We are hardcore. We must be. Today was a national holiday in Europe and ordinarily that means hordes of people out in streets, plazas, restaurant, bars, amusements, cars, buses, boats and trains. But the weatherman was correct in his 100% rain forecast today. It was raining when we woke up this morning and it just stopped about 2 hours ago around 6 pm. We made breakfast of eggs, bacon wrapped sausages and some of our extra special cheese from Zurich. Heavy...

Ahh! Now this is proper vacation, a lazy Sunday morning and a brunch at the outdoor plaza cafe right outside our apartment window. We thought of our family, our neighbors and our church and sweet friends at LCR. We said a Sunday blessing of thanks and praise. We ordered three items to share, a mixed green salad, small northern Italian lasagna plate and a dish of calamari and shrimp with lightly battered zucchini strips. Delicioso! The plate of seafood was...

First thing this morning we saw a big, grand blue sky illuminated to the inth degree by good old Sol, and he came out in his most brilliant way today, our last day in Zurich. I could not help myself; I took photos of anything and everything to just capture a hint of what this place is like out of the cover of clouds. It was a relief to finally see Zurich in pure sun-filed skies. The train trip to Como was spectacular! Far more picturesque than we ever exp...

Not long after we arrived in Zurich we began to take note of fountains, sometimes simple and other times, very elaborate fountains . . . drinking fountains. They are everywhere. In fact there are 1200 of them dispersed throughout the city. I took photos of some and now that I know more, I wish I had photographed every single one we saw, but thankfully we did capture a few. We have learned that the first of these public drinking fountains was built in 1453, ...

We have consumed 38 days of our 77-day journey. Already we are uneasy about this undertaking evaporating far too quickly. We have seen so much, done so many things we never dreamed we might ever be able to do and we have been blessed to meet so many wonderful people along the way. We have endured cold and harsh weather. We have had to carry two bags each up and down stairs far too many times to look forward to the next time. We have tried exotic foods, rein...