The "Stroll" begins in ernest about dusk along Paseo de La Concha (a promenade along the beach with gardens). Donostia/San Sebastian is magical with families and lovers all dressed in attractive clothing as if going out to dinner (which they probably were). My destination was the Pinchos trail in the Parte Vieta (old town). It is hard to explain the ambience of the "stroll". Group happiness? I've never been to a place like it.

I can't narrow it to only one, but it is between the following 3 choices.

1/Switzerland - standing outside in the snow on an absolutely perfect day at Jungfraujoch.

2/Santorini, Greece - Hiking up to the top of the volcano and looking out over the beautiful water.

3/Venice, Italy - Sitting up in the front seat on the vaporretto going up the Grand Canal, towards the Piazzale Roma one very early morning (Unfortunately, to catch my transportation to the airport for the flight home :-( )

Yes, it is the time of year to reflect and I have been doing that too. We have been traveling all over Europe for the last 15 months so there is sooooo much to reflect on and hard to narrow it down to one moment.

We did a romantic classical journey this year, focusing primarily on a Hellenic Odyssey, Moorish adventure and Ottoman sweep for my child who is a Homer & Greek Myth lover & dreams of being an archeologist.

I am still absolutely astounded by what we saw & the people we met in places like Knossos, Ephesus,Cappadocia,Parthenon,Pompeii,Santorini,Del phi, Pamukkale, Troy and Pergamum.

We also loved Venice,Prague,Dubrovic,Salzburg,Florence and Umbria, but the most ancient sites still reverberate intensely.

The one-of-kind moment that really blew our minds, that we will never forget, happened just a short flight away from Europe. My 6yo daughter rode in by camel to the Sahara desert and did a violin concert for 50 Berber kids & bought them healthy food as a treat.

http://www.soultravelers3.com/blog/3...6C3A1171F.html

It meant so much to my daughter and these kids, all under 7 who never saw a violin and live with no running water, very simply. They had learned some French songs to sing as she entered. There was so much love,joy and warmth it made me cry.

Ok, it is not techniquely Europe, but Africa ( yet part of our European tour), so I will narrow it down to two other priceless moments.

We spent over 45 days in Croatia and by pure chance, we kept bumping into a very sweet film crew and major star from Japan, all over the country. We became quite fond of each other and they ended up putting my daughter in the film!!

http://www.soultravelers3.com/blog/3...6C3A1171F.html

What are the chances? Sweet readers of our blog in Japan let us know that it aired with my daughter in the opening shot. Small world.

Another more personal highlight was when my husbands father and sister came to visit us in our small Andalucian Spanish village for his 80th birthday.

They are Spaniards who had never been to Spain, so sharing it with three generations was an emotional highlight from visiting Spain's oldest bullring, to our Octogenarian even getting up on an Andalucian horse!

http://www.soultravelers3.com/blog/C...0627C5AAC.html

It has been an incredible year!!

Bastille Day in St. Aubin Sur Mer with our son. French Blue Angels overhead spewing red white and blue vapors. A block long parade of local little girls twirling batons and the entire village watching a pretty decent fireworks display at the local park. We felt French.

Now I know what I'm doing with my afternoon at work (sllloooowwww)... wandering through WTNow's website!

I had to read through my trip report to figure out a single memory. And the winner is:

Arriving in Cinqueterre just before sunset in the off season with no reservations, using a bottle of wine to kill time waiting for the next train to Vernazza, riding PAST Vernazza because we couldn't open the train door, wandering through Vernazza, finally finding a hotel with a room up a thousand steps, and then the best dinner of the trip in the hotel's restaurant.

Okay, not really a moment, but still the best memory.

Here's to 2007 - can't wait to see what 2008 brings!

>My 6yo daughter rode in by camel to the Sahara desert and did a violin concert for 50 Berber kids & bought them healthy food as a treat..... They had learned some French songs to sing as she entered.<

That's a keeper, WT.

((I))

We splurged and spent a week in Paris for our 25th anniversary at our favorite hotel. We had dinner in the restaurant and all the staff stopped by the table over the evening to congratulate us. The other favorite memory of the year is standing in Monet's bedroom looking out at a rain shower in his garden at Giverny. Luckily it was sunny again when we left the house.

Looking out our window in the Albergo del Senato in Rome and feeling like you could touch the Pantheon.

What a great hotel in Rome.

We decided on an "off the beaten path" trip in Germany this year.
There were no single favorite stunning moments; just a series of simple pleasures. Perfect.

Hard to choose for me. But I guess if I had to choose, it would be the moment she noticed I had ordered pigs feet for dinner our first night there, which also happened to be her birthday (the trip was her birthday present). It is our culture's tradition to eat pigs feet in celebration of a loved one's birthday to ensure a long and healthy life, but I had ordered it because I had a strange craving for pigs feet. Clearly we're lapsed in this tradition, since I didn't know about it. My mom was thrilled, and even had a little bit of it.

There is a tie for the close second between the dinner cruise on the Seine and her seeing the Notre Dame.

Paris was our only European trip this year. We'll correct that in 2008, I hope. Exchange rates be darned! :D

PS- there were some great and amazingly awesome moments everyone had in 2007. Hope everyone has more in 2008!

This year one of my favorite travel moments was sitting in the late afternoon sun in Riomaggiore on the Cinque Terre. We were at a cliffside bar/cafe named Bar & Vini drinking local wine and eating chocolate cake with our fingers. The place was empty except for us and there was a gentle breeze and life was good. We let a few of our trains go by before we caught one to go back to Santa Margherita Ligure.

Our family had a wonderful one-week stay in Rome earlier this year. Hard to pick out any one best moment but a few that stand out as special:

Standing with my husband by the illuminated Teatro Marcello the first night we arrived. (We were staying at an apartment I had chosen on Via della Reginella in the ghetto area and had explored the area to the north of the apartment that afternoon. My husband went out for a walk before dinner and came racing back --up several flights of stairs--to announce we were right around the corner from amazing ruins which I had to see right away)

Looking out over the forum from the Farnese Gardens (a beautiful view and especially wonderful to us because we were escaping a Vt. winter and loved the orange trees, flowers, etc)

Watching my son discover and fall in love with the Pantheon and the Piazza della Rotunda. He had been excited about seeing the Forum and Colisseum but had not realized how amazing the Pantheon is.

Sitting by the obelisk in the almost-empty St. Peter's square for about half an hour as dusk turned to night, and watching the lights go on (this was totally unplanned--we were just killing time between our tour of the church and a dinner reservation with friends)

Walking back and forth across the Isola Tiberina from the ghetto to Trastevere in the evenings and listening to the sax player who regularly played there on the Ponte
Fabrico.

Wow, such amazing moments. Great thread Missypie!

I too have had difficulty narrowing it down. But if I had to pick, I would have to say:
While staying in Monterosso in the Cinque Terre, we stumbled upon a demonstration of a local italian woman preparing pasta from scratch. Her expert handling of the flour and eventually the dough was just amazing. You could tell she'd probably done it a million times.

It was one of those unplanned moments, and we weren't even part of the group, but they all welcomed us. Very cool.

H

While on a bike trip through Austria, our favorite moments were when we finally found a place to eat or, after riding around and around and up the hill to the town, we found our hotel for the night.

It was so sweet knowing we'd reached our destination and it was time to relax.

Visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for the first time. When I walked into the gallery with the Sunflowers and other Arles period canvases, I had to sit down, I felt so giddy.

Second place: Going back to Auvers-sur-Oise.

Special to me this year was the view from the balcony of our hotel in Assissi looking down on St. Francis' Basilica and out on the landscape, and then later, after dinner, sitting on the wall around the fountain in the town center talking with my niece and just enjoying the peace and quiet.

The opera in Budapest.

Omero restaurant in the hills above Florence on a sultry June evening. Second time to Florence for me, first for my wife. A lovely meal combined with enjoyable company in a wonderful locale made for a singularly memorable evening.

The Firenze bug's bitten my wife as hard as it's bitten me.

Ok you guys you have me almost wishing our vacation was in Europe instead of Asia this year. We did have a wonderful time but my heart is in Europe.In 06 we went to Paris,Cyprus & Turkey for my 60th. The highlight was sleeping in a cave hotel in Cappadocia and going on a hot air baloon ride.I am not anearly raiser but this was an incredable day.
Next year back to Europe-Portugal and the year after the Venice area and Budapest-great subject-Chris