Our road tours in Europe during the past years have been wonderful journeys of discovery and adventure. We wanted no less this time, especially for several members of this year’s much bigger tour group who have not seen Europe before.

There were 27 of us from 5 countries - 8 from the Netherlands (my sister Quiding and her husband Eddie, long-time friends Ton and Mellie, Angel and Nora, Ana and Margarita) 2 from Belgium:Dirk and Pat; 4 from the Philippines (my brother Danny and his wife Cindy, and Cindy’s sisters Annie and Bettina); 2 from Australia (Cindy’s sister Frieda and her husband Rico); and 11 from the United States (Cindy’s brother Arnel and his wife Ginny, Cindy’s cousin Kate and her husband Ito, my brother Boy, his wife Teng and their friends Ray and Zeny, my brother Jun and his wife Iou, and me.) To facilitate coordination and planning, we opted to go on another Mediterranean cruise, followed by a land tour that I asked my good friend Luca from Italy to organize for us.