October in Review - Part 1

October in Review - Part 1

European Adventure 2012!!!:

On Friday October 5, we left the states for a 2 week vacation, visiting 5 European countries!

We carried only backpacks and took minimal clothes.  Our first stop was......

.......London, England!.......

......where we saw the Houses of Parliament....

....rode the London Eye.....

.....visited a radio station during Geoff Loyd's show (Brandon is one of his listeners)....

....ate Indian food from atop a double-decker booth.....

.....toured Westminster Abbey.....

....and climbed to the top of St. Paul's Dome.

After riding a train under the English Channel, we arrived in........

........Calais, France.........

.........just across the water from England.  We rented a tiny car.....

.....and drove several hours through beautiful French towns and countrysides (where I may or may not have gotten us slightly lost).

Our next stop was the area of..........

.......Normandy, France!

  We toured a World War II German battery that still stands in Longues-sur-Mer (a village).....

.....stood on Omaha Beach, where our American troops invaded the Germans on June 4, 1944, while the Germans fired on them from the bluff above the beach (if you've seen the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, this is that beach).....

......walked on top of Pointe du Hoc, where American Rangers also invaded that day in the early morning hours, using ropes to climb the steep cliffs and take over the German command center at the top.....

.....and we somberly passed through the Normandy American Cemetery, where one third of the Americans from World War II are laid (don't let the one third number make you think this place is small - there are 9,387 graves here - and this is just the American cemetery, there are other cemeteries for other countries).

The town we most enjoyed on our trip was nearby to the D-Day Beaches of Normandy and was one of the first liberated towns of the war......

.........Bayeux, France!

We enjoyed window shopping & exploring the city's narrow cobblestone streets.....

....and I enjoyed photographing it!  It was such a quaint, picturesque town. 

Isn't this house to die for??

 If you look closely at the shutters on this one (click the picture to enlarge), you can see that there are hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs punched in them.

In the center of this small town sat a gorgeous & enormous cathedral, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux.  It "was consecrated on 14 July 1077."  That's, like, hundreds of years before our country even existed!  That blows my mind.

Another very old artifact that this city is home to is the Bayeux Tapestry, a 230 foot long (!) embroidery that depicts the Battle of Hastings, most likely sewn sometime between 1070-1476 (source).  While we did get to see the Tapestry and listen to an audio tour that described each scene on it, we were not allowed to take pictures of it.....so this pic is courtesy of Wikipedia.




My handsome Hubby was so very patient with me taking so many pictures on this trip, he even held my purse and other items on occasion while I changed out lenses or got tired of lugging so much stuff around (since I brought my "good" camera with interchangeable lenses, it got heavy sometimes).  I love him so very much.

Our hotel in the Normandy area was located in a little fishing village called.......

.........Port en Bessin, France!

It was about 6 miles north of Bayeux, right on the English Channel (just a few miles up the coast from Omaha Beach). 

We ventured out early one morning to enjoy the sunrise and the hue it cast on everything did not disappoint!

We loved this tiny town too.  Everywhere we looked was a picture waiting to be taken.

It was fun watching the fishermen come in with their morning catch (not so fun smelling it though, I have to say).

Both Bayeux & Port en Bessin gave me that same rose-colored, romantic feeling that I had the first time I was ever in Paris.....that's when I wrote this on my blog, "Have you ever seen the movie Sabrina?  Being in Paris makes me feel the same way that movie makes me feel....maybe because parts of it are set in Paris....maybe because it makes me want to cry -  but not because I'm sad - maybe because those days in Paris made me feel like Sabrina, finding parts of myself in the rivers whispers and the soft dancing colors."

 Well, Bayeux and Port en Bessin sort of brought about that same sort of emotion in me and it made me think of this quote from the Sabrina movie as well, "It means seeing life through rose colored glasses. Only in Paris <or Bayeux or Port en Bessin> where the light is pink does that make sense, but I'll have it in my pocket when I get home, and carry it with me where ever I go."

It was hard to leave the Normandy area, but our trip was taking us to our next destination just south of there to.....

......Caen, France!

   We toured the Mémorial de Caen - a museum dedicated to World War II.  We spent about a half day there and after returning on mini-rental-car, took a train 2 hours south to......

.....Paris, France!

It was a gorgeous, slightly chilly, Paris day.  We walked probably 4 to 5 miles, starting at our hotel near Notre Dame.......

......staying along the river.....

.....walking past many bridges along the Seine......

.....where Brandon thoroughly enjoyed listening to me read details of each bridge as we passed them (I printed info & took it with me....he tolerated such readings at least 14 times).

.....until we reached the Eiffel Tower!

We climbed the stairs to the 1st & 2nd levels of the tower (which are the lower & middle "sections" of the picture above), and enjoyed great views.....

.....and a rainbow!!

After coming down from the tower, we took a stroll through Luxembourg Gardens on the lookout for crepes.  Sadly, there were none to be found there (all the crepe stands were closed).  But, while walking back to our hotel, we found a little place making made-to-order crepes and I was one happy girl - a Paris crepe with Nutella - there's nothing like it!!!  YUM!!

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that we backpacked and took minimal clothing......our strategy for this was to do laundry in the sink in our room every couple nights.  Worked like a charm!  But I'm sure the cleaning people didn't enjoy having to work around all the clothes hanging up to dry!!

We had one gorgeous day and one very rainy day in Paris, then it was time to take an overnight train to.......

.......Munich, Germany!

Our first stop was the concentration camp, Dachau.  The sign below reads "Work Makes You Free" It was surreal to be there and I left heavy-hearted.  There was an on site museum with stories, pictures, facts & figures that were staggering.  And this wasn't even one of the worst camps. 

Moving on to brighter things......

.....we stood in the Marienplatz (city center) of Munich, waiting for the Glockenspeil (clock) to chime and dance.  The old clock has figures below it that move about to music when it chimes at certain hours.  It was neat, but somewhat under-whelming.

A visit to Munich wouldn't be complete without eating at the famed Hofbrauhaus - a beer/sausage house that caters to tourists, but was totally worth it.  There was a polka band dressed in lederhosen, the waitresses were in traditional Bavarian dress (there's one just past Brandon's head below) and the food was delicious!!

We ate danishes or pastries almost every day for breakfast, dessert, snack, etc... (I could have eaten one with every meal!!!).  Well, Brandon got funny with my danish one morning....not seeming to want to give it to me.



We spent only one night in Munich and then were on our way to.......

(random interruption.....I love the picture above of Brandon riding the train....)

 
......Bregenz, Austria!  

Sitting on Lake Constance and surrounded by Pfander Mountain, Bregenz borders both Germany & Switzerland.

There's an "Old Town" area of Bregenz that was very neat.....

....and lead us down winding paths.

We rode a cable car to the top of Pfander Mountain (you can see Lake Constance below)......

......it was cold, but beautiful up there!

Also on Lake Constance, was an island town called

.........Lindau, Germany......


......it was a 20 minute train ride around the Lake.

(I love this picture of Brandon riding the train too)

Lindau was very Bavarian - everywhere you looked were half-timbered buildings with cute window boxes and bright flowers!

There weren't many cars in Lindau, so there were several pedestrian-only streets with shop after shop to browse in.

This view is looking out over Lake Constance from Lindau.  After enjoying many views in Austria and Germany, it was time to head to......

........Merlischachen, Switzerland!

Just outside of Lucerne, Switzerland and pronounced Mare-li-shock-en, we stayed in the cutest little chalet hotel (below)!

It was a rural community, complete with cows on the hillsides (wearing cowbells that dinged at all hours of the day, leading us to wonder if the *cows* ever got tired of the bells?)

Merlischachen sits on Lake Lucerne and is surrounded by several mountain ranges.

The sunrises and sunsets rivaled, and in some cases, blew out of the water, many that I've seen in My Old Kentucky Home (which are, in my opinion, some of the best).

There wasn't much to do in this little village, but that was okay because the views could captivate for hours.

While staying in Merlischachen, we took a couple day trips to nearby cities.  The first day trip was to......

.........Bern, Switzerland!

Bern had the most stores in one area I've ever seen in my life.  Their shopping district was 4 miles long,  leading you down covered sidewalks past storefront after storefront.

After walking down the long path of shops, we came to a river.....

.....where there was a bear park!

Yes, a bear park, with real live bears!

Cute, huh?

The city of Bern was a fun day trip of walking, sight-seeing and enjoying the gorgeous weather.

The final full day of our European Adventure was in.....

.......Lucerne, Switzerland!

Lucerne is situated almost right in the middle of Switzerland, on Lake Lucerne (about 20 minutes from where we stayed in Merlischachen).

We strolled around the city, stopping at souvenir shops, chocolate stores.....

....and enjoying the beauty of the Chapel Bridge and it's surroundings.

The Chapel bridge is a covered wooden bridge for pedestrians only.  Cute flowers line the sides of the bridge.

Random picture insert - While it's worth noting that we had tons of good, local-style food on our trip.....we also had a total of FIVE pizzas during our 2 weeks of travel (they were all 4-cheese pizzas, since we knew what "four" & "cheese" were in most languages).  What can I say?  We love pizza!

Well, our trip was coming to an end.  After our day trip to Lucerne, we boarded a train for or final European destination.....

.........Zurich, Swizterland!

We arrived in Zurich on the evening of October 19 and were flying out the next morning, so we didn't go exploring......but here's a picture out of our hotel window in Zurich.

One thing we did do in Zurich, was end our trip with a really nice meal at an Indian restaurant.  This was some of the best I've ever had.

The morning of October 20, we were on a plane back home.......

......enjoying some not-so-bad plane food.

After a long day of travel, we arrived safely back to the good ole' KY.

Of course, this is a mere sampling of pictures we took and stories we have and memories we made, but we took a TON of pictures and have a TON of stories and there's just not room for them all here.

Yes, there it is, our whole trip in one blog post - can you believe it?  I'm still not done blogging about the European trip that Shannon and I took back in 2009, but by golly, this one was going to be blogged from beginning to end!!  (I'd *still* like to finish that 2009 trip in blogposts and have several lined up in my drafts to do so, but I can barely stay current on my blog, so it'll likely be several more years before that whole trip is in the books!!)

If you've made it this far - thanks for reading!!   :)