Category: Travel

Ah, the beautiful cliffs of Moher. The subject of my nightmares ever since I booked tickets to Ireland. So many people have died at the cliffs, falling or jumping off. I had nightmares of Jonah running right off. When we arrived at the cliffs you better believe Jonah was not EVER at ANY moment without a hand wrapped tightly around his wrist. There is a visitor center and a nice big wall along the main part of the cliffs, but I was still very vigilant to keep a hand on him. So much so that his little hand was turning white and almost purple at times, lol. Did I mention how much the cliffs terrify me??? It is always really windy at the cliffs (which is sometimes how people fall off), but they day we were there they had just had gail storm winds the night before, so it was really really windy.  But they were beautiful!

When we arrived back at our B&B for the night, our hostess (who we had gotten off to a bad start with, by forgetting to mention CHILDREN in our reservation, ooops) warmed up a bit and told us a story about the cliffs…and her son, when he was about 10…FALLING OFF THE CLIFFS!!!!!!! He was one of very few people who have survived a fall. He landed on a ledge a ways down and they were able to rescue him by helicopter. She said when she first saw his body she just thought he was going to be brain dead. But he woke up and said something intelligible to her and then went into a coma for several months. But because he had woken up and spoken to her, she knew he would be alright. Crazy! I think I would have moved somewhere far away from those dang cliffs.

Four and a half days in Paris just isn’t enough. You could spend a lot longer than that and still have things left to do!

For our last day we decided to pop in to the Orsay museum (we had heard it was better than the Louvre…I’d say they are about on par). Lot’s of famous impressionist artwork in a big old train station.

The food in Paris was wonderful. Very expensive, but oh so good. We loved stopping in to every little bakery and pastry shop and trying lot’s of different cheeses. Nick and I both fell in love with Macarons and had to eat them multiple times. Oh and the baguettes and all the random cheeses…so much good food.

Below is a photo from the inside of the Saint Chappele. It was built to house what is thought to be Christ’s actual crown of thorns. It is a very small church made almost completely of stained glass. The glass tells the story of Christ’s life. The window right over the alter depicts the story of the crown of thorns. This picture just cannot do justice to the way the sunlight came through those windows…

Amd what trip to Paris would be complete without a trip up the Montemarte hill to see the church (or mostly the view of all of Paris from the church) and catch a show at the Moulin Rouge (kidding, we just walked by, lol).

Budapest has this really random claim to fame that I never would have guessed. They have the oldest metro on the European continent (the only one older is in London). It is so old that it was originally horse and carts that would go through the tunnels. The trains that run on this line must be the original trains or close to it, they are super retro. And they sing a little diddy at each stop which is fun.

We have been trying to do more for Jonah on our trips so in Budapest we went to the circus. They spoke in Hungarian but we got the jist.

Langos are a delicacy in Budapest…basically the most fatty thing you can eat. Fry bread with sour cream, garlic and cheese. It was tasty but a bit much.

We have found lot’s of fancy buildings around Europe that were built for various world fairs. The one in the photo above is an example. Below is a statue of “anonymous” who wrote Hungary’s history down.

Szechenyi bath house. The number one thing to do in Budapest according to all the guidebooks is take a dip at one of their many Turkish style baths. (Pretty much a hot springs spa).

(Above) Old abandonned Parisian style “mall” with original wood and glass in it, super pretty and neat old phone booths. (Below) Market hall place similar to the Boqueria in Barcelona.

Cool church (above). Fisherman’s bastion (below) apparently this is where they used to sell fish. Not sure why it’s such a cool looking building just for fish….

 

We found super cheap tickets to fly to Budapest (gotta love Ryanair). So we decided to check it out over a weekend. Hungary is more of an Eastern European country, but they  have tried very hard to be more western, so it’s a good mix of both really. The country was occupied by Nazi Germany for a little while until the Soviets came in and “liberated” them. They have several monuments to the Soviets, but it didn’t take long to realize that the soviet reign was not so good either. The monuments are still there, and are controversial, it’s very interesting to think about.

Above, a monument to the soviet liberators. Below, the opera house, their attempt to be more westernized. They wanted one just like the one in Austria.

Montenegro is not a country I have ever even heard of, but it was our last stop on our cruise. The medieval town of Kotor.

There is a castle up on the hill that we decided to hike to. It was so hot outside and the hike was much harder than we anticipated, by the time we made it to the top we were soaking wet (sweat), but the view was of course amazing. (This is the view of the castle from the town, see it up on the right?)
And we found a cute little church behind the castle.

Overall we very much enjoyed our cruise. We had dinner each night with another military family stationed up in Germany. The food was plentiful on the ship, there were lot’s of activities and entertainment including a pool, we had a great time. After a week of being on the ship though, we were ready to be home.

Argostoli is a very small port town, there didn’t seem to be much there. We asked a shop keeper and she said to go see the turtles. The turtles ended up being kind of interesting. There are 6 loggerhead turtles that hang out in this bay and eat the fish guts that the fisherman throw out from their daily catch. This is highly unusual as these turtles do not normally eat fish. Because these turtles are so “lazy” and do not travel very far, they have very thick moss on their shells.

Seeing as there wasn’t much in town, we headed for the beach. We learned on the way there that Greek taxi drivers are very offended if you try to haggle with them. After asking three separate taxi drivers for a lower price (that a shop keeper told us we could get), receiving no response except the screeching of tires…we finally accepted their price and rode to the beach. Well worth the price though…I’ve never seen water so clear…it was incredible. Not even in Hawaii does the water look like this.

I was super excited for our stop in Athens, Greece. But it turned out to be super disappointing. We had about four hours at each port and for Athens, that just was not long enough. It is a huge city and it took up half our time just getting around. We decided to try out the hop on hop off bus. We rode it to the Acropolis, wandered around there and then had just enough time to hop back on the bus and finish the loop back to the port without getting off again.

The Acropolis was pretty amazing though. I wish it wasn’t missing so many pieces from all the looters and raiders, but it’s amazing how much is still left really, considering how old it is. So much stinking history…I need to do some research so that I know more about it. Lot’s of stories started here.

The Parthenon.