A million Tulips

You are probably already aware of this, but if not, the Netherlands is pretty important when it comes to flowers. It supplies 80% of the bulb trade, 60% of the cut flower trade, and 50% of the potted flower trade globally. Those statistics come from a fairly questionable website, so not necessarily accurate, but in any case they put out a lot of flowers. For just under 2 months in the Spring, a major garden, Keukenhof, is open to visitors, and if you've ever seen pictures from Holland, it was most likely taken during this period either at the gardens or at one of the nearby fields. For example:

As noted in our earlier post about our trip to the Netherlands (from May 2009, not January 2010...I know it can get confusing), we missed the world-famous tulips by just two days, something that Jenna had really regretted. We knew that we'd most likely never return from the US just to see some flowers, but we were down to crunch time with literally no free weekends before we were moving away. What to do!?

We came up with the plan to not go over a weekend, but just to make a day trip of it. So, on Sunday April 25th, we headed down to Gatwick for an early flight to Amsterdam. One of the greatest things about Europe that we can't talk enough about is the cheap airfare. For less than $75 per person round trip you can be in Amsterdam (or Paris, or Lisbon, or Dublin, or....). Back home, you can't get from Dallas to San Antonio (or, Kansas City, or Chicago, or LA, or...) for less than $200 per person. With a free weekend in Dallas, we would never even consider the idea of hopping on a plane in the morning to go see a park/museum/site in _________ and return the same evening. But that is the joy of living in Europe, I guess.

Keukenhof is about 30 minutes from the airport, but since it is such a huge tourist draw there is a bus that runs between the airport and the garden, which we took. We decided to start our visit with a tour of the fields that surround the gardens. We rented bikes from a stand outside the gates and headed out to the nearby fields.

There were hundreds of these rows of different colored flowers. Most were tulips, but we were surprised to see quite a bit of variety in species (though I couldn't begin to venture a guess at what they were). We ended up riding several miles through many different fields (and I think a couple of peoples' back yards) to see them all. Jenna was in heaven. For my family, imagine driving around Western Kansas, but replace all the wheat/corn with flowers.

After a few hours and biking about 20 miles in the fields, we headed to the actual gardens. I don't really know what to say about the gardens - hard to describe it all in words. In short - it was a huge park similar to the ones scattered around London, but it was full of all kinds of different flower beds and a few greenhouses. There were also massive amounts of people, and one pair of community clogs.

We walked all through the gardens and greenhouses and, well, there were lots of flowers.

After we'd seen everything, we hopped back on the bus and headed for the airport for our evening flight back to London. What an amazing day!! We are so grateful that we had the chance to experience this!

Every Ash Cloud has a Silver Lining

One of our last major trips that was planned was an incredible tour of Norway that would have included a visit to Oslo and a tour of the Norwegian Fjords, where we'd have seen the likes of this:

Instead of seeing this, we learned how to spell Eyjafjallajökull.

Eyjafjallajökull is a volcano in Iceland that had a minor eruption on April 14th, 2 days before we were scheduled to leave for Norway. You may have heard about this in the news, as it disrupted air travel throughout Europe for a week. When a volcano erupts, it spits microscopic pieces of molten rock, which then solidify in the air and form a giant cloud of ash. The winds were against us, pushing that ash cloud south over the UK and much of Europe. The problem is that if an airplane flies through one of these clouds, there is a risk that the engines will suck in the ash, that the heat from the engine will melt the ash, and that it will then goo up the engine and cause a failure. Apparently this happened to a plane a few decades ago. As such, all planes were grounded, and our trip to Norway was cancelled.

We'd both taken vacation for a couple of days, so we decided to make the most of the loss and try to have some fun around London.

Friday, April 16th

We were originally supposed to be leaving in the morning, and at the beginning of the day we actually still had some hope that the flight ban would be lifted and we'd be able to leave for Norway on a later flight (the airlines cancelled flights on a rolling 6-8 hour cycle for 6 straight days, so you always had some level of hope). When it was clear that we weren't getting out of town on Friday, we decided to go to the Imperial War Museum.

This museum gives history to the British wars of the last few centuries. We focused on the World Wars, and the documents, memorabilia, etc were very interesting. One of the highlights was the WWI exhibit where they recreated a trench. The coolest stuff in the museum, though, was in the lobby - the tanks, planes and other vehicles of the British military.

After leaving the museum, we headed back home to see if luck was on our side and if we'd be able to take a Saturday flight to Norway. When we got home and found that flights were cancelled through Saturday morning, we finally gave up on the trip altogether and cancelled the hotels, tours, etc that we'd had booked and started thinking in earnest about how we could salvage the weekend. Then we had an epiphany - sleep in a castle.

Staying overnight in a castle was on our to-do list from Day One, but we hadn't had too many opportunities. We had actually booked a room at a castle for one night in Ireland, but it was going to cost $700, and I just couldn't open the wallet that far for one night's sleep. Luckily, we were able to find a castle - Thornbury Castle - near Bristol (in the west) that had last minute availability at a much more reasonable price, so we jumped on it, booked the room for Saturday night, and started diligently planning a quick getaway.

Saturday, April 17th

We got up early on Saturday and headed to the Heathrow to pick up a rental car for the weekend, and were on our way by mid-morning. We had a nice drive through the country. We arrived at the hotel by early afternoon and got checked in. The place was awesome.

This is the only Tudor castle in England that has been converted into a hotel, and it is definitely not something where they built a big castle a few years ago to be a hotel. This was the real deal. Okay, technically it is a Tudor Country House meant to resemble an old style castle, but that just means that it wasn't built as a fortress, but was built as a home. Heck, it looks like a castle and was built in the early 1500s, so it definitely counts in our books.

Also of interest to history fans (or just fans of The Tudors series from Showtime), this was built as a residence for the Duke of Buckingham, a guy who was a cousin of King Henry VIII. Things didn't turn out too well for him, though. He wasn't a fan of the king and tried to start a revolt, which led to his beheading, and to the king taking ownership of the castle. Henry actually spent just over a week here with wife #2, Anne Boleyn.

Our room was nice and cozy, like you'd expect a castle to be. Stone walls, tapestries, a big fireplace. All the things you'd expect in a castle. Oh, and it was at the top of a winding stone staircase. It was awesome - such a great experience. So while we probably would have preferred to be spending the day touring around Oslo, this was a perfect alternative, and I'm so glad we were able to do it.

We spent the afternoon walking around the castle and castle grounds, which was fun. They had a nice garden and even a small vineyard. We then headed out into the the small town of Thornbury- walking along a country path that went through some small woods along a creek, and then into a park, and we visited the small church that sits right next to the castle. We went back to the hotel to enjoy a nice afternoon tea in one of the sitting rooms and plan out our evening. We threw around a few ideas like heading into Bristol (turns out there isn't much to do there) or going out to a nice dinner (turns out those restaurants are all back in London), and we finally concluded that the best thing would be to just stay in the castle. We ran out to a local grocery store to buy some dinner supplies and just spent the evening relaxing.

Sunday, April 18th

We didn't really have anything planned for the day, so we slept in as late as possible and then headed out. Since we had the whole day and nothing much to do other than go back home, we decided to head that way but to make a slight detour to Oxford. We'd liked it so much the first time we visited with Eric and Anne that we thought it would be fun to re-visit since we had a few spare hours, and it wasn't terribly far out of the way.

First, though we had to make a quick stop in Stapleton, UK.

My family name comes from the UK. Nobody in our family has ever done a big genealogy, so I'm not sure exactly where we come from, but for sake of argument we'll just say it was here. Actually, there are a couple of towns in the UK called Stapleton, and I couldn't say which (if any) my ancestors hail from, but it was fun to go through one and see my name all over everything.

We got to Oxford in the afternoon. We didn't make it in time for the guided tour that we'd loved so much on the last visit, so we just decided to walk around a little ourselves. We didn't do anything of note, really - just walked around and took in the architecture and atmosphere of the town.

After spending a couple of hours wandering the streets, we had to pack it up and head home. We dropped the car back at the airport and were back at home at a reasonable time.

So, we ended up having a pretty awesome weekend, regardless of the volcano erupting. While we'd have loved to go to Norway, not making that trip gives us a good reason to return later on, and we definitely made the best of an unfortunate situation.

Normandy

During our travels we were able to spend quite a bit of time in France, but had managed to miss the part that is closest to the UK - Normandy.

Friday, April 9th

We started the trip with a Eurostar train to Paris, which is fairly close to where we were headed. (We actually received free round trip tickets on the Eurostar from our trip to Paris that we took with Sarah in December when the the tunnel rails accumulated condensation and closed down the train.) We picked up a rental car at the train station and headed straight out of town. About an hour north of Paris is a small town called Giverny. This is famous as the home of Claude Monet, where he did a ton of his paintings, especially later in life. All of the works of lillies, willows, etc were done here in Giverny. Since he is one of Jenna's favorite artists, we had to add a visit to our list.

Monet's old home and studio, including the famous lily pond, are now open to the public. We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon touring around the grounds. It was interesting seeing the place and comparing to some of the paintings of his we've seen around the world. You could be standing in a place looking over the lake and say "I think I saw this one". Additionally, now when we see his works from Giverny, we get to see the real place in our minds. Very cool.

After a couple of hours taking in the views, we hopped back in the car and headed another two hours north to the beach at Etretat. This is really just a scenic beach on the northern coast, but it has a famous rock arch that has been the subject of numerous impressionist artworks, including many by Monet. It was only slightly out of our way, but well worth the trip to see in the flesh what we'd marveled at in multiple museums.

After a little time wandering the beach, we headed to our final destination for the night - Bayeux. This is a smallish town, and is the main place to headquarter yourself to tour the D-Day beaches, which we planned for the next day.

Before closing out the day, I have to mention our lodgings for the weekend, which were up there among our favorites in all of Europe. We stayed at a B&B - La Ferme du Pressoir - that is actually a large farmhouse a few miles outside of Bayeux. From talking with the owner, it sounds like her husband made some good money in farming, and she always wanted to have a B&B, so she decided to convert parts of the home and become a hostess. It was awesome. The husband still farms, so there were tractors and horses and all kinds of farming goodies. They have some rooms in a main house, and then there is also a separate guest house with a few rooms. We stayed in the guest house, and since they were slow at this time of year, we had it to ourselves, including the living room and small kitchen, which was great. The fridge was even stocked with some delicious homemade adult apple cider. Yum!

One of the best parts of the B&B was the owner. She spoke very little English, and our French was still pretty rusty, but we both knew just enough to have some nice little discussions about the area and our travels. She was just so friendly and excited to be practicing her English on us, and was really happy that Rick had put her in his book, as it had done so much for her business!!

Also, while staying there we met an American family, a mom and her two sons aged 7 and 9. The older boy joined us for breakfast one morning without his mother and brother and was speaking French to our hostess. We assumed he was French until his mother came and started speaking to him in English. After talking to them we found out that the father was a photographer for National Geographic and was still working. The family had decided to home school that year and were traveling the world to get real life/hands on experience. They had spent the previous 3 weeks in the south of France while the boys went to language school. Before that they had been in Africa on an animal reserve helping the workers there document information on the big 5 safari animals. Basically if we have children someday this is exactly what Jenna would want to do. Now I need to see if National Geographic is hiring... 

Saturday, April 10th

This was our WWII day, and it was a doozy. I wouldn't call myself a history buff by any means, but I do really enjoy learning all the history around WWII (and I think Band of Brothers is probably the greatest TV series of all time), so I was really looking forward to this.

There were 5 beaches where Ally forces landed on D-Day. Most of the British landed near the town of Arromanches toward the east, which is where we started the day. Arromanches is the home of the Musee du Debarquement (roughtly "Landing Museum"). It had a lot of cool memorabilia and information about the beach landings along the Normandy coast. A large portion of the museum was devoted to the port that was created at Arromanches by the British. After the beaches were taken, it was critical that they be secured and defended, which required lots of supplies and equipment, but there was no usable port anywhere nearby, and the waves made it impossible to just build something on the open water. The British devised a plan to build a break-water by sinking enormous cement barriers. They had started this immediately, and within a couple of days they had a working port and had brought in enough supplies to ensure that the Allies would be able to hold the beaches and move inward into Europe. As an embarrassing side note, the Americans attempted to build their own port on one of the beaches we landed on, and it was a massive failure.

After leaving the museum, we started making our way west along the coast, seeing various war sites along the way. I won't bore with all the details, but here are a few of the highlights:

Beaches

We stopped at a couple of the beaches where the Allies landed - the one's made famous in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. Sadly, they've become pretty touristy. There are very few remnants from the war. As you walked the beaches there were various metal shards and other random clues that the war had occurred, but the main site on the beaches was guys land windsurfing.

Bunkers

One of the main things that does litter the coast as a reminder of the war are German bunkers. At some of the beaches, there were the small bunkers where gunmen would have been posted, but the most impressive ones we saw actually held large artillery used to barrage the boats and soldiers as they landed.

Shelling Site

In the days surrounding D-Day, there were many bombs dropped throughout Normandy - most attempting to destroy the German fortifications. Over the years, erosion and farming developments have erased the traces of these bombings, but there was one area we visited that has been left mostly untouched.

It was amazing to see just how deep the explosions went. It was sobering to think that thousands of these bombs were dropped in the region in just a matter of weeks.

American Cemetery

This was one of the more harrowing experiences of the weekend. There are many US military cemeteries throughout Europe, but the one we visited - the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial - is one of the largest, and the one that contains most of the bodies of the men who died on the beaches on D-Day. We took a short tour of the cemetery and the nearly 10,000 white crosses. It was definitely something to experience.

Sunday, April 11th

Having seen the sights of Normandy, we headed west on a pilgrimage to Mont Saint Michel.

 This is a very famous middle age pilgrimage site. It is essentially a small island just off the coast, and in the middle of the island (at the top of a huge hill) is an old church/monastery. There is a town below, and when you enter the town you essentially walk in an upward spiral through the MANY tourist shops up to the church. Currently there is a road from the mainland to the island, but in the old days, you could only get there during low tide when a muddy land bridge was exposed. Even now, a parking lot sits off the road and is a few feet lower than the road, and they have signs posted saying what time you need to leave by (before the tide returns) lest your car be swept away. Rumor has it that some years ago a tour bus operator had a few too many drinks in a local bar and lost track of time, forgetting to move his bus, and found it floating away!

The place was probably a little too touristy, but we probably got something close to the experience of the religious pilgrims of old - a walk up to the church that was lined with shops selling t-shirts and magnets (would have been holy water and rosaries), and when we got to the top we paid an outrageous entrance fee (i.e. indulgence) to see the church. All complaining aside, it was very spectacular to see Mont Saint Michel both on approach and from the church at the top, and was well worth the stop-over.

By lunch, we had seen all there was to see, and headed back toward Paris for our return home. Unfortunately, we had a miserable time lost on the streets of Paris trying to fill the car with gas before returning it. The GPS would send us to a closed station, or to one that was on the other side of the street with no access from where we were. We drove around for what seemed like an hour before finally filling up and getting the car returned. Fortunately, we got the car back to Avis and still had quite a bit of time before our train home, so we were able to take the metro to get one last moment with the Eiffel Tower before leaving France for who knows how long.