European money is interesting!

When I was growing up in Germany, I loved collecting coins from nearby countries that we visited, such as French Francs, Italian Lira, etc. The “Euro” replaced Deutsche Marks and many other European  currencies, but there are still unique bills and coins to be found! The Euro and the US Dollar are not exactly 1:1, but  fairly close. Some of the coins have unique reverse sides with distinguishing information from countries within the European Union. 

Our first trip outside of Euro-currency countries was to the Czech Republic. This $100 Koruna note is worth about $4. The coins are interesting and beautiful! It was slightly challenging to do the mental math for conversion; 25 Koruna are about $1, and the silverware set that Jeff admired was $4,000 (there were so many zeros on the price tag in Korunas I thought it was a bar code number). OK, no new silverware for us today!

Our next trip to Switzerland introduced us to colorful Swiss Francs and pretty coins. The Swiss Franc, the Euro, and the USD, are not that far apart in value, though they are not exactly equivalent. We had to buy a windshield sticker upon entering Switzerland, instead of paying a toll every so many miles on highways, but the roads we travelled on were very well maintained!

Just for you, we will continue to travel, collect interesting coins, and post here!