Colmar to Reims, France-October 31

Today was another travel day.  We got up, got ready, and packed our things. We then had breakfast before heading off.  The breakfast buffets here included all kinds of breads, several cheeses and meats, cereals, yogurt, and even eggs.  But you have to boil your own eggs.  The egg boiler thingy wasn't hot enough and my egg didn't cook.  So disappointing. :(  But a cool experience none the less!

Anyway, we rode for 3 hours enjoying the countryside and mountainous region.  We did hit some heavy, heavy fog for at least 45 minutes of the drive.  Finally we reached Verdun.  We rode through windy windy roads to get there.  Verdun is a town next to a huge WWI battlefield.  Apparently there were several villages in the area that were decimated in the war and never recovered.  We saw several memorials and a trench that had collapsed and buried the French soldiers alive.  Apparently for several years after you could see the tops of their bayonnets still sticking out of the soil.

   A memorial to WWI soldiers.  It is supposed to look like a sword stuck in the soil up to its hilt.

      Thousands of graves of fallen soldiers.

When we were done, we hit the road again for the last hour to Reims.  We found our hotel right in the center of town.  We had to park in an underground garage 3 stories below the surface.  Our hotel is located on a very busy shopping/restaurant area.  I can still hear all of the noise and music outside of our window.  

After checking into our hotel, we walked to the Reims Cathedral.  It looks so much like the Notre Dame in Paris.  Apparently many French kings were crowned there.  There are also a couple of statues dedicated to Joan of Arc.  

After the cathedral, we walked to a champagne maker, but were too late for tours.  We came back to our hotel for a bit before going to get dinner.  On the way home, we saw an ancient Roman city gate, just hanging out at the edge of a park. Cool!  

For dinner, we had Italian!  Scott had pizza and I had pasta carbonarra.  

Tomorrow is another travel day, this time to Calais where we catch the chunnel train to London.  But not before I find some Kinder eggs to bring back home!

Achouffe Brewery, Belgium-October 29

This morning we got up early, checked out and headed for Achouffe.  Before leaving, we had a scare that Scott had left the car headlights on all night because the automatic door locks weren't working with the key fob.  But fortunately it was just the key fob not working.  We had our trusty GPS, but still had problems finding the address for Achouffe in it.  Finally we got the GPS working and were on our way.  

We knew we were getting close when we turned on a road and there were two giant carved out gnomes pointing the way.  The brewery area was so cute.  The area is called "the valley of the fairies" and the brewery goes along with the fun.  They had a little island on the premises in the middle of a pond with a little gnome house on it. There were cute carved out wooden mushrooms and animal figures in the light posts.  

Hmm, which way for the tour?

        The brewery

        The little island with a house for the gnomes.

           La Chouffe and Mc Chouffe

           Me and the Mr.

               The cuteness!

The tour was all in  French and Dutch, but we didn't mind.  We were able to watch a little video in English.  After the tour,  we tasted 4 different beers.  They gave us free glasses for souvenirs, and Scott and I bought several souvenirs in the shop.  Then we had a nice lunch at the cafe there and headed back out on the road.  The rest of the day was spent driving to Colmar through  the rest of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Alsace region of France.  We arrived at our hotel after more difficulties with the GPS and checked in.  I hope we figure this GPS out before we leave, lol!

            GPS doin' it's thing.

Lindemans in Brussels, Belgium and Rochefort, Belgium- October 28

This morning we got up well rested.  We had a nice little breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to get an early start.  We were going to take the subway to the Brussels south station because it would have been too far to walk, but we didn't have enough Euros.  And most of the machines now take those chip cards so we had to get cash out of the ATM.  A word of advice to anyone traveling, get a credit card with a chip in it and learn  the PIN number.  Anyway, we made it to the train station and picked up our rental car. The crazy thing about renting a car in the a big city is that you really don't have a lot of time to figure out where you are.  You just pull out of this underground garage and bam, you're in crazy traffic not knowing which direction you are going. I was frantically trying to get the GPS to work since it still thought we were in the US.  We narrowly missed getting hit by a tram and people were honking at us to turn into the taxi lane.  It was a bit stressful.  But finally we got the address and we figured out where we were going.  And  after a bit, we made it to Lindemans brewery outside of Brussels.  We were so excited! 

Unfortunately, we had our time all wrong, because of the time change, and were there an hour early, lol.  Luckily the tour guide came in early for us.  Nestor, our tour guide, took us on a 3 hour tour (which was supposed to be just an hour, we thought), showing us every detail of the brewery, regaling us with anecdotes, and introducing us to the brewmaster, Peter.  

                            Brewmaster Peter, our wonderful guide Nestor, and Scott

It was so cool to be the only ones there getting to see this very old brewery with their unique brewing methods.  We even got to see a batch being brewed, and Peter pulled out the hydrometer to measure the gravity for us.  We learned about how the beer is left out in the air to naturally cool and attract the yeast in the air overnight with the windows open, and that they can only brew October through May because the summer bacteria would kill the beer.  We saw where they bottled everything and the warehouse where the bottles and kegs were waiting to be shipped all over the world.  Then after, we had our own private tasting, he opened about 6 bottles that probably would have cost $50 in America.  I have a new favorite, Faro.  We aren't sure where to find it in America but we know it is distributed there.  It is flavored with Belgian candy sugar.  We bought 3 bottles, two Lindemans glasses, and some coasters for only 10 euros!  What a steal!  I still can't believe they make enough beer in that small place to serve the entire world's demand.

                               The boil kettle doing the sparge.  It smelled so good.

    The coolship where the filtered beer sits in the open overnight to attract those special natural air yeasts.

         Beer waiting to ship locally and to America.

After the beer tour, we drove to Rochefort, but we got here too late to really do any sightseeing.  The weather was extremely windy all day and rainy off and on.  We think it is from the bad storm that has hit Great Britain in the south.  Hopefully it won't mess up that leg of our trip.

Anyway,   we walked around town a little and then had a fancy schmancy meal at the hotel dining room.  It was a  4 course meal and I thought I was going to pop.  I ate some things Scott never thought I would eat.  When in Europe...

Our hotel is a quaint old building and we are in this tiny room with a view of the garden terrace.  It has a lot of character, reminds me of a bed and breakfast in the country.  There are stuffed bunnies and bears in the room, lol!  

                                                Our quaint little room with stuffed bunnies.

                                                                Outside of our hotel

Everyone here speaks French, and only one lady speaks English, so she had to help us understand the items on the menu.  She was very cute, excited to find out where we were from.  She told us that everyone over here wants to go to New York or Miami, and maybe California.  But she wants to go to Montana one day, she said crossing her fingers and hopeful.  Too cute!

Tomorrow, we get up early and drive to another brewery and our next town where we will stay for 2 nights.  Bon soir!

Route du vin, the Alsace Region of France-October 30

This morning we woke up from a good nights sleep, got ready, and had le petit  dejuner.  I had croissants, cheese, and hot chocolate.  Scott had fun tasting all of the different breads available.  We then headed out to the first little town on the route de vin on our agenda, Eguisheim.  I loved this little village.  We picked up a little guided and follwed a suggested path through the village streets.  The buildings were almost all wattle and daub and were painted pretty pastel colors with wood timbers.  Most of the buildings were dated from the early 1200s.  The city was built in a curcular pattern with the houses on the outside forming the outer walls and houses on the inside forming concentric rings.  Some of the houses had phrases painted above and below the windows that were prayers for God's protection, names and dates, and even one house telling nosey people to pass on!  This is the town where the Alsace region's only pope was born, so there is a chateau and chapel in his honor.  We noticed the chateau had a large nest of large long beaked birds on the top of the spires.  We learned later that they were storks, the bird of the region.

        The pigeon house...used as a chicken coop.

        Too much cuteness!

               A window with a message.

                   The message translated (the middle one).

The next town was Kayersberg.  This ancient town sits next to a hill with a castle ruin.  We walked around, got a couple of pretzels, and after unsuccessfully making it to the castle ruin, we left for the next town.  

Next was Riquewiher, a very popular tourist destination.  This town was also cute and full of waddle and daub houses.  We had lunch at a restaurant called La Grenouil (the frog) and ate outside.  Scott had chicken and spatzel (since we are so close to Germany, the territory has gone back and forth for centuries.  The food is heavily influenced by both cultures.)  I had spazel avec fromage et salade.  It was delicious!  

          More cuteness. 

             Yumminess!

After walking around and exploring some more, we left to go see Chateau Haut-Koenigsburg.  This castle had been around since at least 800 and was renovated several times.  By the early 1900s, it was a castle ruin.  But at the time, Germany owned this area, so the King Wilhiem commissioned an architect to rebuild the castle.  So they spent about 8 years researching and rebuilding it as authentically as possible.  It was really well done.  The castle sits on top of a mountain in the Black Forest overlooking the valley of the route de vin.  We really enjoyed exploring this castle.

            After walking up a very steep hill, this is the view of the castle. 

           An interior spiral staircase. 

         The view from inside the castle. Breathtaking!

By the way, the countryside here is a patchwork of beautiful yellows, golds, oranges, and greens.  There are vinyards on every square inch of open land.  The valley is so flat you can see for miles and it seems like there are tiny villages every couple of miles.  

        This picture can't capture the beauty of our surroundings, but I tried anyway!

After the castle, we drove to Strasbourg and saw the cathedral.  We were too late to climb up into the spire (I wasn't too sad about that) and also missed the last boat tour on the Ill river.  So we had dinner at an Alsacian restaurant.  Scott had escargot, sourkraut and sausages, and rhubarb tart for dessert.  I had a salad, onion tart, chicken leg and spatzel, and gingerbread flavored creme brulee.  I thought I was going to pop!  Apparently tarts and quiches are the thing to eat here!  

We drove back to Colmar, tired and full of great memories of the day.

         Strasbourg at night.

    The super cool and complicated astrological clock in the cathedral.

Brugge to the rescue-October 27

We're in Brugge, Brussels.  So after such a bad day yesterday, we could only get better.  And although the weather was wackydoodle and was rainy, windy, sunny, cold, windy, rainy, sunny, and rainy, we had fun.  We checked out of our hotel and shared a cab with a couple of American men to the train station.  We put our bags in a locker and went into town to make the most of the day.  It was rainy when we went out to catch a bus.  It stopped by the time we got to the Market Square.  This city is amazing, old, and beautiful.  Chocolate shops are everywhere you turn, buildings are from the 1300s and on, cobblestone streets, and tourists everywhere.  The first thing we did was get breakfast at a bakery.  I had a croissant and a slice of gouda cheese.  Scott had a sweet roll.  When I ordered the cheese, I asked in English if I could get a slice because I didn't know how to say slice in French.  But the rest I ordered in French.  The baker laughed at how I "broke out" in French in the middle of my order.  After eating our breakfast, we followed Rick Steves' advice and went to the Bell Tower.  

                           We climbed to the top of that thing!

I'm glad we went first because the crowds came soon after us and the line was a mile long.  They can only let about 70 people up at a time because it is a small area.  We climbed up, and up, and up, and up.  366 steps to be exact.  On a tiny, narrow staircase.  With the wind blowing furiously.  It was quite scary.  I didn't find out till later that it is tilting 4 feet and has been since te 1600s, but they have been monitoring it since then and it hasn't moved more.  We got to see and hear the bells chiming and how it all worked.  At the tippy top, it was an amazing view of the city, but oh my gosh was it windy!  The Bell Tower was originally built in the early 1200s and was added on to every few hundred years until it was as tall as it was.

     At this point I started telling Scott I was too scared to go on.  But I did.  Scott told me later he had flashbacks to my freaking out on the Eiffel Tower.  But I didn't freak out this time. :)

                         The amazing view that made it all worth the fear, cold, and wind.

After the tower, we went souvenir shopping and got a Belgian waffle to share.  It was soooo good!  

Then we went to take a canal boat ride.  Their boats didn't have covers and almost as soon as we got in, it started downpouring again.  We were trying to huddle under one umbrella (I forgot mine at the train station) and the seat next to me was so wet that when the boat moved, all of the water ran into my leg.  By the time I got off, my pants were drenched.  But Scott was pretty dry.  Yep, the things I do for my man. :)

                                                     You can't tell, but we're on a boat.

     Ducking under a particularly low bridge...the guide told us he loses a few tourists every year to the tunnel, but I didn't believe him.

The canal tour was pretty cool and we got to see  parts of the city we wouldn't have otherwise seen.  The rain was crazy, coming off and on like a sprinkler.  

We went into a little place to get lunch and dry off.  Then we went to go take the Halve Moon Brewery tour.  We had just missed the last tour so we had to wait an hour.  So we went to the Church of Our Lady and saw an original Michelangelo sculpture.  

It was a beautiful church but we couldn't see much because they were renovating.  We also stopped in a chocolate shop that was newly opened this weekend and the owner was so cute.  Her chocolate was A-mazing, so of course we bought some.  

Finally it was time for the beer tour.  It was one of the more interesting tours we had been on since they showed us all of the old beer brewing stuff.  This brewery had been around since the mid 1800s and was the only one to survive WWII.  

                                                                      Old beer stuff.

After the tour, we caught the train to Brussels and checked into our hotel.  We went  and saw the "Pissing Boy" which is a statue/water fountain of a boy, well, going to the bathroom.  It apparently is the "symbol" of the city, their refusal to be too serious and enjoy the funny things in life.  

We also went to the Grand Place, which is a market type square with very old buildings.  Because it was already dark, the buildings were lit up beautifully.  

We ate dinner at "La Chaloupe D'Or" which means "The Golden Boat."  Scott had mussels and I had steak.  

Overall, it was a good day.

A bad travel day- October 26

Today started out well.  We left early enough to be on the first train. Then we had to get off the train at Heerenven to ride the bus to Steenwijk because they were working on the rails.  That wasn't so bad, very organized and a nice charter bus.  Then we got on the train to Meppen and there we had to get off because someone had been hit by a train between Meppen and Zwolle.  Apparently it was becoming a common occurance.  Now, I am very sorry that someone was hurt by the train, and I hope and pray that they were ok and not killed.  So the complaining coming is not without respect for the person injured.  But it was a really bad day from this point.  They told us that the earliest the trains would be back up and running was 1:30.  They began bussing people.  But it was chaotic.  There were only 3 or 4 busses at first and a thousand people in the parking lot.  It was unorganized craziness.  Every time a bus pulled up, the masses of people shoved their way to get on board.  We stood there for almost 2 hours and finally we went to get some lunch and take a break from the craziness.  Then we went back to see if we could get on a bus.  By then the crowd was down to a few hundred.  We were finally to the spot where we could get on a bus and a train police man was finally directing people.  We were about to get on the bus and the police man said "this is the last bus."  This was almost 3 hours being stuck there.  We were able to get on but I was almost in tears from the whole thing.  We made it to Zwolle and ran to catch the train to Rotterdam, but almost as soon as we got there, it was cancelled.  We had to wait another half hour for a different train.  At this point, we had given up on getting to see any of Brugge and were just hoping we could catch a taxi to our hotel before they quit coming to the train station.  We finally made it to Rotterdam and got our tickets to Brugge.  That took another couple of hours and lots of train stops and transfers because we had missed the last high speed train.  When we arrived at the train station, we were able to get a taxi, went straight to the hotel, and went to bed.  What a frustrating day!

Sneek-October 25

This morning we took our time getting up and ready.  It was about a quarter till 10 when we finally went downstairs.  For breakfast, they had some Special K.  There were two jugs of milk, all written in Dutch of course.  I asked Scott which one he thought was skim milk and he told me I definitely wanted the one with the red cap.  So I poured it onto my cereal.  I chose....poorly.  It was nasty, bitter milk. Apparently, buttermilk.  Poo!

After breakfast, we walked to the Sheepvaart Museum (Maritime Museum).  It was a pretty cool museum, with a lot about the shipping history of Sneek and general history of the area.  There was a whole room dedicated to skutsjes, which is the type of boat Scott's great grandfather and great great grandfather sailed on up and down the Frisian waterways, and also the type of boat Scott's grandfather was born on.  They were called "roof boats" because there was a tiny cabin on the roof where the family lived.  There was a replica of one of these cabins in the museum.  As many as 8 people would live in there.

We also learned that when babies were born on the boats, they went to the nearest town and registered the birth, that's why Scott's grandfather is listed as born in Lemmer.  Children growing up on the boats went to school in a separate room just for these kids, so when the boats stopped in towns up and down the waterways, the kids stopped in for school. We learned that the picture of Scott's grandfather with his classmates is not in Sneek, and was most likely a small town along the waterways.  There was a skutsje outside of the museum, too.  All of it was very neat!

                                                Scott in front of a skutsje.  The green part was the cabin.

After the museum, we walked around exploring and took pictures of the waterpoort.  

     The waterpoort- the last standing of 4 orignial waterpoorts.

We had lunch at this fast food place across from our hotel.  Scott went to order my lunch and accidentally ordered two chicken sandwiches because he held up his index finger while ordering, which means 1 in America, but two in Europe.  He forgot to hold up his thumb.  

After lunch, we went to the library and below is an archives section where the Sneek historical society was busily working.  When I showed them the pictures of Scott's grandfather and other documents I had, they got so excited.  One little old man pulled out his magnifying glass, trying to see the documents on my Iphone.  It was hilarious and fun to watch how excited they all got.  One of them kept pushing buttons on my phone trying to see more and messing it up.  Unfortunately there wasn't enough time for them to do any research, but I got their card and they told me to email them with my info and they'd try to look up information for me.  

After this, we walked all the way back over to the train station to see the National Modelspoor museum (train museum).  It was full of model trains, of course, and was a kid's dream.  

On the way back, we stopped at a bakery truck on the side of the road that was selling all kinds of fried dough treats.  We got two oliebollen, which Scott said could be the treat his dad used to enjoy from his mom's kitchen growing up.  It was yummy, like a fried dough ball you'd get at the fair or a doughnut.  

We still had a lot of time left before dinner, but we had pretty much done everything there was to do, so we went back to the hotel to rest.  Very rare on these kinds of trips!  

Tomorrow is a long day of traveling again.  We have to ride the trains for about 5 hours with 4 stops again to our next destination.  We must start early!

Haarlem to Sneek- October 24

Today was another long day of sightseeing and traveling.  We started out our day with breakfast at our cute hotel.  We then packed everything up and walked to the train station.  My sister would be proud, we are walking everywhere we go, only using trains to get from city to city.  

Ready to face the day with my trusty backpack..

Anyway, it was a short 20 minute ride to Haarlem on the oldest train rail in The Netherlands.  I only saw one old fashioned windmill, though.  

Haarlem was a surprisingly metropolitan town.  Right next door to the Corrie ten Boom house is an H&M.  We only had to wait aout 20 minutes for the English tour.  All of the people in our group were American girls.  The tour was very interesting, the tour guide drew me in with te hstory of Corrie ten Boom and her family.  We saw the hiding place, Corrie's room was teeny  tiny. It is amazing that 6 people were able to hide in that tiny wall space for so long.  This tour was definitely one of my favorite places so far.  

After the museum tour, we looked for a place to eat lunch.  Unfortunately Roger's favorite sandwich shop was no longer there.  Instead, there was a "Sassy boy" store.  Sorry Roger!  We found another place instead, which wasn't my favorite but Scott liked it.  

The rest of the day we spent traveling to Sneek.  I think we had 4 train changes, it was crazy.  We had to run to catch one of the trains, the time between was so short.  Thank goodness for our backpack luggage!  

All told, it took us about 5 hours.  When we got here, we still had to walk to our hotel.  When we walked in, we must've looked a sight because the guy at the counter looked surprised at me and Scott knocked a bunch of hangers off of a rack with his backpack.  That was hilarious!  

Our hotel is located in/over a restaurant.  So we ate a nice dinner downstairs.  During dinner, I asked the waitress to look at the picture of Roger's dad in front of his school.  She told us that there used to be 4 waterports but 3 of them were destroyed in WWII.  So, it could have been any of them.  She suggested we go to the library, where they have archives and can possibly help us.  So exciting!