Epic European Adventure, Volume 7

After Hugh and I had been up for 3.5 hours (with about 3 hours of sleep) we met up with our free tour and headed out towards the Highlands. The day promptly turned from cold and sunny to cold and rainy. We started out of town and but first stopped to take pictures of a bridge. It’s a cool bridge, and if I could recall the name I would tell you. It is very cool looking, though.

Hugh spent the majority of our travel time during this tour sleeping. I might have dozed a little myself, but who can blame us? We’d been up for hours and then sat in a small tour bus for a long drive. The weather was gloomy and we were SLEEPY! Hugh and I probably spent $25 this day on hot drinks and coke. Every time we stopped we were looking for something to help keep us awake.

The highlights of the day trip would have to be the William Wallace monument, meeting Hamish the famous cow, the pretty “drunken” loch, and the Monty Python castle. The William Wallace monument is really interesting. The structure is beautiful and it’s high up on a hill. It took us about a 10 minute hike in the rain, but it was worth it for the view. Unfortunately the rain was coming down at a pretty quick rate so we didn’t pull the camera out. Hugh did manage to get a few pictures from the bottom of the hill looking up at the monument, but there’s condensation on the lens. At this particular location we both drank some hot tea to try and wake up.

Hairy Coo’s!!! I know in a previous post I mentioned that the name of the tour was called The Hairy Coo. (Coo=Cow when you have a brogue) Did I mention that the bus was actually painted to look like one? It was orange, had a smile face and two ears hanging off the side. We stopped in a small town where we got to meet Hamish the famous bull. Hamish is a bull that had spent his life on the roadside where people would stop and feed him. According to our tour guide he’d even starred in a few movies. He’s quite large and had the required Justin Bieber hair cut. A few years ago England was struck with a spreading case of Mad Cow Disease. All cattle that were under the age of 7 would get a vaccine, but any cattle that were older would have to be put to death. At this time Hamish was 10. The woman that owned Hamish started a petition to have his life spared. Apparently he gets thousands of visitors a day so she was able to rack up a large amount of signatures. The petition ended up on the Queen’s desk and she granted him a royal pardon. She even came out and visited him one day. YAY!!! Hamish was saved! I do have to say that the cows were cute. Much cuter than our cows. You can buy parsnips to feed them, but if you touch a cow when you’re overseas you can get into trouble with the customs people. Humans can transfer Mad Cow Disease (aka Foot & Mouth disease) and they don’t take that very lightly when you’re coming through customs in Houston. Hugh and I just took pictures and let the Scottish guide get his hands slobbery. Oh, I think we had a coke on this stop.

I love, love, LOVE Monty Python. Hilarious. Simply hilarious. If you’ve never watched Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail you must correct this oversight. It’s awesome. We stopped at the castle where the movie was filmed. It was fun to walk around and hear the story of how it was the comedy troupe’s only option for a castle. Apparently they’d been trying to rent a castle for a while but nobody wanted to rent out their castle to them. Our guide had some coconuts on a string that we walked around with while we were there so we could sound like the “horses” in the movie. This is also where Hugh decided to pull out our new lens and take a few photos of the flowers on the property. He did a great job!

Our last stop for the day was at some various lochs through the Highlands. They were all gorgeous. It’s hard to put into words the beauty of the land. Hugh and I decided that if we ever make it back to Scotland we’d like to spend some extended time out in the Highlands. You can hike forever and all of the water you see is crystal clear (and cold!). My only wish would have been for it to have rained a little less. We were prepared with our raincoats; but it’s still a hindrance. However, as green as Scotland is I have a feeling that the rain is a common occurrence.

We finished our day by coming home and going to bed! We were exhausted but happy that we took the tour and see the Highlands.

 This is the really cool bridge on the way out of town.

 The William Wallace Monument from the bottom of the hill. Now that I look at it I see that it kind of looks like a penis. Hmmm..

 Loch Drunkie: Its name comes from a time when bootleggers would toss barrels of whisky into the lake to hide from the authorities. There's a small wall on the right side that is actually ruins from the Normans.

 Oh yeah...we rode around in this.

 Hairy Coo!!! Notice the bangs?

 Hugh and the Hairy Coo. It sounds like a great name for a children's book....or one of those shows that require a subscription to watch.

 The Monty Python castle. 

 Hugh's practice with the fixed 50mm lens. Love the flowers!

Alright guys...I've only got London and Stonehenge left to write. I might break London down into two parts so I can give the British Museum its own post. :)

Love,

Epic European Adventure, Volume 5

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

If I had to choose one place from our trip to actually live, I would have chosen Edinburgh. It’s a beautiful capitol city, and yet it seems so quaint and friendly that you’d never know it. Hugh and I chose to visit Scotland for a few reasons. Hugh’s favorite drink is scotch (whisky is what you call it over there) and with a last name of McCrea, it’s obvious that this is the ancestral lands. Now, I have to say that Germany was the most beautiful place we visited but Scotland stands out because of the people. 

Hugh and I wanted to stay at Bed & Breakfast, and in my exhaustive search I located a place to stay that doesn’t advertise. They don’t have a website, and you won’t find them on trip advisor. All they have is a listing on Scotland’s version of HAR for vacationers. I had originally contacted a B&B about staying for our trip and the owner was going to be out of town. She referred me to a good friend of hers and promised that we’d LOVE the property. The price was right and the two pictures I saw looked great so we booked it. I was a little nervous that I was making a mistake but we were both shocked beyond belief. We stayed in a ground level apartment beneath an impressive residence. It was located on a crescent which is what you and I would call a cul-de-sac. Come to find out, the street we stayed on is considered to be the most expensive property in all of Edinburgh. It was gorgeous! We had our own entrance with a small kitchenette, a beautifully decorated bathroom that couldn’t have been cleaner if it’d tried, and the most comfortable room we’ve had the pleasure of staying in. There were fresh flowers on a small table in our room, two wingback chairs, and a gas fire that was simply lovely. Hugh and I would have happily lived there. 

Our host, Stephen, was exceptional. He pointed out a few places to eat and suggested a pub at the end of the road. Hugh and I chose to hang out there on our first night and we ran into Stephen while we were there. He invited us to join him and we had a very interesting night. He mentioned that he was retired from the hotelier business. He then mentioned something about trains. Come to find out, he was the owner of the number one luxury vacation train in the world. A few weeks before we’d left for our trip I recalled reading something on MSN about luxury train travel and I’d actually read about his train. It was incredible! Here we were staying in the house and having drinks with very famous hotel owner. He was so very interesting and so genuinely nice. He shared great stories from his experience in owning and operating the train and telling us about how he came up with the idea. Needless to say, this is one part of our trip that we’ll never forget. 

Stephen suggested that we visit a few places while we were in Edinburgh. One of them was Kay’s Bar. This is a tiny little pub run by a man named Fraser. He has a true handlebar mustache and he’s a former rugby player. Hugh and I escaped a rain storm one afternoon by ducking in to the bar. Fraser was very sweet and we enjoyed the locals immensely. This place is known as a “posh” bar by some people because the clientele are mainly college professors, lawyers, and judges. You’d never know it seeing as how warm, cozy, and non-pretentious it was. Stephen had told us to mention his name when we went and Fraser insisted that we sit at the actual bar and entertain him. We had great food and drinks, and he even removed three beer pull tabs from the wall that were from a beer called Houston and Texas and gave them to us as a souvenir. He asked us if we’d tried haggis, to which we both replied “NO!”. For those of you who don’t know; Haggis is sheep heart, liver, and lungs all mixed together with onions and spices and then cooked in a sheep stomach. It’s a national dish in Scotland and they take it very seriously. In fact, they even have a holiday devoted to it. Well, Fraser went back to the kitchen (he’s also the cook) and brought out a very gourmet looking plate of haggis for us to try. It was haggis on the bottom topped with ‘neeps (turnips) and then garnished with mashed potatoes. We both gave it a try (the two gin drinks I’d enjoyed seemed to help with the bravery) and honestly: It was quite good. I was prepared to hate it but I was pleasantly surprised. Overall, the visit to Kay’s Bar was quite unforgettable.

Hugh and I wandered around the city. It’s beautiful, and we took tons of photos. We went through the Whisky Experience which is essentially a distillery tour followed by a visit to the world’s largest collection of whiskies. It was a lot of fun and I know Hugh really enjoyed getting to see the collection; so much that he had six bottles of not-cheap scotch shipped back to our house. 

We took a tour out to the Highland’s and I’ll share that in the next post.

This is one of many churches in Edinburgh. They all have the dark stains from coal soot that can't be removed. The stone is sandstone of some sort and is too porous to be cleaned.

 I had to include this picture because Hugh did a great job of getting it backlit with the sun. So pretty!

 The whisky collection and tasting. 

 Some of the collection.

 More of the collection. The Johnny Walker company bought the collection from a private collector for the equivalent of $5 million U.S. Dollars.

 Edinburgh Castle.

 Part of the Royal Mile-it's a very long hill.

 

This is the street we stayed on. 

 

 Our entrance.

 Bedroom.

 The fire, window, and chairs. We would open the window and turn on the fire and just sit and relax.

 This is the cute little kitchen!

Love,

Epic European Adventure, Volume 3

Castle Neuschwanstein

As much as I thought about spelling Neuschwanstein differently every time it cropped up in this post I restrained myself. J

Castle Neuschwanstein is about an hour and forty five minutes outside of Munich. It’s less than a mile from the Austrian border in the middle of the Alps. Hugh and I elected to use Mike’s Bike Tours for the day trip instead of renting a car and attempting it ourselves. The full day trip included a coach bus ride to the town where the castle is located, a bike ride through the area with a stop at Swan Lake, and then a 45-minute hike up the backside of the castle that cuts over a waterfall gorge and a trip over Mary’s Bridge. The day concluded with the castle tour and a ride back home. Our guide was named Brad and he was from South Africa. He’d been doing this trip for twelve years and he gave great insight to the history of the castle.

The castle was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. He was a considered to be an eccentric and he bankrupted the country building his collection of castles. Castle Neuschwanstein was his crowning glory, and the interior was only partially finished before he died. The government owns the castle and they give a very simple “politically correct” version of how they acquired the castle and what happened to “Mad” King Ludwig. I’m going to spare you the boring government version and tell you what you can find out on the History Channel. Apparently Ludwig was a homosexual that had no concept of money and how it worked. He and his brother were not exactly brought up in a loving household. In fact, they were banished to their own section of their family castle and were not seen for years at a time. Apparently he managed to put the Bavarian government into such great debt that they had him declared insane by a psychiatrist that had never met him. He was arrested in his own home and he died “mysteriously” 3 days later in 3 feet of water, along with his psychiatrist. There’s a large amount of conspiracy theory surrounding the King and his death, but let’s be honest: He wouldn’t have been the first king to be killed by his own government. The government opened the castle up for tours exactly 6 weeks after his death. Since 1886, they’ve been making serious money from giving guided 25 minute tours year-round.

Now, enough of the history lesson. The day of our tour, the weather was a little rainy. We persevered and made great use of our rain jackets that we bought at the Eddie Bauer outlet two years ago. The bike ride was incredible. We drove down one lane that had trees on either side that had grown over to form a canopy over the top. I felt like we were actually on the set of The Sound of Music. I may have even hummed a little bit, Julie Andrews style. Swan Lake was beautiful, and some VERY brave (translate: stupid) people in our group even decided to jump in and swim for few moments. 

The hike was a ton of fun. We actually started our behind the castle and hiked up the back part of the mountain. There’s a river running down the backside of the mountain and the water was rushing by us as we walked. Several parts required us to walk on metal walkways that hugged the side of the mountain while the water was rushing below us. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. After about 45 minutes we made it to the castle entrance. We then were given 30 minutes to relax before our castle tour or told that we could continue hiking up to walk on Mary’s Bridge. Mary was King Ludwig’s mother. She loved to hike, and she had a bridge built over the waterfall gorge so she could cross over more easily. We decided to make the extra effort and we were rewarded with some of the most memorable views of our entire vacation. The pictures can tell the story themselves.

The castle tour itself was neat. King Ludwig spared no expense in his castle building. There were mosaic tile floors and every fixture we saw was made of gold. His bed was made of wood, and it took 14 wood workers 4 years to complete it. His bedroom was the most ornate, gaudy room that I’ve ever seen. The German government doesn’t allow any photos to be taken inside the castle, but several have leaked online. Feel free to google away!

I’m including a few of our favorite photos from this trip. I’m uploading the rest to shutterfly, and if you’d like me to send you the link please just ask!

The castle, from one of the biking trails.

This is where I was feeling very "Sound of Music-y"

Swan Lake. See that ripple way out on the right side? That was one of the crazy people that decided to swim.

Hugh and I at Swan Lake.

Here we are in front of one of the waterfalls.

Rain biking. Gotta love it. The castle is WAY in the background.

Hugh, braving the rain for a picture.

Hiking up the waterfall gorge. This is where they divert some water to allow for a crossing. Don't worry, it goes right back after.

The walkway here is made of metal. You can see through it and it's actually a little steep. And wet.

Apparently it's very popular to stack rocks at the riverbed. Kinda cool.

That's Mary's Bridge. This picture was taken about halfway through the hike.

It's really worth clicking on these pictures to see the detail. This is the valley, with Hohenschangu Castle.

Castle Neuschwanstein

The small village in the valley. Just gorgeous!

One side note: There was this one woman on our trip that we gave the nickname “Kim Kardashian”. Everyone that signed up for this tour new that there would be a bike ride, and hike, and the possibility of rain. This girl actually shows up for this excursion in white skintight leggings, 5-inch stiletto riding boots, and attempts the bike ride. She held the group up quite a bit and THANK THE LORD that she finally decided to bow out of the hiking. I was worried that some members of the group were going to go all Lord of the Flies on her and start calling her Piggy and stoning her to death. Sometimes, I really wonder what goes through people’s heads.

One more side note: We did this trip on my birthday. Not a shabby way to turn 31!

Epic European Adventure Volume 2

Munich- The home of Maximilian

Munich is a great city to visit. It’s very clean, the people are nice and there’s tons of food and beer! Since Munich is considered one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world, Hugh and I decided to take a half-day bike tour around the city to get acquainted with the area. We chose Mike’s Bike Tours from all of the positive feedback on Tripadvisor. We spent 24€ apiece for a 4 hour bike tour. Our tour guide was named James, and he was from Australia (this was the greatest vacation for an accent lover). The bikes were called “cruisers” which really means hybrid, and they were quite comfortable. This tour was incredible! We saw all sorts of landmarks and interesting areas. James was very knowledgeable and pointed out several different points of interest and suggested places to see and eat while we were on our trip. We biked through the English Garden which is Munich’s version of Central Park. It was gorgeous! Trees everywhere and a large stream crossed through the park. We stopped and ate lunch at the Chinese Pagoda Beer Garden, and it was scrumptious. Hugh had sausages and I had pork schnitzel. Oh…and we each had a beer. A very large beer. These are actually liter glasses, and I indulged in the dark beer while Hugh had the lighter one. One thing to remember: we still had another two hours to go on our bikes. 

This is the Chinese Pagoda. There was a band playing in the middle of it.

This is the beer I drank at the lunch during our bike ride. Hugh had one as well, and the bike ride was LOVELY after the beer.

One of the bridges over the river in the English Garden.

On one end of the English Garden is where you can find “the surfers”. It literally is an area where a bridge and the concrete bottom of the stream have managed to form a large wave that can actually be surfed on. It was really cool! There were several guys in their wetsuits taking turns surfing in the stream. It was awesome to watch, and it looked quite dangerous. Our guide informed us that at one time it was illegal to surf there, but people kept doing it anyways so the local government finally allowed it with the idea of, “If you’re stupid enough to do it, you’re stupid enough to take responsibility for it.” It was definitely a great thing to see.

Action shot of one of the surfers. Good job Hugh!!

This is the surfing area. The water is moving VERY fast.

Just about everywhere we looked, there were signs with the name “Maximilian” on them. We discovered from our guide that there was a King Maximilian of Bavaria (way back in history) and that he ruled from Munich. Munich’s answer to 5^th Avenue or Rodeo Drive is called the Maximilian Strasse. There were streets, beer gardens, museums, universities, etc. all with the name Maximilian on them. Why am I mentioning this? Well, Hugh’s middle name is Maximilian and it’s spelled the exact same way. So, every time we came across a Maximilian in our path we managed to take a picture of it. Needless to say, this did not help my suggestion to Hugh that we not continue the name Hugh Maximilian McCrea IV to any children we may have in the future. Hugh was pretty happy to see his name everywhere. Sadly, there were no instances of the name Jennifer anywhere to be found. 

Hugh in front of one of the Maximilian signs.

Another Maximilian Street sign.

The Maximilian continues....

No trip to Munich is complete without visiting the Marienplatz to witness the Glockenspiel. The Glockenspiel is over a hundred years old and it’s beautiful. It’s essentially a huge cuckoo-clock that has dolls that perform a dance and act out a story that dates back to the 16^th century. We climbed the steps of St. Peter’s Church to watch it. The church steeple is over 300 steps to the top, but you’re rewarded with incredible views of the city. We also had a beer and pretzel at the Hoffbrau House which is the oldest Bier Hall in the world. I personally think it also happens to be the loudest, the rowdiest, and the most crowded. 

The Glockenspiel. There are two levels of wooden dolls that move.

One of the views of the city from the top of the spire at St. Peters.

Me at the top of the church.

Hugh and the top of the church. It was very narrow and quite crowded.

Another great city view!

The Hoffbrau House. Good thing I workout or I wouldn't have been able to pick up the beer.

This is Yzir river that runs through Munich. It's beautiful!

 To be continued.....