Next stop on our European vacation was Bruges, which is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The town has many grand old buildings that are all in great shape so there's a lot to gawk at.  There are also working windmills which are attended by workers who are actually working on grinding grain into flour while you visit.

Not quite Dutch windmills, but close enough

We walked all over the city and Sara was a trooper - no complaints and minimal rest stops needed.  We stopped for waffles all over the place so they helped to keep us going...

Anyways, the baby's coming soon so I've no time for a big article here... check out the pics.

The second leg of our European trip was in Amsterdam, where we spent two days with our friends Vedran and Milena...    more »

Croatian coast

The first leg of our trip to Europe was Croatia,
where we visited Tom and his fiancee Tomislava.
   more »

London, England.  (just so there's no confusion...  :)  )

Sara and I have just completed our European trip... actually, I suppose we've not officially completed it as we're sitting in London's Heathrow airport on a four hour layover as we wait for our flight back to Toronto.  Thankfully Sara's Elite access got us into the internet-equipped lounge to help pass the time.

What a great trip it was, spending four days with Tom and Tomislava in Croatia, two days visiting Vedran and Milena in Amsterdam, two days trekking through Bruges, and finally two nights meeting up with Doris in Brussels.

Croatia was very different from what I thought it would be - it was very green and lush and had even more development than I expected.  The 130km/h speed limits are wicked (though exciting/dangerous when trying to merge onto highways in little 100HP vehicles).  We visited a few towns/cities in Croatia: Zagreb with its old town centre, Tom's home with it's six-million-kuna view in Samobor, and the coastal towns of Crikvenica (my first couple attempts at pronounciation had Tomislava laughing as I ended up saying a female body part), Krk (names with no vowels kick ass), and Vrbnik.

Amsterdam was also great fun, as we were greeted by Vedran and Milena's excited boxer Bella and their luxurious separate guesthouse.  We wish we had more time as we were only able to scratch the surface of what Amsterdam has to offer, but thanks to Vedran and Milena acting as tour guides, we were able to squeeze in quite a bit of culture and sights: flower market (tulips, anyone?), canal tour, Van Loon museum, the Red Light district, the Dam, and walking Bella in the parks (there are parrots in the park, wild parrots!! soooo weird).

Bruges and Brussels were all about windmills, huge old gothic buildings with soaring towers, and miles and miles of walking.  There were also waffles.  Lots and lots of waffles.

That's it for now; I'll post pics and write more once we're back to regular life in San Francisco...