We boarded a bus early in the morning, and crossed the border into Belgium. It took about 2 hours to get to our first Belgian stop-over, Antwerp. It is a VERY hostoric place, with a stunning square surrounded by rows of old Guild buildings. Each building is at leat 6 stories high, with gold decoration along the windows and rooftops. It started to POUR just as we arrived - which gave us an excuse to run to the Church and have an indoor tour! This is the birthplac...

Today we finally fulfilled our dream of seeing a real-live--up-close-and-in-person Windmill. Did we ever... We took a half day tour of Volendam - saw Dutch cheesemaking at its finest. Then we took a boat across to the island of Marken, the prettiest little seaside fishing community ever (fact.) and saw clogs being made by hand. So yes. we bought a pair. Then, we boarded the bus and were taken itno the Dutch countrside and farming communities of the Zaanse Shan...

We have arrived in absolutely BEAUTIFUL Amsterdam. Once again, we completely misjudged our ability to catch any amount of shut-eye on planes. 29 straight hours awake and counting. Not that it stopped us from hitting the ground running as soon as we got here! In true Sheppard fashion, within an hour we had already sampled local cheeses, stumbled upon a Bloemen (flower) market, taken over 50 pictures (mostly of canals, bridges and stunning architecture!) and even...

Almost a year to the day, The Sheppards are returning to Europe! Destination this year? Holland, and the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. We are looking forward to our exploration of a new culture with rich history and a charming backdrop. Amsterdam will act as our home-base for 9 days, however, we have booked quite a few excursions that will take us into the countryside, small coastal regions, sites in and around the capital (The Hague, Southern Holland etc.), and ...

18 days, 4 plane trips, 4 train trips, 4 countries, 5 major cities, subways, buses, boat rides... a million memories on the journey of a lifetime. After all that, We are home. We had some trouble accessing the blog in Berlin, so we wanted to post a little bit of a retrospective on the great German capital which was the perfect place to end such an adventure. All of the places we travelled to had rich and intriguing history that has played an integral role in sh...