A Much Postponed Trip to Europe

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We had planned a trip to Europe 2-years ago, postponed to last December, postponed to this year. The main reason for this trip was to go to Stonehenge for Solstice and be with the Druids.

We had paid for a sunrise inside of the stone circle with a private tour guide and then the remainder of the day with all things Stonehenge. That was, of course, postponed until now.

In the course of finding concerts to attend while in Europe this winter, we found a concert, Mozart’s Requiem, in Vienna. They would play the music then toll the bells at 5 seconds after midnight, the time when Mozart died. We thought we had to go and bought tickets.

The plan was to fly into Frankfurt, visit our friend, Dieter Peperl in Amberg, then go to Gauting and visit our old exchange student Tobias and his family. From there we would go by train to Vienna for the concert then go up to Salzburg. In Salzburg we wanted to go to Café Frist to have meringues stuffed with cream and get hand made Mozart Balls.

From Austria we’d take a long train ride to Brussels to be with our first exchange student, Pascaline and her family that includes our dear Charlotte. From there we’d take the train to the UK to play for a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, Austria went into lockdown. The hotels canceled our reservations, so now we had to change our trip. We toyed with several ideas and for awhile it looked like Germany would lock down as well so we really had to wait until the last minute to know what we’d do.

When there was no other word on Germany, we decided to go for it. If they locked down while we were there, we’d hop on the next train out. We also had to go from our friends in Germany to our friends in Brussels house so that took some time, changing the dates to stay with them.

Now that we were not going to Vienna, we started thinking about what to do with the extra days. I started looking at London and found 2 symphonies that we’d like to see, and now we’d have time to go to Hampton Court and Kensington Palace. I also picked up tickets for Phantom of the Opera. All of the sudden our days were full.

Now just as we were going to leave the UK announced that we must quarantine for 2 days. But on day 2 we must get tested and if the test is negative then we can go on our way. So, we will test early in the morning and go on with our sightseeing. We didn’t have anything really to do on what they call Day 1 so we can cool our heels. I’ll blog and post photos and we will get ready to run!

So, on November 29^th we took our chances and flew off to Germany: Bakersfield to Denver, Denver to NY, NY to Frankfurt. Travel is an adventure and here we are.

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Photos

On the plane
Our pockets were stuffed as we did not have enough room in our bags, we couldn't even put on our seat belt without taking off our coats.

Spinach wrap
Fortunately, I'd brought the makings for a wrap as there was no gluten free food on any flights.