On the bright side, I am getting to do some traveling over here in Europe, and I thought I would share some pics from our recent driving trip to northern Italy...
Route: Belgium --> Telfs, Austria --> via Stelvio Pass --> Venice --> Florence --> Tuscany countryside & hill towns --> Cinque Terra (Italy) --> Belgium via Switzerland/Germany
The Stelvio Pass is really a very impressive road, though it's not terribly fun to drive because it is sooo steep that it is just stressful: blind hairpins, cyclists, bikers, and the falls to your death. The craziest people must be the cyclists... f'ing crazy. In about 20 km of road, you end up climbing over 1900 meter of vertical feet (topping out at about 2800 meter = 9300 ft = 1.8 mi). The air must get pretty thin that high, so those guys must have some good lung capacity.
If you are ever planning a trip to Europe, feel free to PM me and I may be suggest some nice things to see... my wife and I done a lot of traveling in the past year...
We have another driving trip planned in late July to hit Bavaria, Salzburg, Lichtenstein, Interlaken (Switz), and the Champagne region. There should also be beautiful driving through that area.
Enjoy (and sorry about the over-exposure, I could have used some serious HDR on a lot of these... but that takes too much time and a tripod.)
Stelvio Pass
Near Telfs, Austria
Tuscany
the Blue Flame!!! Our current car over here... 2000 Seat Leon, 110 HP TDI... eat your heart out
Cinque Terra