This graffitied chimney had been staring at me from across the street all summer.  I thought it was an appropriate picture as we were wrapping up our last few days in the city.

We finally visited a well known modern art museum and I really enjoyed the special exhibits of Roy Lichtenstein and Simon Hantai.

At Monet’s water garden in Giverny, France.

A very full day left us trying to climb the tower of Notre Dame after closing.  Luckily, a free week long music festival was concluding right down the road, so Evan and I altered our plans.  The music stage was in a large paved area near their Hotel de Ville (city hall) and we joined other Parisians by standing in the fountains for an improved view.  The chill of the water was glorious after a hot summer day.  One of my favorite fountain memories was seeing a nearby group chill their champagne in the fountain as if it was their own personal ice bucket.

Kim and I briefly visited Lucerne Switzerland and took a crazy trip up Mount Pilatus.  To get there we walked to the train station where we took a bus to catch a gondola, which connected to another (steeper) gondola, which took us to the top of the mountain.  When it was time to descend, we hopped on the world’s steepest cogwheel train and then caught a beautiful steam engine boat back to the city via Lake Lucerne.  Quite a day!

Steps leading up the bell tower of St. Peter’s church in Munich.  I ran up the bell tower of St. Peter’s church in Munich just in time to see the Glockenspiel of New Town Hall (another tower) go off at the top of the hour.  There were probably 200, maybe 300 narrow steps up.

This is Neuschwanstein castle, which is what the Disney castle was based off of.  Ludwig II of Bavaria inherited the Hochschwangau castle (not pictured) but upon becoming king, he immediately began construction on his dream castle, Neuschwanstein. He wasn’t much of a king, but he was extraordinarily eccentric and sure liked pretty things. In short, he was removed from power in 1886 at the age of 40 and immediately died a mysterious death.

 Market Gate of Miletus – 2nd century AD from Turkey – one of the many archeological finds that have been relocated to Germany simply because they were dug up by German archaeologists.  I know Germany isn’t the only country keeping their “finds” but it’s still amazing to me that they haven’t returned the ruins to their original owners.

It’s easy to get lost meandering through the 2,711 concrete blocks. Each is unique in height and they are slightly tilted, but they all have a similar footprint and march across the rolling ground in the same direction.