Blogs from Europe

God dag, god dag…! It’s 5 o‘ clock in the morning and I’m up and outside to experience the sunlight. It helps greatly to start adjusting one’s body to the time zone difference. It’s a fresh, cool, and crisp morning. it is 8° outside going up to a high of 16° later this afternoon. Shelley is still in bed. Her quote to me? “I’m staying in bed since you kept me up all night.” “I did?” I asked. “Yes, you did….your snoring was terrible.” 😔 I didn’t hear a thing…. Today we will be having some breakfast and then we will all be heading out on Henning’s boat to sail around Oslo harbour and see some sites.... read more

Why do we get labeled the ugly or privileged Americans?? Check out this gal taking up THREE seats in the crowded waiting area at C de Gaulle. Wait, she is French!!! But the loud American has long been passed by the loud Frenchman. But now, I vote for the totally unfiltered Chinese tourists. They figure we can't understand a word and have carte Blanche to throw in the F word as well!! I met the hardest working flight attendant on my Aegean Air flight from Paris to Athens. She was the Everyready bunny and Harriet Nelson combined!!! Those of you headed to Europe this summer, be warned. This is the busiest I have seen Europe in the last 3 years. And prices are still going up. I would increase your budget by at least 33%. Even ... read more

08:30 hrs : Shelley and I have landed in Germany! We’re now waiting for Kristine to arrive from Vancouver. She should be here with us in about an hour. We loved our flight with Lufthansa! I’ve never flown ‘Premium Economy’ and I have to say that we enjoyed it very much. The seats are roomier, lots of leg room, the seats go back further and even have a footstool and pedestal so that you can have your feet up off the floor. We had a pillow and blanket waiting for us on our seats and a bottle of water too! Not only that, oh no….there was a neat little bag of goodies too! A black drawstring bag with a toothbrush/toothpaste, eye mask, black socks, a towelette, and ear plugs…. We have about two hours to wait ... read more

I shall blame Gardeners World. Well you have to blame something don't you ? As we sat in the different car park for cars not motorhomes waiting for the train to France we found ourselves in need of a leg stretch and a visit to the toilets . We had not set foot inside the Eurotunnel building for years. We never had to. We had our own facilities and could wait out the train in relative comfort . This time though we needed to walk over just to pass a little time. With about an hour to spare we had to do something other than sit in the car . The shops were just a stones throw away and would at least give us something to do while we waited for the train call up time ... read more

A wonderful day. We ‘achieved’ all that we set out to do … negotiated the early morning traffic to hit the motorway to Falkirk to experience ‘the wheel’ first-hand. The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift the only one of its kind in the world and raises boats by 24 metres to connect the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. We were told by the very informative crew member as we were raised into the air that the caissons or gondolas always carry a combined weight of 500 tonnes of water and boats, with the gondolas themselves each weighing 50 tonnes. Care is taken to maintain the water levels on each side, thus balancing the weight on each arm. As you all know, Archimedes’ principle says that floating objects displace their own weight ... read more

We checked and found that no cruise ships were to be in town on Friday so made plans to go to the Palace of the Grand Master on that day to avoid the crowds. The Palace was originally a Byzantine fortress (7th C AD) but during the 14th C. became the administrative headquarters of the Order of Knights. An explosion in 1856 destroyed much of the Palace so at the end of the 1930’s the Italians rebuilt it to become the home base of Mussolini, the Italian Commander. We arrived early to the Palace which worked out well as there were very few people there so we could easily wander through the rooms without a crowd. We were surprised that they don’t have audio guides for offer, but fortunately we had downloaded an audio-guide to listen ... read more