The Rockies!

We're not in Europe any longer, but we are having a great time in the Colorado Rockies this week, hiking and camping. And we thought we'd share a few pictures!
For old times sake, a conversation:

Ghinwa: So we're camping in a tent. Should we worry about bears?
Ranger: You might hear some huffing and puffing in your ear in the middle of the night, but don't worry about that.
Ghinwa: Gulp. Whaaaaaaa???

Ari with his friend and radio editor, David Baron, at the base of the Flatirons in Boulder!

Now inside Rocky Mountain National Park, Ghinwa points out Nymph Lake below.

Ghinwa eats dinner at sunset at our campsite in the park.

Early morning hike on the alpine tundra.

Ghinwa and Ari walk through the start of the subalpine zone.

On the way to Black Lake.

A few photos from our hike yesterday to Blue Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area:

And a few photos from our alpine hike today along the Ute Trail:

Return

Home sweet home... we made it back! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We should backtrack and tell you about the end of our journey. It was bittersweet. We were ready to conclude and head back home (the camping was getting colder!), but we also wanted to enjoy the rest of our time together in France.

During our last few days, we visited the holy site of Lourdes, we did a brief tour of wine country in Bordeaux and Poitiers, and we visited the absolutely breathtaking cathedrals of Le Mans and Chartres -- just when we thought we could not visit any more churches!

We camped a total of 32 nights on our trip! Before we got to Paris, we camped one last night in Le Mans. We didn't get much sleep due to a crazily erratic storm that would blow spurts of rain and wind at our tent at unpredictable intervals. The next day, on our drive into Paris, we were relieved once we saw the Eiffel Tower from afar. So close!

We spent our last night in France with Ghinwa’s best friend Mesrob and his wife Tekla. Did we say wife!! Yes, they are newlyweds! Hip hip hooray!

Thanks to all of you for following along with us on our blog. It was so fun to write and photograph for you!

Finally, we have some awards to hand out:

• Best Driving: Germany. Hands down the best driving Ghinwa has ever seen. Michael Schumacher, I get it now man, it all makes sense. Do check out the Autobahn if you ever get the chance.
• Worst Driving: Italy, no question. We can hear you making duh sounds, but seriously, driving into Italy from Austria, the difference was glaring. Even for a Lebanese person, the driving sucked, as did the roads, and the gas prices. Overall, we're not sure we're made for road trips in Italy.
• Best Roads: Germany and France are tied here. The well-paved, well-signed roads allowed us to make a lot of headway in short time.
• Best Cheese: France. Yeah, yeah, we hear the duh again. Our favorite cheese was a tomme that we bought the night before our hike in the Vosges.
• Best Pastry: Again, Germany and France are tied. To be honest, we ate many more pastries in France than in Germany, but the one Black Forest cake we had in Germany was so exquisite, it deserves its own shout out. In an effort to be able to make authentic French eclairs once we returned home, we had to have multiple tastings in France.
• Best Food: Tie across all the countries. We don’t think we had bad food anywhere. It was a bit more difficult to find vegetarian food in Germany and Austria, but the trouts we had there were delicious, and of course the pasta in Italy was super yummy! It's a good thing we left the continent when we did, because we were both losing control whenever we saw food. Which was every other minute.
  
• Best Campsites: Italy. Italian campsites were more expensive, but for a reason. They almost looked and felt like hotels -- nice bathrooms, restaurants, swimming pools -- right up until the moment we went to bed inside our tent.
• Nicest Campers: The Dutch! We camped in many places and overall people were very friendly. But we found the Dutch campers in Austria to be the nicest and friendliest folks!
• Best Airbnb: All of our hosts were super friendly. A special shout out to Patricia in Strasbourg, Joelle & Alex in Nantes, and Antonella in Florence!
• Best Restaurant Service: Trattoria Bordino in Florence. We have never encountered such great and respectful service in the US or Europe, and the food was delicious.
• Best Hike: We kept revising our list on this one. Our top hikes (in no particular order) were the ones in the Vosges, outside of Salzburg, in Hohe Tauern, from Riomaggiore to Portofino, in Mercantour, the Verdon Gorges, and almost every one in the Pyrenees. There was no shortage of spectacular scenery and natural beauty!

Lourdes

We got a fruit tarte for Ali, but she was not there so we had to eat it!

In the tent on a cold night!

Bordeaux

Sadly, this eclair is about to meet its end.

Cleaning up 6 weeks of crumbs

This is the last time this croissant was seen alive

Not quite our last eclair

Drying out our tent ... right before it rained again on our last night!

St Cecilia, patroness of music. Ghinwa's church in Boston is named after her.

Finally we made it to a chestnut festival! ... which included goats as well

I think we've finally collected all the eclair data we need!

Hello, Mesrob & Tekla .... And goodbye, Europe!