Traveling with the Stanfords 2025

On Saturday 26 th April we headed to Belgium to spend the day watching the oldest professional bike race, the Liege – Bastogne – Liege.  We spent the night in Spa, close to the Belgium Formula One race track.  We did notice a lot of really nice fast cars in the town, must have been full of race drivers!  Spa is a cool town, and we found a very helpful person at the visitor center who gave us plenty of details about the race route for the next day.  We got up early on Sunday and before heading out bought enough baguette sandwiches to get us through a long day.  From our previous trips to watch the Tour de France we were not sure how busy the crowds would be, and even if the roads would be open to cars.  We got to the first location in plenty of time, and chatted to a Belgium guy who used to be a professional bike racer.  As usual there was a lot of waiting around, watching first the police cars drive by clearing the road, then followed by the pu...

On Tuesday 22 nd April we headed to the Netherlands.  Our first stop was Kinderdijk, an area close to Rotterdam with 19 preserved windmills. We spent an enjoyable few hours walking around the area and taking photos before heading to Amsterdam. The next day we visited the Keukenhof gardens which was totally amazing.   We spent five hours exploring the 79 acres, containing around 7 million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths which are planted each year.  The garden is only open for 2 months, and is designed to be a living exhibit for the major growers in the country. On Thursday 24 th we spent the day exploring Amsterdam. We wandered around the streets and canals checking out the sights and watching the crowds.   A shower of rain had us sheltering outside a shop trying to decide our dinner options when John noticed a Tibetan restaurant.  Perfect, so we hurried in for an excellent meal, including some more great local beer. The next day ...

On April 16 th we left for a much needed break, and began our European Spring Flower Tour.  We had so much fun traveling and staying up late we  didn't  manage to update the blog, so for those of you who  didn't  see the Facebook photos we have put together this update. We kicked off the trip in style, using miles to upgrade to first class for the night flight over.  What a treat to lie flat at night, and to be given pajamas!  Needless to say the return flight in economy did not include PJ’s or warm nuts! Our first stop was Paris, the city of Love as we now refer to it.  Ok, it is really the city of lights, but we prefer the name for our favorite city.   Our first stop was the Pére Lachaise Cemetery, which contains the graves of many famous people, including Chopin, Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison.   It was a little surreal to be in a cemetery and hear someone playing Doors music on their iPhone! We s...