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Euro Trip 2017 part 1

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

After much planning and preparation, our trip to Europe went on without a hitch! Here are some highlights and ideas: 

Holland

On the Fourth of July we arrived in Holland (how patriotic!) for a few days of meeting family and exploring. 

We began by going out to dinner at Djakarta in Utrecht . Fun fact: Indonesia was once a Dutch colony and many Indonesians have since moved to the Netherlands (and many have started restaurants!). While I'm not a huge fan of sate sauce, a spicy peanut dipping sauce, the beef skewers were great. 


Since we were staying with family, we had access to bikes with which to go visit grandparents and sightsee. 



Utrecht was so quaint and fun, and certainly left me with a great impression of Holland! The long bike rides, delicious pancakes and time spent with family made for a great first week of our vacation. 

By the way, I highly recommend the pancakes at The Pancake Bakery Muntkelder. We had the ham & cheese, bacon & cheese and banana apple and they were to die for! 

We spent a day in Amsterdam, which we found a bit too busy. We did love mass at St. Nicholas Church and walking around the neighborhood of Anne Frank's house (the lines to get in were out the door!)



Spain

After Utrecht we flew to Barcelona, for a packed day that included visiting the Sagrada Familia, mass at the Cathedral (beautiful), watching the Sardanes (a traditional Catalunian dance), walking along the Passeig de Gracia and eating tapas (at 10PM!) with friends. 





We then headed to Navarra for the Feast of San Fermin, which is celebrated in Pamplona every year from the 6th to the 14th of July. 

On the way there we stopped by a monastery in Montserrat, at the top of a beautiful mountain range. The monastery offers beautiful views and a gorgeous basilica. 





The feast of San Fermin in Pamplona is famous because of the running of the bulls and let me say there is a whole continuum of stupidity when it comes to participating in that! While our group was happy to stay along the sides as the bulls ran past us, some more courageous runners attempt to run with the bulls (often in front of them!) At the end of each run (they have them each morning at 8AM), the bulls are at the stadium, where they will inevitably meet their fate. We didn't want to watch the bulls' deaths (totally unnecessary) so we took a drive to Loyola, the birthplace of St. Ignatius. This was one of the highlights of our time in Spain, so we highly recommend visiting it! 



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