 2007 was when we went inside the church where Fraulein Maria (Sound of Music) was married (the church in the movie version). I got tears in my eyes because dreams do come true. Our trip happened because Summer (my granddaughter) and I used to watch the Sound of Music and she told me when she was four that she wanted to see the church where the marriage took place. I told her that someday I would take her there and we would see it together. The trip was truly a life-changing event for Summer - she is now planning on taking a year of her college in Rome. We had many wonderful moments in Rome, Orvieto, Salzburg and Paris on our trip, but I will never forget the look on Summer's face when she saw the church.

I now have six grandchildren and the other five are pondering where they will go with me. One of them is thinking about Africa, one is thinking about China....who knows?

Lynn Gibson - I love that! planning a trip for 8 years with your 12 year old granddaughter! I hope I still have the health to travel with my not yet born grandchildren!

I loved almost every minute of our 2 week trip to Italy in 2007, but the one moment that will be forever engraved in my mind was standing out on our vast balcony at Eden Roc at midnight, completely mesmerized by the brightest, fullest moon shimmering down on the Mediterranean Sea and lighting up the orange umbrellas on the beach and the gentle waves of the ocean for miles and miles, while listening to the peaceful nighttime sounds of Positano. A feeling of awe and beauty filled my soul.

Thanks for allowing me to share my magical moment missypie!! Happy 2008 to all! ((D))

A sunny afternoon in October, riding a rented scooter along the Amalfi Coast, with the arms of a girl I had just met at the hotel around my waist, returning to the hotel after sunbathing on a secluded beach in Maoiri.

Yikes Padraig....I must have overlooked that slight "European" word! Must have been all of that champagne at the holiday get together...

Okay then, my favorite European travel moment would be driving around the Ring of Beara in Ireland with my mom and aunt. Beautiful and quite mesmerizing!

Tracy

This thread is really making me smile...

I've done a lot of european travel this year (New Year's resolution to write trip reports!!) as we moved to Zurich last New Year's Eve. Like a number of posters, I think my favorite moments were those I saw through the eyes of my 2 daughters.

like nolefan1 - night time under the Eiffel tower with my 17-year-old - loved seeing her fall in love with PARIS.

the Gornergrat train ride to see the Matterhorn with my 13-year-old..."mom, is this the one we always see in all those pictures?"

Lynn Gibson - both my girls loved the Sound of Music tour. I thought I would find it corny, but Austria was so beautiful I was enthralled. The girls especially loved the gazebo and did a little "16 going on 17" singing and dancing there which was very appropriate for my then 16-year-old!

The first "moment" (actually a few hours) was our first night at Oktoberfest in the Oksenbraterei tent. The second would be our second visit to the Marienbruecke and actually being able to see Neuschwanstein. Our first time we could barely see an outline of the castle.

After touring Blenheim Palace and grounds, we went into the village of Woodstock, and had afternoon tea at one of the hotels/inns there. Despite all of the problems getting there from London in late March, it was a wonderful experience!

Barcelona for me too Missypie!

Our first night's venue was the Maritime Museum, tapas and cavas under skyward majestic arches. How can a shipyard look like a church?

Eating smorrebrod and wienerbrod (separately!) in Copenhagen. The free community of Christiania. Visiting the Amalienborg museum. Humoring the locals with my attempts at (poorly) speaking a few words of Danish.

London, November 11 on Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Remembering the past, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The two minute silence (not even one cell phone or cough it seemed and the crowd was enormous), brought chills and tears to my eyes.

Thanks everyone, for sharing such lovely memories! May the new year bring many other treasured moments.

Eating at Cal Pep in Barcelona with my 18-year-old daughter. She still talks about it.

while we visited garmisch-partenkirchen and took an afternoon hike to the lake. What a beautiful view. I felt like julie andrews, " the hills are alive...

This is one of the very best threads I have ever read. We remodeled our house this year so could not leave the country but I feel like I've been many places and seen many beautiful things through your experiences. Especially loved the photos!
Thank you fodorites. Happy Travels and Happy New Year.

What a wonderful list to read! The first of my favorite moments happened when my mother, sister and I spread some of my grandmother's ashes at a beatiful 16th century relic of a church on the bay in Schll, Ireland. The second favorite was the moment I'd been waiting for - to commune with Botticelli's Birth of Venus. I just had to sit and stare...

One moment and one "experience"

My moment was in Paris in February: the night was very cold and clear, and there was a bright moon and the twinkling lights were on the Eiffel Tower. We were walking across the Pont des Arts, and my brother and husband (both were kind of grumpy) were walking fast, far ahead of me. I looked at them and just laughed at their grumpy backs, and something grabbed me and I started dancing around on the bridge, spinning and twirling. It was weird, but so freeing. No one else was there to see, of course, or I probably wouldn't have done it.

And the experience: the Biennale in Venice. I have always wanted to see it, and it far surpassed my expectations. Going in to buildings that one could not normally enter was great. One palazzo had its windows over the Grand Canal open and it was a lovely day. That was probably the best Biennale moment, but all of it was wonderful.

This is a delightful thread.

I have two favorite moments.

The first moment was seeing St. Chapelle for the first time. After I walked up the stairs to the second floor, I was so astonished by the stained glass windows that I actually stopped dead in my tracks (fortunately, no one was behind me, so nobody walked into me)and the little voice that keeps thinking in my head actually was silent for a while as I just stared around the room in amazement.

My second favorite moment occurred a few days earlier, when I tried to go to St. Chapelle but arrived at the head of the line at one minute after closing time. Not sure what to do instead, I noticed a bunch of people were all walking in the same direction. If someone had asked me if I knew that Notre Dame was near St Chapelle, I would have said yes, but for some reason it never occurred to me that was where all these people were going. So I decided to follow them, turned a corner, and there, totally unexpected, was Notre Dame. There is something absolutely wonderful about seeing Notre Dame for the first time without realizing that you're going to see it.

In this case, I didn't stop walking - but was so absorbed that I walked right off a curb. Good thing I didn't sprain my ankle.

After not having gone to Europe for 13 years in favor of India, Africa, South America and Asia, I went back to Spain.

The highlight might have been standing at the highest point in the Alhambra, the watchtower in the Alcazaba, and knowing that this was basically where the European reconquista of Spain was completed and Islamic rule in Spain ended.

Riding the London Eye w/ 9 dear friends from all over (States, Canada, S. Africa, Ireland, London) at dusk -- Champagne flight in our own private capsule celebrating several individual milestones (B'days, retirements, promotions) - and just as we got to the top the hostess poured all of us another glass of Champagne - the lights of London coming on below -- magical - and the most wonderful couple chose that moment to announce their engagement. More Champagne all around :)

Drinking sangria and watching flamenco in Sevilla with my sisters.