Selfies and Portraits

A few random selfies and portraits:

Paris

Surprisingly sparse selection of Paris photos.  Too many god damn Romanian Gypsy pickpockets wanting to snatch your wallet or camera, so we tended to keep everything secure.  Overall, Paris was my least favorite place we visited.  Dirty, massive crowds, pickpockets, complete lack of any security/police, and the laziest group of employees/workers everywhere we went.  It made us realize what a delight all of Germany was.

Luxembourg v2

More Luxembourg photos.  Quite a picturesque area, and also extremely wealthy.  The local tour guide was commenting that the average income in Luxembourg was 15 times higher than surrounding areas of Germany.  Yet strangely, prices were less than in Paris.  It was also spotless, and I never got felt up by any gypsies.

Luxembourg v1

American Cemetery photos.  It was quite emotional for me.  I'm not sure why, as I didn't have any immediate family members buried here, but it was just so overwhelming.  General Patton is buried here, having asked that he be buried with his men.

Bernkastel Wine Tasting and Trier

Another wine tasting tour, this time from Bernkastel.  The first shot shows the typical vineyards int his area, on very steep slopes.  In this case, the vines were planted only 2-feet away, and not connected together with cables.  They just grew up a center post.  All hand harvested.

The wine tasting was phenomenal.  Literally giant cellars filled with thousands of bottles of wines.  Each wine had its own cage, and a sample bottle to pour from.  Unlimited pours, DIY style.  Susan made sprinted to the sweet Riesling cellar, and we spent about 45 minutes in there sampling.  I'm fairly certain I had three full glasses of wine by 10:30am.  It was a good day.  We left with a bottle of our favorite sweet Riesling we will open today, to go with our Turkey.

Reichsburg Castle, Cochem, and Bernkastel

Reichsburg Castle, Cochem, and Bernkastel photos.  Another old castle, but this time it was completely furnished inside.  Unfortunately our tour started when the sun was going down, so no good photos from inside.