For us, the most important choice for New Years Eve (or birthdays), is the one and only: what Champagne to drink…? Below you see three different choices, from a cheaper Crémant to expensive Champagne.

Lachèze 2009 Crémant du Jura, Moët Chandon Grand Vintage 2004 and our very favorite Champagne, the Rolls Royce of Champagne: Dom Pérignon Vintage 2003, which we brought home after visiting the Champagne district in France at our Europe trip in August 2012.

As you have noticed, so far we prefer French, real Champagne – we yet have to taste more Cavas when we go to Spain later to have something to compare with – or what do you say…?

We wish for you all another very special, fantastic Happy New Travel Year of 2013, together with friends, family and filled with lots of love, passion – and Champagne of course…

©Lifecruiser Love Champagne
 

Some other New Years posts by Lifecruiser:

Happy Bubbly New Year 2012
Happy New Year Champagne Sweden 2010
Stockholm: Happy New Year (2009)
 

The number two birthday present for this Champagne lover was of course the Moet Chandon Grand Vintage 2004 Champagne. Makes memories pop up from our trip to the Champagne district in August, when we visited their unbelievable huge wine cellars in France and their beautiful vineyards!

©Lifecruiser Love Travel Goodies
 

Sorting and uploading all the photos from all those countries will take too long time and I know some of you are very curious of how our very long road trip went, so better to start with this summery with conclusion in the end.

10 Countries were visited by us during this Europe road trip: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria. We have now been to at least 30 countries together since 2004.

I’ll start with the good things, so if you don’t want to know the bad and the ugly, you can skip the middle part and jump directly to the end of this post and click on the link to see our photos so far.

The Good with the European road trip

Except from the useful travel experience, which always are great to have, and lots of great times here and there, I’ll list the absolute highlights of our European road trip below, not in any particular order.

1. Meeting a lot of friends were one of the main reasons for us to go on this trip from the beginning, a meetup once again in the French Riviera at Claudie and Pierre’s house with the Norwegian blog friends, but also to meetup with several other online friends along the way. Many of them which we never had met before, but that was no problem – very pleasant meetings all of them!

2. To visit the Champagne district and especially Moet Chandon wine cellars & gorgeous vineyards is of course a must when going to France for us Dom Perignon Champagne lovers and it did not let us down as a terrific travel experience.

3. The Netherlands lovely countryside at first and then the west coast with long, gorgeous beaches and actually 2 different blogger friends meetups turning out really good despite quite windy weather conditions.

4. The French Grand Canyon recreation area with it’s marvelous Emerald green lake which we definitely will go back to some day to stay for several days or a week. Also the fantastic French Alp views is really worth exploring more even in the summertime I tell you!

5. The Austrian Alps, gorgeous even in the summertime, but maybe we will even go back there some time in the wintertime even though I normally don’t like the winter. It’s very special with the Alp tops and the people. I did miss any yodeling though… ha ha…

6. The International Sandsculpture festival with incredible sculptures, quite big ones, but actually not as many as we thought there would be, but still worth visiting. Fantastic artists involved from many countries.

7. Certain hotel’s or B&B’s we had booked were surprising us with being even better than we had thought they would be. You never know until you see them in real life!

8. Trying different beer or wines that are not even available in our home country. Every day was a party!

I’ll come back in later travel blog posts, to write more about the different highlights in separate posts and divide the different places into separate photo folders too, making it easier for you to have a look at the special travel experiences.

The Bad with the European road trip

There was too little time and a too small wallet. We spent too much time on the roads, some of the hotels did not match their description or our expectations, some places were not really worth spending time within (like the Rhine Valley in my opinion).

The promised WiFi at too many of the hotels were not working well – if at all, making us unable to keep in contact with people as well as unable to upload photos even from the iPhone many times. That was something we did not like at all and worth thinking of if going on a trip.

The food creation around Europe is in bad shape, it’s really too much french fries to every dish with very little variation, too little vegetables served in the meals, not creative enough if you go to normal restaurants and not the real gourmet or classy ones. I can’t call them budget restaurants since they’ve not really budget prices nowadays.

We had packed two big suitcases which really didn’t fit for the too many steep stairs in the hotels we had booked (or our disk problems), so we had to rearrange a bit, taking out clothes in advance and put in smaller bags to be able to cope during the driving around. It was quite a puzzle sometimes, ha ha!

We had not really great summer weather on this trip, making it very difficult to take photos. It was either unusually cold and gray or way too hot to be outdoors, nothing in between until we did reach Denmark in the end. (We were unusually white this summer actually…)

Both lucky and unlucky: in the end of our trip, when reaching the south of Sweden again, hubby suddenly got ill with dizziness which forced me to do some heavy things I shouldn’t which made my back crack again, which created severe problems when continuing up in Sweden.

We stopped to sleep half ways home in hubby’s childhoods summer home and went home from there the day after that, despite that we had plans to continue our journey within Sweden. It was not meant to be obviously – it has been unsteady weather since.

The Ugly at the European road trip

The highways in Switzerland were the most boring part of our road trip and I think from all our earlier road trips too. I have never seen such a boring motorway ever. I don’t know if it were the fact that we had been on the roads for so long, but the highway never seemed to end…

Our look after being exhausted made me not wanna be on the photos… ha ha… We were looking so darn worn out both of us, like 10 years older suddenly. Our photos and videos, ugly ones I tell you!

Surprisingly enough, we had hard time finding interesting things or beautiful views to capture. We do have lots of interesting photos, but also uninteresting ones and too many deleted ones to be honest. Normally we always find so many things to photograph, but not at all as many as usual on this trip, strange enough.

Conclusion of European roadtrip

If going on such a long road trip, you need at least to double the time (and your wallet!) to get a more satisfying experience. We did know this before we went, but we had no choice, this was what we could manage at this time, so we had to take it or leave it.

We’re satisfied with our experiences as we thought about it as a tour to look around and get a quick view over a lot of countries, to know where we want to go back again in the nearest future. We now know that we want to go back to The Netherlands, The French and the Austrian Alps for sure.

I would not recommend going to the French Riviera in August when it use to be too hot and crowdy and we would never have gone there at this time, if it were not for the fact that our hosts had vacation then and the meetup there with our friends from Norway.

Since all Europe’s holiday period occurs in August, there use to be lots and lots of holiday people out on the roads normally, but we were lucky this year: no severe traffic jams in the directions where we went – only in the opposite directions all the time. Maybe also the economic crises has left some traces, making people staying home more.

Continue to keep an eye on Lifecruiser Europe roadtrip 2012 Flickr Photos, there will be new photos uploaded there now and then until I’m done with them all.

©Lifecruiser Love European Roadtrips

Earlier posts about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Ending a long Europe road-trip
Europe roadtrip: in the Alps
Europe trip: leaving the Champagne district to go to Provence
Europe Road short update
Europe Road: leaving Bruges
Europe trip: blogger meet in Wijk aan Zee and IJMuiden, The Netherlands
Europe Road Trip Day 2-3 Goodbye Germany Hello The Netherlands
Europe Road Trip Day 1-2
Europe 7500 km roadtrip start!
 

Yes, we even did do the Grand Vintage tour at the Moet Chandon and we tasted the Vintage 2002, the blanc (which we have been tasted before) and the Rose. We also did a stop in the store afterward the tour… I say no more…

After that we had a long drive ahead of us to get down to Provence, to our dear friends Claudie and Pierre, where we will have the gathering with our Norwegian blog friends too: the 7th of August.

This time we even got to meet Claudie and Pierre’s daughter, she was not at home the last time we were here. We had a really nice, connecting time. She is a really good vocalist and has also made her own songs (impressive, listen to it!), awesome ones. She might come to Stockholm in the autumn – we really hopes she will come, since we would love to show her around!

Today, we have spent a really nice day together with Pierre, Claudie and her sister and husband in Nice, exploring the old town in Nice. A heaven for us photographers, I tell you!!! Then of course, we always have a great time together with Claudie and her family!! It’s impossible to not have a good time since they are such nice people!!!

Continue to keep an eye on Lifecruiser Europe roadtrip 2012 Flickr Photos too, there are new photos there now and we will upload our photos as soon as we got the time to do it – and working, fast enough wifi. So far, it’s mostly my iPhone photos because it’s easiest that way..

©Lifecruiser Love European Roadtrips
 

Yes, we will start in the Champagne bar and continue to a very nice dinner in the Troyka restaurant aboard, with local cuisine of Russia. I doubt it that we will choose Beluga caviar though – hubby does not like it!

©Lifecruiser Love Cruises
 

Yes, of course we had to test it at once, putting some yummy snacks to go with the two Champagne bottles. We noticed that the cooler worked very well already at the short time we did have it on. Perfect!

We will hardtest this cooler during our month-long roadtrip, from Stockholm, Sweden through many countries in the hot summer month of August. Our goal is Provence, France and we know by experience that it’s hot there at that time of the year.

.. and we had to have some fun too – look at this other photo below and you’ll understand….

This was another cheap Ferrari though….lol… Our Skoda Yeti is almost Ferrari red funny enough. And our favorite Skoda service adviser is Alexander…

I hope he likes this celebrate of his name!

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Roadtrips

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

New car for the Europe trip
Europe Trip 2012 Summery
Europe Trip Accommodations
Mapped Europe Roadtrip Route 2012 by Lifecruiser
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
Planning our Europe trip 2012
 

My beloved gigglewater. There is no better to get me in really good mood! Cheers my dears…

©Lifecruiser Love Holiday Champagne
 

Earlier Easter posts by Lifecruiser:

Happy Easter Feaster
Fly to party with the devil – Swedish Easter Island
Happy Easter Feaster (2009)
Spanish Easter: Semana Santa
Semana Santa in Sanlucar
Room for some broom vroom
Thursday Thirteen Easter Eggs
 

Lifecruiser.com domain name has existed since 01 Apr 2005 11:52:00, but the blog was not installed and ready to post on until the 3rd of April 2005. We have been two to write the posts, at least two minds even if it’s only one that has used the keyboard…

It has been fun, interesting, exciting and educating 7 years for sure and you know what?

This is NOT a post to tell you that I’ve decided to quit blogging, as so many others have done. No, the Lifecruiser.com domain name is paid until 01 Apr 2016 10:52:00, so you will have to stand with me for a long time yet even if the blogging phenomena would become dead long before Lifecruiser!

Lifecruiser’s first year of blogging

Our first year blogging was more to just have fun and maybe a bit childish, but we did have an awesome time online with our blogger friends around the world!

Just have a look at the titles of the posts in the list of our 1-years celebration, you will guaranteed smile – and giggle if you also take the time to read them: Lifecruiser Blog 1 Year.

Lifecruiser Photo Focused Blog

From being just a fun blog, it slowly developed in another direction:
Lifecruiser Photos did take over the main focus for quite a while during the years and after a while it kinda naturally did glide over to be most travel photos as we were traveling extremely much for several years.

Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise Parties

For a while when we were not able to travel for several reasons, I even started a Cyber Cruise, a kind of blog carneval, where we did visit each others travel/cruise blogposts as if we were participating in each others trips.

- and oh, did we have a lot of cruise parties! The Champagne were flooding…!

It was also that way we met some of our dearest blogger friends (YOU?!), which we also have met in real life many of them by now too and some several times. Internet is a great place to make new friends you should never have been aware of otherwise.

The birth of the real Lifecruiser Travel blog

It was not until after quite a while the real travel articles showed up here – when we had time to contemplate our trips and sort the travel photos properly. And voila! A travel blog were born!

The travel articles and photos has mostly been about and from our trips within Europe, but also some about North America and South America, mixed with our more close to home destinations and of course much from Scandinavia, Sweden, Stockholm and Gotland – our summer paradise island.

Our perhaps best travel articles are not yet written, I’m sure… Maybe they will be this year…?

Lifecruiser Travel Blog’s future plans

We do have our usual summer island trip planned as well as a cruise to St Petersburg soon and a more interesting Europe trip by car planned… but what are our plans for the future for Lifecruiser Travel Blog generally?

Obviously more travel reports as well as travel photos, though I think it will be of even more quality from now on. More serious travel advices, tips, reports and selected photos with better quality.

How about you? Are you planning to continue blogging for long too? Tell us all about your plans!

Happy Birthday Cheers, my dears…

©Lifecruiser ♥ Travel Blog
 

This cruise route is actually following the Vikings footsteps in the Baltic Sea – it is one of the famous Vikings most frequently used trade routes. The Vikings are an important part of Scandinavia’s history, so no wonder we want to follow along, even though we have no plundering in mind… lol.

St Petersburg – formerly perhaps most known as Leningrad and being a World Heritage Site – Russias second largest City with it’s simply gorgeous architecture (not many skyscrapers!), is perhaps the one thing we look forward to the most on this cruise.

The cruise is Visa-free for us, making it very easy for us to visit without any fuss, though there are some limitations with it too and I’m sure we will probably not think a cruise there will give us enough time to explore, just give us a glimpse.

We ordered an A-cabin with windows, I always want windows on cruises, not other cabins are any alternative for me. We will mingle with the other 2 thousand passengers the Anastasia Cruise ship can take. Expecting to have at least one very special birthday dinner in the ships restaurants.

We will also use the available aqua-zones, oh my – better get a sun-tan before going – and not to forget to pack the bathing trunks/bikini! *keeping a pack-list*

I’m not sure that we will buy so many things in the ships shops though (because we’re trying to save up some money for our Europe tour later this year), even if we of course are going to check out the tax free opportunities.

The performance aboard are the exclusive show programs by St. Petersburg Music Hall ballet theater, so that we will enjoy very much, I’m sure.

Neither one of us have been in Saint Petersburg before and I have not been in Tallinn either, so we found this to be an ideal cruise to do and to a very reasonable or even bargain price of 1244 SEK (186 USD or 140 EURO), aqua-zone and shuttle bus tickets included.

Of course, there will be other costs, such as food and drinks and sightseeing costs that is not included in that price.

I have been cruising to Helsinki numerous times as a child and once earlier as a grownup, but remember my *cough* seasickness experience? OK, that time we had a snow storm, not expecting one in May! (keep your fingers crossed!)

See you in the Champagne Bar aboard, right…?

©Lifecruiser Love Baltic Cruises

Some other cruise related posts by Lifecruiser:

Cruising is the Perfect Gift
Top 5 Pacific Cruises For Your Next Getaway!
Mediterranean Dream Cruises
Top 5 Cruises for family’s on a budget
Luxury Dream Cruises
The Worlds Oldest Gun Ship: A Medieval Cog Ship
Bargain Cruise Ships Tips
 

This time we were Swedish and Norwegian bloggers meeting up and perhaps our food habits are not that far away from each other since our countries are neighbors, but still it can differ.

In the photo below there is a little starter we made for us all, our own favorite shrimp cocktail with Champagne onion and a sparkling Cremant to drink with it.

We had to make a pause between the starter and the main course though, to really enjoy the food better.

This course, Anna and Renny had been preparing for us and it were an authentic old fashioned long-cook meat dinner with wine to go with it.

Yes, it was delicious – as always!!! We’re spoiled. It’s not always you get the chance to have long-cooked meals nowadays when everything is fast food.

More photos will come. Today we left Mariestad and the others and went home again. We did get home safe and sound, the roads were excellent, dry and empty.

Next trip? Who knows, it will be a surprise – maybe even for ourselves… *giggles*

©Lifecruiser Love Blogger Meetup Dinners