London & Reykjavik

This is it, the final blog post documenting our 18-day trip to Europe. Our trip was book-ended with brief stops in London: an afternoon at Windsor Castle at the very beginning of our trip before we flew to Paris, and at the end of our trip we spent an evening and a day in London. Our last day in Europe was in Reykjavik, Iceland. We hadn't planned to visit Iceland, but IcelandAir just started offering flights out of Denver, and they had the lowest fares. We were happy to get a glimpse of one more country on our European tour!

London, Part 1

Windsor Castle is an official royal residence, and it has been a royal home and fortress for over 900 years -- still in operation today! The Queen uses parts of the Castle as a private home, where she usually spends the weekend, and as a place for formal royal duties. Of course, the parts of the castle that the public can tour do not include the Queen's bedroom. 

Here's the guard who prevents tourists from seeing the Queen's closet.

London, Part 2

Our favorite part of the time we spent in London was seeing a production of "Singin' in the Rain." It was so much fun -- great music, fabulous dancing, and rain on the stage!

For our one full day in London, we did a hop-on/hop-off double-decker bus tour and sightseeing river tour down the Thames. 

Eye of London & Big Ben clocktower

The Tower of London

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge

Buckingham Palace (where we saw preparations for the Queen's Jubilee)

And we made a super-quick stop at the British Museum, especially to see the Rosetta Stone

Reykjavik 
We landed at the Reykjavik airport around midnight, and it looked like the sun was setting. Iceland is so far north that at the end of May there was hardly any "night" at all.

Midnight sunset

Keflavik harbor

Reykjavik city pond 

I ate yogurt in every country we visited, and Iceland's was the best.

Road Trip Part 3: The Lake District

 Part of our road trip with Jacob, Rachel, and Gavin, was to visit England's Lake District. One of our first stops in the Lake District was a town called Cockermouth, which is William Wordsworth's birthplace.

While in Cockermouth, we visited Wordsworth's childhood house (pictured above). 

While inside the Wordsworth house, Melissa played a harpsichord, which was a replica of a Handel harpsichord, and we learned more about some of the daily life of an 18th Century household. 

 In the Lake District, we also saw animals. Highland cattle and sheep are pictured above, and...

Lakes! 

Above is a view of Lake Buttermere, and below is a closeup of the stone wall at Lake Buttermere. 

We took a lovely hike at Buttermere with Rachel, Jacob, and Gavin. Below is a photo of us fording a stream  with Gavin in his all-terrain stroller. 

For more photos from this part of our trip, see Rachel's blog.

Road Trip Part 2: Scotland

We spent a couple of days in Scotland, first in the beautiful city of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle

Elephant House coffee shop, where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter

A break and a snack at Elephant House coffee shop 

Holyrood Palace, the royal residence in Edinburgh

Mike on a beautiful day in Scotland!

We felt so lucky to just happen upon highland games happening near Edinburgh in Highgate.

Throwing the stane

We made a brief stop at Roslin Chapel, which plays an important part in The Da Vinci Code (both the book and the movie), but aside from the fictional connections, it's a beautiful little church.

See Rachel's blog for more photos of our time in Scotland: http://englishpatience.blogspot.com/2012/05/edinburgh-in-and-around.html

England: Cambridge and Road Trip Part 1

After our time in France and Germany, we flew to England to spend most of the remainder of our trip with my sister Rachel, her husband Jacob, and their 18-month-old Gavin. The first part of our time with them, we checked out some of the sights not far from where they live. Below are a couple of photos of Cambridge. 

Above is a photo of Melissa at St. Catherine's College in Cambridge. Melissa spent a summer studying Shakespeare in Cambridge during college. 

After spending a couple of days in and around Jacob and Rachel's village, we took off together on a road trip. Our first stop was York. Pictured above is the Minster of York, an impressive cathedral. 

We also stopped at town called Alnick (rhymes with "panic") where the main attraction for us was Barter Books. Recently listed as one of the world's 20 most beautiful bookstores, Barter is also the place where the now-famous "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster was discovered. Apparently, this poster was intended to keep up people's spirits during World War II but was never used.

While in Alnick, we also stopped for fish and chips with mushy peas. Yummy!

For more photos from this part of our trip, check out Rachel's blog.(I highly recommend her blog because Rachel is an outstanding photographer!) 

Melissa's 30th Birthday

We celebrated my 30th birthday in Friedrichshafen, a town on Lake Constance. We stayed at a really cool place, Gasthof Rebstock, which felt like an old-timey tavern. We had dinner in the gasthof (guesthouse) our first night there and noticed that nearly everyone in the restaurant seemed to know each other. Mike asked our server if the diners were local, and she said that about half of the people in the place come there to eat all the time. I didn't take photos of our food, but it was some of the best German food we had. Mike ate a schweineshaxe (basically a whole ham hock) and I had spargel (thick, white asparagus) on ham and toast with hollandaise sauce. It was amazing.

I had a beautiful and very memorable birthday!

At Lake Constance

We rented bicycles from our bed and breakfast

Rode through beautiful apple orchards (and had apple strudel for dessert that evening!)

Had a picnic lunch in the small town of Langenargen

Birthday dinner next to the lake was whitefish (from the lake). One of the few times we didn't eat pork for dinner while in Germany!

Munich & Fuessen

Munich

After we'd spent a few days in Paris, we took a night train from Paris to Munich, Germany. When we made our plans, we had no idea that we'd be in Munich on the day of the biggest European soccer game of the year - the Super Bowl of European soccer. London Chelsea was traveling to Munich to play Bayern Munich to see who would top the European Champions League. 

We got to Munich the morning of the big game, and by 9am the city was buzzing with excitement. Fans wearing red Bayern Munich jerseys and Lederhosen were partying downtown, chanting and signing their team's fight songs. It was a great atmosphere! (Unfortunately, Munich lost the big game.)

Munich football fans -- I didn't catch the ones wearing Lederhosen!

 In the English Gardens, where we had lunch with a couple from Ireland.

The famous Glockenspiel at Marienplatz

 Fuessen

After spending most of the day in Munich, we rented a car and drove to a little town called Fuessen (which means "feet" in German). The town is situated at the feet of the Alps, so the name is appropriate.


In another stroke of good luck, we happened to be in Fuessen for a parade celebrating 150 years of the town's volunteer fire department. Being there for the parade, which was not a typical tourist attraction, made us feel like we were experiencing the local flavor. Melissa loved all the Lederhosen!

Our rental car

Some parade-goers in Fuessen

One of the firefighting wagons

And a firefighting VW van!

A band in traditional Bavarian dress

Volunteer firefighters

Neuschwanstein

Our original reason for coming to Fuessen was to see Neuschwanstein castle, King Ludwig II's romanticized medieval castle built in the 1880's. During our tour of the castle, we learned that Ludwig was obsessed with the Middle Ages and nicknamed Neuschwanstein, "the Grail  castle," imagining that castles like his would have figured prominently in mythic quests for the Holy Grail.


As you can see from the photos of Munich and Fuessen, the setting was idyllic and the weather was absolutely perfect!


The food

Meats in Munich

Melissa enjoying a bratwurst

And Mike

Every meal in Germany = meat and potatoes