Here are Patti's photos.
London (map)

On Saturday, May 1, 2010, Patti, Paula, and I flew to London. Our hotel (Google Street View) was in South Kensington, London, near Hyde Park. There was a Tube stop a block away so it was easy to get around (the P.A. warns you to "Mind the gap" as you step off the train at each stop). On a very rainy day we went to the Tower of London (history), where Patti slipped on the wet steps when walking on the surrounding wall and hit her head breaking her glasses. She only needed a bandaid ("plaster" in London), and fortunately she had a spare pair of glasses! If you cross on the Tower Bridge over the River Thames you will see the fabulous City Hall (known as the "Gherkin"). Here's an aerial view showing the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and City Hall. We took hop-on-and-off double-decker bus tours around London and saw many neighborhoods, including the locations of Beatles' homes and Sherlock Holmes' lodgings at 221B Baker Street. We took a boat ride on the Thames from the Tower of London that ended at the London Eye, an extremely large passenger-carrying observation wheel (which we rode on) across the river from Parliament & Big Ben (that bridge became the location of a terrorist attack in 2017). We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, toured Kensington Palace where Princess Di had lived, and had High Tea at The Orangery in Kensington Gardens. And of course, we shopped at Harrods, the biggest department store I have ever seen!

Paris (map)

On Wednesday we took the Eurostar high-speed train to Paris via the Chunnel (tunnel under the English Channel). In Paris we stayed in an apartment (that brown double-door next to the blue awning was our doorway; turns out this is about a block from the building where Jim Morrison of the Doors died in 1971) on Rue Saint‑Antoine (becomes Rue de Rivoli as it goes West) between Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and Bastille, which on current maps represents the Métro stop and the former location of the prison (that we learned after a fruitless search was destroyed during the French Revolution in 1789). Our apartment was walking distance to Notre Dame (Patti and Paula climbed the 387 steps to the top), and (we are so lucky we were there before the 2019 fire destroyed the cathedral) we strolled on Champs-Elysées (where the most accessible "free" bathroom was in McDonalds), and went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe (with a 360°panoramic view of Paris). We also went to the top observation area of the Eiffel Tower, visited the Louvre where we saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, and took the train to Versailles to see Napoléon and Josephine's palace and gardens. It's a Man's World - Nino Ferrer We used the Métro a lot to get around Paris, took a boat tour on the Seine, and several double-decker bus tours (on one we passed by The Thinker sculpture by Rodin, and on the soundtrack I was listening to on headphones I heard a great version of the James Brown song "It's a Man's World" sung by Nino Ferrer in French!). In Paris we ate some of the best crepes and omelettes we have ever had at Cafe St. Regis, on Ile Saint-Louis, an island near Notre Dame. Our son Ben, who was going to school in Amsterdam, joined us in Paris and did many of these things with us.

Amsterdam (map)

On Monday we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam (through Belgium) where we stayed in a hotel on the Amstel River near the Magere Brug ("Skinny Bridge") that had no elevator so we had to climb 4 flights of stairs to get to our room. Our son, Ben, who went to school there and joined us in Paris was our Amsterdam guide. We walked a lot and took many trams. I love the city with all its canals and bicycles and bike paths (Amsterdam, "The Bicycling Capitol of Europe," has more bicycles than cars—the Central train station has a bicycle parking garage). We visited the Anne Frank House, the Rembrandt House Museum, and the Van Gogh Museum. We took boats on the canals and had pancakes (a Dutch delight that also comes in varieties with meat, vegetables, and cheese) at Sara's Pancake House, which we later learned in a review is the best in Amsterdam (and it's also located right around the corner from the Anne Frank House).

We flew back home (AmsterdamLondonBoston) on Thursday, May 13. We kept our eye on the recent news of the Iceland volcano and were relieved it didn't interfere with our flights (Amsterdam and London airports closed after we left them).