Walnut in Vienna

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We made it to Vienna!!  Jenn had a work conference in Barcelona, then another in Vienna right after. We planned for the Vienna conference and bought plane tickets and an apartment, but the Barcelona conference came up at the last minute so Jenn ended up staying in Spain while Walnut and I continued on to Austria. Walnut did very well on the flights- much better than our previous flights with him. He is small so he can stay in the cabin with us.

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Vienna is a very nice town. The public transportation is cheap, fast, and effective. Most importantly, their tap water is fantastic. It comes from the alps and is not treated or filtered- it doesn’t need to be. The food has also been very good. It’s very ‘meat and potatoes’ here, but I’m from Nebraska and love that kind of food. We had schnitzel, chicken cordon bleu, fried cheese with cranberries, pancake with raisins and plum jam, pumpkin soup, yogurt with radish  ham and beet, red cabbage, bread stuffing, potato salad and fried potatoes. I don’t recall the exact names of the foods we tried. Many were similar to foods we know but were a bit different. For example, the potato salad tasted like it was made with vinegar and without mayonnaise- it was delicious.

Our apartment happens to be a few blocks from a hundezone (dog park). Walnut has been loving it. Vienna is very dog friendly with waste cans and clean up bags conveniently located throughout the neighborhood. The grocery store has a hook outside to tie up your dog to while you pop in to grab a few things!

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Jenn and I took a hop-on hop-off is to gets quick overview of the cities sights. Unfortunately, she’s only had one free day between conferences so that was all the sightseeing she’ll get to do on this trip. It’s been a long journey to Vienna and we are all exhausted.

We did visit the grounds at Schonbrunn. The palace seems nice enough from the outside. The gardens are free so we walked through them and even took a walking tour. There are a number of really neat fountains on the grounds. The Roman ruins were exceptional. It’s copied from Roman ruins, not genuine ruins. During the war, concrete blocks were stacked on the fountains to protect them from damage from bombs.

The bus ticket included a walking tour of the inner ring. We walked around outside Hofburg palace, the state opera, and the Albertina. We also went to a mozart concert in one of the rooms he stayed in for a time while in Vienna. The history in Austria is fascinating.

I went to the technical museum and found it fascinating.  They have a high voltage exhibit/show that was really neat even though I couldn’t understand German.  The rest of the museum is really very interesting as well.  I didn’t take many pictures but this glass bulb is huge, it’s about two feet tall- it’s an early rectifier.

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Unfortunately, we didn’t see as much on our trip to Vienna as we normally would.  We have been very anxious and tired from the move to Barcelona.  Right now, our 4 checked bags are sitting in a hotel in Barcelona.  Still a bit nervous about how it’s all going to work out.

JnR in Hawaii

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We finally made it to Hawaii!  We’ve wanted to go to Hawaii for years but have never made the time until now.  It was great!  Getting there was convoluted since Jenn had to work at the beginning of the week, so we went from SFO to LAX to HNL.  We stayed one night in Honolulu before flying to Kona because flights didn’t work out.

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We picked up the rental car after landing in Kona and drove to the condo we rented off VRBO.  The place we got was pretty nice.  The location was fantastic, and toward the end of the trip we enjoyed just sitting by the ocean in the grass.  We got some groceries, got set up in the apartment, then walked into town (Kailua-Kona).  We drove to a few snorkel sites to reconnoiter, but it was getting late and we decided we’d get in the water tomorrow.

The next morning, we got right to it bright and early at two step.  It was about a twenty minute drive south.  Two step was  great because it was very easy to enter the water from the tiered lava.  We brought our shorties and wore them the first day (and off and on through the trip).  The water seemed a little chilly but maybe that’s just because we hadn’t been snorkeling in a while.  The water was super clear and maybe 15′ deep with a gradual slope.

We went to Kahaluu Beach after stopping at Super J’s for lunch.  We tried kalua and laulau pork.  Both were excellent, though I favored the kalua pork.   After lunch we headed to Kahaluu beach.  The water was probably 4′ or 5′ deep!  There were a lot of smaller coral patches (probably due to the popularity of the beach) but the tons of (rather tame) wildlife.  It was easy to get very close to the fish.  Because it was so shallow, many people at this beach don’t even use fins and just enter the water with reef shoes- and end up standing on coral heads.  It was a bit of a bummer to see so many people treat the reef this way.  There were people from the education center at the water’s edge trying to keep people from standing on coral, as well as pointing out the names of fish.  It was a cool program.

The next day we headed back south to Kealakekua.  We saw that many snorkel trips go to the Captain Cook monument, but Jenn and I thought we could easily swim it, so we gave that a go.  That was a mistake.  We got there pretty early and for the whole swim it felt like the water was pushing us back to shore.  It took forever to get there.  We had not worn our shorties in the past year or two, and during the long swim Jenn found hers to be very uncomfortable.  We had hoped the guide books spoke true when they said we would find dolphins and all sorts of magical sea creatures as we crossed the bay.  Sadly, the bay was devoid of interest on the swim across.  When we finally got to the Captain Cook monument, we were supposed to find the best snorkeling on the island, though I think the guide books missed here again.  The reef at the monument was very nice but it was very similar to that which we found at two step or Kahaluu.  After swimming back we ate our packed lunch and went back to Kahaluu.

We swam at Kahaluu early the next morning before heading back to Kona for lunch in a restaurant.  That evening, we went out on a night snorkel with manta rays at Keauhou Bay near the Sheraton hotel.  It was outstanding!  There were a handful of do not miss activities on the Big Island and this was one of them.  Sadly, the photos do no justice.

The next morning we took another snorkel trip, this time to snorkel with dolphins.  Another amazing experience!  We picked up the tour from the same bay as the day before, but this time the boat went north, past the airport.  We probably saw a hundred or more dolphins over the course of the trip.  We hopped in the water and swam by the dolphins as they headed on their way.  Unlike when we snorkeled with dolphins in NZ, these dolphins had a mission and were really not interested in us at all- even when Jenn used her ‘dolphin magnet’ skills.

After several big days in a row, we were pretty beat so we got out of bed late. Eventually we went to Hodl beach, which was immediately beside our condo.  It was quite rough, so getting in and out of the water was a little ugly.  Further, the water wasn’t very clear so there wasn’t much to see at this beach.  I happen to snap a pic of a turtle about ten feet from shore while I was on my way out.  Later, we went to Mauna Kea.  Very near sunset a manta ray swam with us for a moment. This time we didn’t have the tour group or their powerful lights, so we were pretty lucky to spot one.

The next morning we got up super early and drove to the Hilo side of the island.  I did a hike out to the lava flow and Jenn took a helicopter flight over the flow and crater.  The hike wasn’t as bad as it could have been- the week before when I set up the tour it was believed we would have to hike out 4 miles with 1500′ of elevation.  In the end, the lava had picked up speed and the hike was only about 4-5 miles total with very little elevation change.  Hiking out across the lava field was rough enough, though.  The old flows were very uneven and since the lava is half silica, nearly everything had a glass like edge.  I picked up a few stones and they sliced my fingers.  I roasted a marshmallow over molten lava!  I don’t think I was smiling… it was painfully hot.

Jenn took an open door helicopter ride over the crater and past the lava flows.  She saw some pretty neat stuff that I wasn’t able to from the ground.  She saw skylights (open windows in lava tubes), an overview of the flow, peeked into the crater, and even flew by some of the beautiful waterfalls.

The hike to Akaka falls was beautiful even though it rained on us.  Soon, it got dark and it was a long drive back- making it pretty late when we finally went to bed.  The next day we went to the seahorse farm.  This tour was really interesting.  I thought it would be cool to ‘hold’ a seahorse, but it was also very informative.

After the seahorse farm, we stopped for shave ice for one last time.  Gotta love hawaiian shave ice!  We headed back to the mainland the following day.

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Muir Woods

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Jenn and I are taking a trip to Hawaii but she had to work, so I spent a few days with her in San Francisco.  Yesterday, I went to Muir Woods even though we’ve been before.

It was chilly in San Francisco so I brought a jacket but never did need it in the woods.  It was just about perfect weather, though the Golden Gate Bridge was completely obscured by fog.  Not that I could have snapped a photo anyway, traffic wasn’t slow enough.  The park was pretty busy (I thought) for a Tuesday and I had to park in a gravel overflow lot.  I just got a new phone (iphone se) with a much better camera and purchased a set of lenses (from photojojo) for it in the hopes I could take some nice pictures.

I decided to hike the Panoramic Trail since I hadn’t before.  It starts with the Canopy View Trail which was fantastic.  I really enjoyed viewing the redwoods as I climbed.  Muir Woods is a beautiful place and it was pretty tranquil in spite of the crowds.

Once the Canopy Trail ends, the Panoramic Trail begins.  At this point, the trees have thinned and the trail has reached peak elevation.  It was sunny and pleasantly warm.  A sign in the woods said you could see the ocean (later I was told the trees are too tall) but I couldn’t see through the fog between the mountains.  It’s interesting to see the forest stretch out in the valley before you.  IMG_0070

The Panoramic Trail and the Sun Trail are higher elevation and the trail cuts through dry, brown grasses.  It reminded me of the vegetation atop San Bruno.  It started getting warm and the trail goes near the road.  I really just wanted to get back into the trees.  I forgot to take a picture of the map BEFORE I hiked up the trail.  I got a little confused by the signs when I reached the end of the Sun Trail.IMG_0098

Once I got back to the park, I followed the Redwood Creek Trail and the Hillside Trail.  This route really is my favorite here.

There’s something special about a hike through the redwoods.  The faint scent of pine, the lush green carpet of clovers and ferns, the babbling of Redwood Creek and the relative quiet of the groves make Muir Woods a rare and calming place.

JnR’s Pacific Coast Highway Drive

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Jenn and I wanted to make the Pacific Coast Highway drive from San Francisco to San Diego.  We started planning the trip and began adding other California sites to it.  In the end, we put 2000 miles on our rented mustang convertible over the course of ten days.  It was a blast driving that car in the beautiful California weather.

We had never been to Yosemite before and wanted to see giant sequoias, so that was the first site on the list.  Yosemite was lovely but as it was Memorial Day Weekend, there were a lot of cars on the small road winding through the park.  In fact, there were programmable to let you know how long you would sit in line to drive through the park and the times listed grew to more than three hours.  We stopped at a few lookouts but had been informed that Mariposa Grove (where the giant sequoias were) was closed.  We were disheartened and saw that we could also see sequoias at Sequoia National Park.

Sequoia National Park was deserted compared to Yosemite.  It was fantastic.  It was tranquil walking between the trees, and everywhere we went had a slight smell of pine.  I would love to be able to be able to take a walk through that park every day with Walnut.  (he didn’t get to join us on this trip)  The huge trees are humbling- you feel small in their presence.

After Sequoia National Park we drove back to San Francisco so we could follow the PCH south.  Though it was a bit of a drive, the weather and the convertible made it pleasant.  We got to route 1 at Half Moon Bay.  Of course, there was no parking but we drove slowly through the park and nearby neighborhoods to get a sense of the beach.  It’s massive, and very popular.

We continued south through Santa Cruz and on to Monterrey.  The aquarium in Monterrey was fantastic.  The weather was touch cool, and we didn’t really pack jackets so we found the Goodwill in Monterrey and bought jackets to stay warm before our whale watching trip.  We saw sunfish, humpback whales and dolphins.  The 17 mile drive was beautiful.  The scenery, the ocean, the cliffs, the rocks, the houses were pretty amazing.

We continued south across the Bixby Bridge and through Big Sur to Cambria where we stayed at the Bluebird Inn.  Nearby Hearst castle was like a history museum full of artifacts purchased from all over the world.  It is an incredible collection.  Somewhere near here, we saw an elephant seal nesting site.  It was crazy (and loud)!  It was getting late so we were running out of light but we watched the seals jockey for a spot on the beach to sleep.  Several fights broke out and some of them just stayed in the water.  There must have been 200 or more of them.

We kept on driving south through Santa Barbara, Malibu, Santa Monica, Los Angeles.  We stayed in LA and went to the Getty Villa.  The Villa was fantastic and is filled with artifacts from Greece and Rome.   At the Getty Center, we saw their Cave Temples installation which was fascinating.

It was a beautiful drive on route 1.  We frequently stopped by the road side and looked out over the cliffs and to the ocean.  The weather was great (we were thankful for the convertible).  We went through a lot of sunscreen!

JnR’s trip to Amsterdam

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Jenn had a work conference in Amsterdam so we rode the train from Paris.  I really like travel by train in Europe.  While I admit I’ve done very little train travel in the states, that which I have done simply does not compare.  We spent the first half of the day traveling.  After we checked into the hotel we did a food tour in Amsterdam.  It was lovely.  We sampled sausage, frites, some cheeses and stoopwaffles.

The next day the conference started so I went out on my own.  I started with a recommended city walk (Rick Steve’s).  On the walk I stopped by one of the large flower markets along the canal.  Later, I visited the Rijksmusem.  I tried to go to the Van Gogh but apparently I was a bad tourist and cut in front of 60 people (I was informed of my mistake and left). That evening we did a river cruise.  It was neat to see the city at night, and the perspective from the canal is unique.

On Sunday I did another walk, this time through the Jordaan area.  Amsterdam is a nice city to in which to walk around.  The canals make the city unique.  There are many buildings with doors at water level- from when they were used as loading docks for goods from boats.  I also went to the Van Gogh museum.  This time, I bought tickets online the day before and didn’t have to cut stand in line.

I wanted to get out of Amsterdam and see another town.  I took a train to Delft.  I followed a historic city walk to get an idea of the town.  It was a beautiful little.  It reminded me a little of Bruges.  I also went to the new church and tower.  The tower offered great views of the city!  I also went to the china factory and watched a guy paint one of the pieces.  It was very interesting.

The conference ended so Jenn and I had one more day in Amsterdam.  We tried to find ‘the’ thing that would really stand out as unique and we happened in town at the right time.  We went to Keukenhoff to see the tulip gardens.  It was incredible!  I have never seen anything quite like it.  As we rode in on the bus, we could see fields of tulips.  The garden itself had all kinds of tulips, orchids and other flowers.  It was really amazing.  We were fortunate to be in town for it, the blooming period for these flowers is only a month or so.  Keukenhoff was easily my favorite thing to see in Amsterdam. That evening, there was a rain storm and the sky turned orange.  Even the workers in the pib went outside to look.

JnR’s trip to Paris

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We finally made it to Paris!  Jenn was here years ago, but I have never been.  I had been looking forward to the trip since we started planning.

The flight wasn’t that great.  It left Chicago around 6pm and arrived in Paris in the morning.  Since I couldn’t sleep on the flight, it made the first day pretty tough.  To make it worse, I’d planned a full day at Versailles for our very first day.

Catching the train from CDG wasn’t too hard, and we transferred at St. Michel to the Versailles train.  The train was fast and the trip uneventful.  I think it cost around €15.  We walked several blocks to find the tourist information building (there is an easy to find outfit that claims to be tourist info, good location I guess but it seemed a little scammy) and from there we got a map and our 6 day Paris Museum Passes then walked a few blocks further to our hotel.  We stayed at Hotel du Jeu de Paume.  It was nice and had all the amenities we needed.

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View out the window of Hotel du Jeu de Paume

After dropping off our stuff, we headed to Versailles Palace.  The palace is huge but the grounds are enormous!  There were probably hundreds of fountains.  The grounds were incredibly well manicured, but we were there too early in the year to really enjoy the gardens.  The palace itself was richly decorated (of course)with lots of gold and intricate carvings.  It was peek into history.

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inside the gates at Versailles Palace

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hall of mirrors

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Fountains at Versailles

The following day we took the train back to Paris.  We met with Adrien, the  landlord, for the apartment we were renting for the week.  It was a pretty nice place, though I couldn’t stand fully upright in the hallway unless I skirted the wall.  Which was perfectly fine since we didn’t plan to spend a great deal of time there anyway.  We found it on VRBO though Adrien has his own website for his properties as well.  As soon as we could, we headed to Musee d’Orsay.

Musee d’Orsay is big.  It was the Orsay Railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900.  The Opera exhibit was fascinating, the impressionist works, and the clocks that face the Seine.  We moved on to the Orangerie next.  There, we saw Monet’s Water Lilies series.  That was fantastic.  The Musee de l’Orangerie has a ‘virtual visit’ on their website that allows you to view these paintings.  They are truly fantastic.

Just outside, the Paris Marathon was taking place.  We did some walking around and found a food cart on the street making Crepes.  The Crepe was delicious, but to be honest, I think you could slather Nutella on newspaper and it would be tasty.  We stopped by a small grocery store and then a Boulangerie (bakery) before heading back to the Tuileries Garden where we sat around a fountain and enjoyed a fresh baguette.  The fountain was circled by chairs that I imagined were set out permanently for the people of Paris.  It reminded me of El Jardin in San Miguel, where the park was really everyone’s living room.  After our snack we rode the Ferris Wheel.  It was really fantastic looking out over the city at night.

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The next morning I got up fairly early (too early) and we followed a historic walking tour around Ile de la Cite and the left bank.  We toured Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle before stopping at a Fromagerie (cheese shop).  Notre Dame is a pretty incredible building.  The gargoyles and flying buttresses are very imposing.  Saint Chappelle probably has the most stained glass I’ve ever seen in a church.  It was really beautiful, we were fortunate to have seen it on such a clear, sunny day.  That afternoon we enjoyed a tour at Opera Garnier, the opera house that inspired Phantom of the Opera.  Afterwards, we headed southwest and picked up a Seine river cruise, wandered down Rue Cler and gaped at the Eiffel Tower.  That evening, Jenn enjoyed French Onion soup at a cafe near our apartment.

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Notre Dame

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Notre Dame

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Joan of Arc

We slept in a little the next morning before following a self guided Marias walking tour.  Along our route we visited the Picasso Museum.  We also went to the Arc de Triomph, Eiffel Tower and the Pompidou center.  When we stopped for lunch I had Steak Tartare and I found it rather exceptional.  It is a seasoned ground steak served raw.  It was delicious though very rich.  We stopped at a Jewish bakery and a butcher shop and watched the butcher take a morning shipment of quarter cows.

The Louvre is much, much larger than I imagined.  It is the largest museum in the world and by quite a margin, I think.  It’s so big, you can’t hope to see much of what they have.  We followed a Rick Steve’s walking tour of the Louvre from his app.  It pointed out the brightest of the highlights with some history.

After the Louvre, we bought our train tickets to Amsterdam then headed to Montmartre for a food tour.  Montmartre was beautiful and the food tour we took was outstanding.  Per usual, we booked it through Viator.  We had macarons, crepes, truffles, an eclair, a number of amazing cheeses and some cured meats.  Well, and baguettes of course.  (I bought fresh baguettes every day we were in France)

The following day we went to Veaux le Vicomte, Fontaineblue.  It was another palace similar to Versaille.  The palace itself was very nice but the grounds were fantastic.  Since we had limited time we rented a golf cart to drive around the grounds.  The golf cart was a blast!  I don’t think it was supposed to be, but we found it a wonderful way to quickly enjoy a leisurely visit to the grounds of Veaux le Vicomte.  The next day we took the train to Amsterdam.

 

Lowden State Park In the Rialta

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IMG_1640  Jenn and I had been talking about it for awhile and finally did it; we bought an RV.  We had been looking at conversion vans like a Roadtrek but found them rather expensive.  In our searches we came across the Rialta, which is a tiny Winnebago.  We got a ‘98 RD, so it has four chairs up front and a dinette in back.  It can seat 8 with seat belts.  It has an expandable bathroom with a toilet, sink and shower.  There is a 2 burner stove and a small refrigerator.  The dinette folds down into a double bed and 2 of the seats up front fold into a smaller than double bed.  For an RV, it has rather small waste tanks- a 13 gallon black tank and a 6 gallon grey tank (the shower drains to the black tank).  It can hold 20 gallons of fresh water.  I’ve done a bit of work to it, and I’m afraid I failed in my pre-purchase examinations; finding many water leaks (a week after purchase) during a storm.  I’ve started trying to find and repair them but so far they aren’t going away.

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This weekend, Walnut and I took the Rialta on it’s maiden (camping) voyage! (I drove it back home from Connecticut, about 800 miles)  We went to Lowden State park, near Oregon, Illinois.  We stayed in the White Oak campgrounds.  It was lovely.  Though the ground was a bit soft from recent rains, Walnut and I did a few miles of trail from our site to the Black Hawk Statue.  The statue is about 50 feet tall and it’s supposed to be one of the tallest monolothic statues in the world.  It was a feat of engineering at the time to create it.  They are doing repairs to it so we didn’t actually get to look at it….

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The main camping area was pretty full and had rather little space between sites.  We opted for the more private area with no hook-ups.  There are facilities here but part of the point of this adventure was to use the RV’s facilities so I get the practice in preparation for next weekend’s trip to Michigan where we hope to meet other Rialta owners from around the country.  I’m not sure if we will head home today or move to another park.

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Shabbona State Park in Illinois

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  We decided to head to another park.  While at Lowden we met a lady that refurbished a ‘73 VW campervan.  It looked pretty snazzy.  I guess it doesn’t handle interstate speeds real well so she has been keeping to the highways and side roads.  She felt she was seeing the ‘real’ Illinois that way.  It convinced me to take one of those highways down to another park and see some of it, too.  I think I didn’t take a particularly scenic route, though and we saw mostly corn.  We took it slow, and that made it a more relaxing drive than the one out to Lowden.

  Even though we got into Shabbona around 3, we couldn’t find the camp host to register a site until almost 5 so we got set up kinda late.  We went for a hike that would have been a 5+ mile loop but since we got started late and I forgot the Walnut bag, we turned around at 1.8 miles.  (the Walnut bag in this context is our orange Kelty hiking pack that I put Walnut in when he gets too tired to keep hiking)

  Shabbona is nice enough, but the rate for a site on Sunday night kinda turned me off (we do have electricity tonight though).  The sites where I am, Teal Bay, feel fairly private.  Of course, the whole place feels that way tonight.  I think there are 6 other sites in use out of 60.  I’m gonna go see if I scrounged enough dry wood to make smores.

JnR’s trip to St. John’s, USVI

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We flew to St. John’s to spend a week over the fourth of July.  We love to snorkel and hadn’t yet been to the Virgin Islands so we thought we’d check it out.  I had some trouble getting out of Chicago and ended up losing a day and flying through Puerto Rico instead of Miami, but Jenn’s flight from San Fran went ok.  It did mean that she had to navigate the ferries and find our rented apartment alone.

St. John’s reminded me of Ecuador and Belize; except the main buildings in town looked like they adhered to an american building code.  The town felt underfunded.  I found prices for food and groceries on the high side.  We walked/taxied the first couple days then rented a jeep for the remainder, and stayed in a place we found on VRBO.com.  It was a good way to save a few bucks, making this a relatively inexpensive trip.

There were peacocks on the island!

For the first snorkeling site we went out at Trunk Bay.  There was an underwater snorkeling trail that was slightly informative but over-touristed.  To the west there was a less crowded area where we saw a shark, some rays and a turtle.

The next place we went was Frank Bay.  It was very close to where we were staying and we hoped to do a night dive there one evening. We saw flamingo tongue, rays and a pretty good-sized octopus.  Our whole goal for night diving is to see octopus, but here at Frank Bay, Jenn find one right away!

Waterlemon Cay was a fantastic snorkel.  The island had a ton of large, beautiful coral.  The hike back to the car from the site however, was much less fun.

We went in at Haulover North but it was too rough, so we walked back to Haulover South.  It was much calmer but there wasn’t as much to see here.

Next we visited Salt Pond.  It was quite a swim out to the reef here but it was another healthy reef.

After Salt Pond we rested then went out for a night snorkel at Frank Bay.  It was spooky but a great spot for evening dip!  Jenn found 5 octopus on this trip.  Most of the time we are lucky to have seen one!

At Cinnamon Bay we snorkeled a wrecked plane.  In the nearby rocks, Jenn found another octopus.  The guidebook said to hike to certain spot to snorkel the wreckage but we both thought it would have been easier to swim it.  I offered to hike our stuff out while Jenn swam back.

On our last snorkel we went to Little Lameshur Bay and swam around Yawzi Point to Great Lameshur Bay.  It was really rough out there but we were amazed at the water clarity and quality/health of the reef.  It was fantastic to see so much life on the reef.

The USVI was a great place to snorkel.  Overall there was little coral rubble and a great deal of fish, rays and turtles.  We also saw more octopus here than any other place we’ve been.  Of course, we are more experienced now and that may be a factor.

JnR’s trip to Denmark

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Copenhagen, Denmark rose to the top of the travel list for 2015 because Jenn had a work conference there in April 2015.  So Ryan tagged along for a week’s vacation following the conference.

Day 1: We kicked off the vacation with a trip to Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli transports you back in time to what amusement parks were like a half-century ago.  Mixed in with the modern, though smaller versions, roller coasters were beautiful gardens and stage performers.  We acted like we were kids again and ran from ride to ride, laughed freely, and didn’t want the evening to end.  It was a magical way to spend a few hours.

Day 2: The next day we hit the historic sites of Copenhagen.  We started with Rosenborg Castle (the Danish word for Castle is “Slot”) was built in the early 17th century by one of their most important kings, King Christian IV and is surrounded by a lovely park.  We stayed at a decent hotel nearby, so every day we walked through this park on our way to the train station.  I wish my daily commute was always this nice! The highlights of Rosenborg is the treasury, where the crown jewels are kept, and the Knights’ Hall with the coronation thrones and three life-size silver lions standing guard.

Next we walked through the botanical Gardens (free), and visited the National Art Gallery for Denmark (Statens museum for Kunst, also free!), then on to Amalienborg Palace. Amalienborg is made up of four identical buildings are where the Queen and her husband (the Prince Consort) live; while in one of the other four palaces, her son, the Crown Prince and his wife live.  Several floors of one of the palaces have been turned into a museum of the more modern royal family history.

There is an impressive changing of the guards which varies depending on who is currently in residence.  We just happened to catch it as we were leaving the museum. More information can be found out here about the changing of the guards and the palace: http://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/amalienborg-palace-gdk492887

On our walk back to our hotel we stopped in at Fredrik’s Church, aka: the Marble church.  This church is quite an impressive sight peeking out from the buildings and an easy walk from Amalienborg.  Construction of this church was started in 1749 but after the architect died in 1754 construction slowed eventually to a standstill, the sight was looted of most of the marble; it wasn’t until the 1870s when a new plan and financier was approved.  By then, due to the financial constraints, the plan for the church to be made out of marble was discarded and today the final church is constructed of almost entirely of limestone-however, it is still known as the “marble church.”

Day 3: For our third day of vacation, we were ready to tackle the Danish train system. From what we could tell, the system seemed very efficient and we had chosen our hotel due to its close proximity to one of the main metro/train stations. Today we were off to the town of Hillerod which is north of Copenhagen and home of Frederiksborg Slot. This castle was built in the 17t century by King Christian IV (same King who built Rosenborg Castle).  Today, Fredericksborg castle is the museum of national history.  So while Amalienborg was a museum of recent history (focusing on past ~100 years), Frederiksborg castle covers the past 500 years with emphasis on the 1500-1800s.  It is easy to step inside this castle and feel like you’ve stepped back in time. The gardens surrounding this castle were also gorgeous but unfortunately the day we visited it rained as we left the castle and we ended up pretty soaked getting back to the train!

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On our way back to Copenhagen, we stopped off and went to the National Aquarium, The Blue Planet.  We love aquariums (because of our love of snorkeling!) and this was a very good aquarium. This is the largest aquarium in northern Europe and has a very large ocean tank which is mesmerizing. They also had a very impressive sea horse tank-I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an exhibit with this many sea horses! (Boy, for creatures that move so slowly, they sure are hard to get a picture of!) We also got some awesome photos of their octopus!

We got back to Copenhagen, the rain had cleared, and we managed to catch the last Harbor tour of the day! We were both starving but with the weather touch and go, we didn’t want to miss this chance to take the tour in the sunshine!  From the tour boat, we were able to see the beautiful architecture of Copenhagen.  It is truly a beautiful city.

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Day 4: Vikings! No trip to Scandinavia would be complete without some Vikings. So on day 4 of our vacation we headed out to Roskilde to learn about Vikings and see real Viking ships! First we went to the Roskilde museum. Then we headed to the Viking Ship museum.  This museum has the remains of 5 real Viking ships which were deliberately sunk around 1000 years ago to form a natural blockade in the Roskilde fjorde to protect Roskilde from enemy attacks.  These ships were excavated, preserved and rebuilt in the 60’s. The museum also has a working boatyard where they build and sail Viking ships.

Also in Roskilde was a lovely Cathedral which is the primary burial site for Danish monarchs since the 15th century. Inside the Cathedral is a clock where on the hour St. George slays the dragon, we were lucky enough to be there to catch the moment when the hero saved the day!

Day 5:  This vacation just keeps getting better! Today we are going to visit Kronborg Slot in Helsingor (aka Elsinore). I know, I know…another castle?  But this isn’t just any castle-this is the castle that Shakespeare’s Hamlet is based on.  I am a HUGE Shakespeare fan (shout out to Mr. Coulter’s high school English!).

 

This castle sits at the most northern tip of this region of Denmark (Zealand) and used to protect and control this important waterway. In the picture below, that’s Sweden you can see across the water!

They offered a Hamlet re-enactment tour, where a tour guide in the guise of Horatio, Hamlet’s best friend, walks you through the play scene by scene as it unfolds in the actual castle.  This brings the play to life in a way that I wish every high school student who hates reading Shakespeare could experience.

In the casemates (where the guns were stored when Kronborg was a fortress), there sits a plaster statue of Holger the Dane. The story goes that all throughout Europe there are Gods, that when Europe is in real trouble, these Gods will wake and defend the land. Holger is waiting for time when Denmark needs him to wake and rise up and save the day.

To end the day, we stopped at the Amber museum and ogled the many beautiful pieces of amber.  We learned that there are different types of amber throughout the world and that much of the world’s amber comes from the Baltic regions.  Amber floats, therefore it can be found washing up on Scandinavian shores. (This reminded us of the green “jade” that locals would go beach-combing for in New Zealand.)  The museum is the upstairs of a store-which of course sells amber jewelry and caught my eye!

Days 6 & 7:  We decided for the last couple days of our vacation, it would be nice to leave the Copenhagen area and see another part of the country.  So we took the train to Nyborg in central Denmark on an island called Funen.  Here we  stayed in at Julesburg Slot (another castle!) which was converted to a B&B. We were about 2 miles out from town without a car so we had a lovely walk to and from town each day.  Both the town of Nyborg and the walk through the woods and pastures each day made us feel like we were in a fairy tale. You could see Hans Christen Anderson being inspired to write his famous stories in settings such as these.

We were in Nyborg for the 70th anniversary of VE day (Victory in Europe after WWII) and were able to observe the villages’ commemoration of those who led the resistance in Denmark.

Overall: We were surprised by the charm of Denmark.  Denmark thoroughly won us over.  The weather was a bit on the damp and chilly but the people were lovely and the setting was like stepping back into a children’s fairy tale.