Blogs from Europe - page 4

The day started with a neighbour giving us a fire lighting lesson. The fire place and structure is one of the huge tiled affairs you see in old houses and castles in Europe. The fire is lit in the kitchen but the main heating box is in the next room. We lit paper, followed by a few kindling sticks, 6 logs and a bundle of straw fire lighters. You open the dampers, light the fire and leave it for one hour to burn down to embers, then push all the coals forward to the front of the fire box in the other room with a metal pusher, then close down the dampers. When we came home later in day the room was nice and warm, not hot, and the ceramic fire box was warm and touchable. ... read more

Toured the Oracle's home town of Delphi, but unfortunately, she had nothing to say. That killjoy Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 390 AD banned all pagan worship, including the Oracle. We all know Christians complaining of Pagans treating them poorly, yet when they gained power, the process was repeated. Furthermore, he destroyed much of what was there further reducing what survived to our era. The Oracle may well have existed as early as 1400 BC under the auspices of the Myceneans, you know those folks who assisted in the downfall of the Minoans and have been fingered for conquering Troy (likely false). Over time her legend grew and many votives (offerings in fulfillment of a vow) were constructed by various countries and city states in her honor on the Sacred Way. It's a bit after ten ... read more

We were all excited to have a full English breakfast at our favorite hotel, The Balmoral House Hotel. Today was that day!! Sadly, we waited a little too long and there was a line clear up the steps!! It really wasn’t too long a wait before we were seated. We first came to this hotel in 2019 on Shealyn’s graduation trip. Flavio Martiez was the hotel manager. He’s about Shealyn’s age and absolutely adorable! We absolutely it off On the first meeting. He was so very helpful in recommendation do and places to eat. He’s one of the reasons we keep coming back to stay Following breakfast we found The BigBus, our transportation around the city. The stand is usually a block from our hotel but was around the corner because of road work that was ... read more

Hello from Aarhus. This is an interesting little town on the east coast of the western leg of Denmark. You almost have to look at the map to understand what the country of Denmark looks like. Denmark does not have much in the way of elevation, with the highest “mountain” (being near here) is a little over 300 meters above sea level. Their total population is about 5 million people. Its two “off shore” possessions are the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Greenland has 500 times as much land as mainland Denmark, but it has only 1 percent of the population (about 50,000). One of Denmark’s main claims to fame is that they invented and sell Legos. There are many more Lego bricks than the total population of the world. And that completes your educational information for ... read more

Today was mostly a travel day from Innsbruck in Austria to the Glarus canton in Switzerland. We left around 9am and travelled first class to Bregenz where we changed for a short journey to St Margarethen, then another short journey across the border to Rorschach. Here we had a wee problem. We found we were the only ones on the train for some reason or other and the train was supposed to be going through to St Gallen and Zurich. Strange we thought. We got off and a man asked us what our problem was. He then told us there was a problem on the line (a slip) and the train had been replaced by a bus and it was leaving imminently. We made fast steps down the steps, up the other side and finally into ... read more

So we arrived, without any problems, at Heathrow Airport. We went through Passport Control without any problem. We bought tickets for the Heathrow Express…a nonstop train that goes directly to Paddington. We’ve been to London together three times and I’ve been here another two times, so we are quite familiar with the area. It’s almost like our home away from home! We made our way through the streets to our Favorite hotel, The Balmoral Houde! We couldn’t wait to see our favorite friend, Flavio Martinez! We met Flavio back in 2019 on our first trip here and we just love him!! He’s one of the reason we always stay at this hotel. True to form, Flavio was waiting for us and had everything ready for us. While it was early, our rooms were ready! My favorite ... read more