Another travel day, to London and Stratford upon Avon- November 4

Today, once again, we had to get up and ready and to the train station by 8:30. This time we rode in a taxi to the train station rather than try to lug all of our luggage up the crazy hills.  Our train ride was nice and sunny and pretty uneventful.  We arrived in London a little before 1:00 and grabbed lunch at the station. Then we went on the underground out to Heathrow airport where our car rental was.  That took about 40 minutes. 

Renting the car was a little different, we actually went out in the lot and picked out the car we wanted and just got in and left. It was so weird to be on the wrong sides of the car on the wrong side of the road!  I let Scott drive because I was too nervous. He did pretty good, considering it was his first time!

We made it to Stratford upon Avon around 5:30 and checked into our hotel.  It seems pretty old, but it's as old as I am. I think they either renovated it into a hotel or built it to look like it's from Shakespeare's times.  It's cool, nonetheless. 

              Scott looking terrified...er, confident as he leaves the airport.

             Wrong side of the road, so weird!

           Our Tudor style hotel room.

After checking in, we walked out to explore and find some food.  We were walking past an old building and saw a guy dressed in Tudor style clothes. We went over to check it out and it was a ghost tour gathering. We spontaneously decided to go, since it was about to start. It was in a creepy, old old building from around the 1200s and had been renovated into a museum to visit during the day around 20 years ago. The museum was cheesy with all these creepy mannequins that were just creepy with all the lights out.  At night, they do ghost tours. Apparently it's a very haunted place and lots of people come to investigate here.  The only thing I noticed was at one point when Scott was behind me it felt like he tugged lightly on the back of my jacket but he says he didn't. I also got a terrible headache when we were in a room that is said to have very high EMFs and it didn't go away till I went to sleep. 

After the tour, we went next door to a pub for dinner, then headed back to the hotel, exhausted from the long day of traveling. Tomorrow, we see all of the Shakespeare sights!

               The Tudor museum

            Our fearless guide, who lives in a room here!

Hilly and scary Edinburgh- November 3

This morning Scott and I woke up around 8:30. We were both so exhausted I think from all of the breakneck traveling and touring. 

We had breakfast at the hotel, then set out to climb up to the top of the Royal Mile. At the top is Edinburgh Castle, built sometime before 1093 originally and added onto through the years. We were there for about 4 hours walking around the grounds, exploring the museums, and seeing historical sights.  We saw where Mary queen of Scots had her only son, King James VI.  We also saw the Crown Jewels. There was an interesting display set up like a timeline of the history of the jewels, or the Honours of Scotland, as they are called. There was the crown, sceptre, and Sword of State, as well as the famous Stone do Destiny that was only returned to Scotland in 1996 after 700 years being forcibly removed to Westminister Abby in London. There it sat on a shelf underneath the coronation chair for every King and queen. It has to go back for the next coronation.  Anyway, the Honours have an interesting history, too. They were buried from 1651-1660 after being smuggled out of the castle for protection when Oliver Cromwell wanted to destroy them. Then, in 1707, when Scotland signed the treaty to become a part of Great Britain, they were locked away in a chest for 111 years.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures.

We also saw old prisons, several military and war museums, and even a dog graveyard!

    The view walking up to the castle.

        The tiny room where the King was born.

        The part where the Honours are kept and Queen Mary's chambers

          Scott and me braving the cold.

         Dog graveyard.

         Me and a new friend.

After we had seen all we could (and were frozen through from the crisp, cold winds at the top of the mountain) it was about 2:00.  We went to a pub called Deacon Brody's.  It was originally the house of a wealthy, respected merchant by the same name, but at night he was a thief, gambler, and drunk.  He ended up getting hanged on the gallows that he designed for the city!  He was also the inspiration for Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde.  We both had grilled chicken sandwiches. 

After lunch, we went on a quest to find Henderson tartans and a little info on the Scottish ancestors in my family.  After talking with various shopkeepers and a librarian, we discovered that another branch on my paternal grandmother's side, the MacBrides, were actually a clan in the family of MacDonald and they were from an island called Arran on the west coast, to the east of Kintyre.  I now have a little more info and ideas of where to search on that branch when we get home.  

We also saw the statue of Greyfriar's Bobby, a famous stray terrier that hung around the area and was fed by locals. There was a Disney movie made about him.

                   Greyfriar's Bobby

After that, we went back to the hotel to rest a bit and give our feet a break.  We went to dinner at "The World's End" pub.  Scott had fish and chips and I had Mac n'cheese with bacon. The cheese was from Kintyre! 

We then went to wait in the freezing cold for about an hour for our ghost tour.  It was actually one of the better ones I'd been on.  The guide told stories above ground in different places for half an hour, then took us below ground to the underground vaults.  It was pretty creepy, especially because the place was only lit with candles!  She told several stories of people on the tours being affected by the spirits.  By the end, I was really ready to leave, lol!  We were allowed to take pictures, but I was too scared to, lol!

Tomorrow, we get up super early to ride the train back to London and get our car for the next leg.

Welcome to Rainy Scotland!- November 2

This morning we had to get up early to catch the 8:30 train to Edinburgh.  It was nice to just sit and ride.  It took 4 1/2 hours to get here and it was rainy the whole way.  

When we got here, we had to walk up and down steep hills .7 miles but it seemed like more with all of our luggage in tow and in the rain.  We dropped off our luggage at the hotel because our room wasn't ready yet and we went to get lunch.  We found a neat little pub on the Royal Mile. (The Royal Mile is the main street running through the middle of the old city, stretching a mile from the Royal Palace to the old castle.) I had berry cider and fish and chips.  Scott had "real bear" from a cask and steak and ale with potatoes.  

         Fish and chips and a salad

        The local cider, yum!

       Looking uphill at the Royal Mile.

After lunch, we took a little side trip into the Edinburgh museum.  It was a neat little museum with lots of artifacts of the glass and silver that was made here.  

After the museum, we went to our hotel and put our things in our room.  This by far is the nicest hotel we have stayed in yet.  The room actually has floor space to walk around, wooden blinds, and one whole bed instead of two twin beds stuck together.  (I can't tell you how many times Scott has fallen into the crack!)

After resting a little, we went down hill to the Holyrood Palace.  This is the palace where Mary, queen of Scotts, lived.  It's also where her husband had a friend of hers murdered because he was jealous.  The current queen still uses the palace as her home when she comes to Scotland once a year.  We saw the old king's receiving rooms, beds, furniture, paintings, and beautiful architecture.  The Queen Mary chambers and artifact collection were also super cool.  I couldn't take pictures inside, so there are none to show.  But I did get the souvenir book!

              The Holyrood Palace

After the tour, we went back to the hotel to hang out till dinner.  Then we ate at another pub.  This time, I had a pear cider and a burger.  Scott had another cask ale and chicken with haggist. Then we went on a tour of one of the underground areas, "The Real Mary King's Cross."  Back in the 1700s,  the city was full of 12 story high buildings that were built all close together.  In the mid 1700s, they decided to demolish the top wooden parts of the buildings and build on top of them.  They covered the streets and built new buildings, evicting the people that lived in the homes.  Now you can go in certain areas and see the old homes.  It was a neat tour, but definitely creepy.  It's hard to tell that they were homes except in a few areas.  The end of the tour we could definitely tell it was a street and could see up and down the hill and how tall the buildings had to have been.  I couldn't take pictures in there either, sorry!

One thing about this city, if you live here you have to be in excellent shape.  Everything, and I mean everything, is on a hill.  Its crazy!  Here is hoping tomorrow isn't rainy and we will survive climbing all the way to the top of the Royal Mile to the castle.

Leaving France- November 1

This morning we got up, got packed up and checked out. We were going to look for a bakery to get breakfast on the way out of town. We weren't so lucky. We ended up finding an Aldi (a low end grocery store) and picked up some raisin rolls and Gouda cheese.  It was a very rainy day, a good at for having to drive, since a pretty day would be wasted. We also didn't realize it was a national holiday, All Saints Day. Practically every store, shop, and gas station were closed.   We made our way north for one more sight before leaving my favorite country.  

There was another castle that had been renovated, Pierrefonds.  This castle was originally built in the 1300s and was besieged in the 1600s. It lay in ruins until Napoleon acquired it. Then his nephew had it renovated in the mid 1800s. When we pulled up, we were amazed at how much it looked like the typical medieval castle you see in fairy tales.  We didn't get to see all of it because they are doing major repair work on it. But it was really cool nonetheless.  

       Now that's a castle!

   Cool, crazy statues.

      The great hall.

When we got out, it was raining again.  We stopped at a bakery to get sandwiches for lunch. Mine wasn't very good so I only ate half. 

We drove the rest of the afternoon to Calais.  We weren't too impressed with this city.  It was a bit run down. And we drove around for half an hour trying to find an open gas station or one that worked before dropping off the rental car at the ferry station. When we got there, because the car rental place was closed, we just left the keys and had to call a taxi to take us to the train station. That cost us about 40 euros and we didn't quite have enough so the taxi driver had to take us to the ATM.  So now we have about 40 Euros left that we can't spend. Then we got to the station 4 hours early. Normally this would be fine as there is food and shops. But of course the only food place was closed and it was a tiny station. Our train left at 9pm so we figured we'd get food on the train.  It was a long wait, but at least we had books to entertain us.

        The only sight in Calais, a lighthouse.

We had to go through customs and security, just like getting on a plane. A dog came and sniffed our luggage for security. Finally we got on the train!

The train ride through the Chunnel was pretty quick, about 20 min.  The rest of the ride through to London was uneventful.  There wasn't anything appetizing to eat so we waited.

When we arrived in London, we had to go through customs again. By this time it was about 10 pm and we hadn't eaten since noon, and I had hardly eaten then. I was tired and grouchy. We stopped by a Burger King which had a line 15 minutes long, got some food, and walked to our hotel. And of course our room was on the top floor with no elevator, lol!  Here we were trying to carry all of our bags, dinner, and drinks.  I was so glad to just be where we were supposed to a and rest for the night. It all starts again tomorrow!

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!