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Hi everyone! Wow! What an experience! Probably, the best place to start is at the beginning to get everyone up to speed. As many of you already know, Katie and I had already planned to go to Paris for the millennium (little did I know what Katie had planned for me!). At some point after these plans were finalized, we decided that Paris would a great place to get married. No big deal to add a wedding on to the trip? Wrong! As it turns out, France has a 30-day residency requirement to get married there. I spent the next 2 weeks working on trying to find a nearby country to get married. Great Britain was 15 days, Austria was 30 days, and Luxembourg was 6 months! Finally, after searching every consulate web page in Europe, I found two places: Scotland and Italy. Thank goodness for the Internet! Finding a place was great, but now we had to get there. Our original plans had us leaving Charlotte on the 29th of December and arriving in Paris on the 30th. That means we would have to land in Paris and immediately fly to one of those places to get married and turn around and come back to Paris for the New Year. We decided on Scotland. When we checked flights, they literally arrived at 11:30 am and left 1:30 pm. That's one of those plans where if everything didn't go perfectly...well, you get the picture!
Okay, we decided on Scotland. After looking at some of the local web pages, I found a few castles we could have a small ceremony in and found a wedding coordinator to help with the other details over there. Now it was just a matter of changing flights to get there earlier in December. Not a problem. After what felt like 100 phone calls to USAir and calls to check on hotel availability, it was looking bleak. Of course, we were flying on frequent flyer miles; so several days over the holidays were blacked out. Then we had to try to figure out how to get from Paris to Edinburgh, Scotland once I got the flights rearranged here. Literally for 8 hours a day for a solid week (and I thought work was hard!), I finally figured out a way to pull all this together. The flights were finally complete and we found hotels everywhere. So this is how it turned out: ·
Leave Charlotte on Christmas Day! Where did Rome come into the picture, you ask? Well, since that was an option for a wedding, one plan I had was to go to Rome first on the 30th, then Paris and go back to Rome on the tail end of the trip to see where we actually got married. Somehow it got included anyway! (Note to self: be careful what you mention to a woman unless you are prepared to take her there)
S I had though a castle would be really neat and would be very memorable. The one that I kept coming back to was Linlithgow Palace just outside of Edinburgh. As it turns out, it is a ruin, which in itself is not bad, but the time of year makes it very "iffy." The wedding coordinator (Yvonne) made several suggestions in addition and we decided to have the ceremony at Rosslyn Abbey, which was built in the 1400's and then go out to the palace to take additional pictures. To add to the ceremony, we arranged for a bag piper to play and I am going to surprise Katie with an old Rolls Royce to take her to the Chapel. Katie hasn't let me see her dress yet, but I think everything will turn out great. I wrote all that before we left. It has now been three months since our trip and we still look back on our trip with awe! Everything went so smoothly and was perfect. The Peter Principle never really applied. Every flight went perfectly and all our other plans fell right in place. We even managed earlier flights reducing layovers and got upgraded everywhere we went. Even the weather was great considering the time of year. The rain either had just ended when we got where we were going or started just after we left. When we arrived in Edinburgh, it was amazing! It was just beautiful. Pictures do not do this town justice. We were always in the right place at the right time. We did things like ice skating while listening to Tom Jones in a rink that was put up for the holidays and followed a torch procession to the top on Calton Hill to watch fireworks and dancing. The wedding was absolutely amazing! It was a bright, sunny day; however, still a little on the chilly side (but you know, I will take a little chilly on December 29th in Scotland any day!). You could see our breath as we spoke or vows!
Thank you Yvonne for a very special day! I surprised Katie with a 5 star dinner in the hotel. The wait staff from the restaurant downstairs brought each course up, as it was prepared. We set up a table in the parlor (yes, we had a parlor in our suite!) with crystal, china and flowers. I had to kill time while they got everything set up, so I took Katie out around town. I did manage to lose our passports temporarily while we were out! On to Paris! What can you say, Paris is Paris. City of lights and all that stuff. We did all the tourist stuff, got caught in a few tourist traps, but all in all had a good experience. What they say about Americans in Paris is true, so be careful if you ever go. New Year's was a riot…literally! There were well over 1 million people crammed onto just a few streets along the Seine by the Eiffel Tower. After fighting the crowd and dealing with a few gangs of kids stirring things up, we found a great place to watch the fireworks. Peter Jennings said he thought they were the best of the millennium celebration. I would tend to agree. If you go, spend time on the Isle St. Louis and Isle de la Cite'. Our last day, we ate lunch at the Jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower. The views and meal were spectacular. We broke away from Paris for a few days to go to London to revisit a city we loved when we visited last year. We picked up right where we left off. It was like we had never left. What a great international city! Spend time at The British Museum if you visit. Well worth the time. We would come back here anytime. We left Paris to go to Rome. We literally knew very little about Rome since it was planned at the last minute. I literally planned our adventure there on the plane over from Paris! This city is filled with culture and history. We walked just about everywhere we went and I think we saw just about everything. The ruins and the Colisseum where unbelievable. Palantine Hill is hardly ever mentioned; however, is, as Katie puts it, a "Garden of Eden" sitting on the top of a hill overlooking Rome. It seemed everywhere you went; you found something else that was fascinating. Our hotel was near the Piazza Navona where they used to race chariots! A couple that ran a little Trattoria around the corner from out hotel befriended us here. Giovanni, the husband took a liking to Katie and showed us around the cellars, which included an old Roman arch that was part of the old Roman theater and catacombs. The saying posted over the door was "You will eat what we want to feed you!" What a great place! Treve Fountain, The Vatican, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps and of course, the ruins…well, you know…really anything in Rome is worth the time. Just wander around the next corner and you will find something else unbelievable. This city is a must see. What a long plane ride home. We hated to leave, but were glad to get home. We thought we were gone so long the cats wouldn't even recognize us. Now the hard part: getting Katie moved in and adding another cat to a 2-cat household. Life will never be dull around here! If you enjoyed our story, check us out at www.yourbeacon.com for pictures and additional information.
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o,
now I had to finalize plans for the ceremony. Again, thank goodness for
the Internet. With the help of 
Rosslyn
Chapel is one of the most breathtaking chapels I have ever seen. The history
was fascinating, which made the ceremony even more remarkable. Iain, the
Piper, was a hoot. 