October 4, 2015

In addition to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, we did a Harry Potter walking tour of the sites from the movie.  We ended up just doing it on our own instead of going with a group.  It worked out fine to be on our own time.  Lots of the places were a little disappointing because you can’t really see anything other than a building that was in the background (I guess we expected it to be a little more distinctively HP).  Around town, we saw the Ministry of Magic, the Minister of Magic’s house, the inspiration for 12 Grimmel Place, the inspiration for Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.

Film site for the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter

Inspiration for Diagon Alley

Inspiration for Knockturn Alley

We also went to the zoo where Harry goes for Dudley’s birthday in the first movie.  The scene takes place in the reptile house, so of course, we went there.  🙂

Reptile House (from Harry Potter)

Reptile House (from Harry Potter)

The zoo turned out to have a really cool surprise because they had an Okapi.  (Hayden’s FAVORITE animal)  The Okapi here was AWESOME because it was right at the fence.  They are typically very shy animals, so we have never seen one this close and active before.  He was trying to eat the trees right on the edge and he was so close that we probably could have reached out to pet him!  We spent about 30 minutes just sitting here watching him….it was a really neat experience.

Okapi

Okapi

Okapi

Our last stop of the day was at King’s Cross station to see the “original” platform 9 3/4.  We did get a picture with the trolley, but to get to platforms 9 and 10, you need a train ticket.  Plus, it’s not like in the move and right between the platforms is a train track, so we wouldn’t have been able to go there anyway.

Tomorrow, we will have hanging out with our friends, Caryn and Roy, from Germany (we were in the Army together).  We are taking the kids to Kensington Palace and the Science Museum.  It should be a great time and Hayden is super excited for a day out with the kids!

After that, it’s time to jump on the cruise ship and head home!

Kings Cross – Platform 9 3/4

October 4, 2015

More great times in London.  We found the M&M Store (shocking, I know) in Piccadilly Circus.  The store was HUGE and had lots of fun stuff.  Of course, there were London M&Ms, but they also had an M&M lab where they mix the colors to make them custom.  Pretty cool!

Making of M&Ms!

While walking around, we found our next car…we have decided to pick up a Lamborghini when we get home.  Hayden is looking forward to driving it on his 16th birthday.  lol

Souvenir?

We also managed to find a Five Guys…YUM!!  Since we will be home in just a few weeks, we decided to skip it and get our Five Guys fix when we get home.  The funniest part about it was that they had a sign from the Lakeland Ledger in the window!

The next afternoon, we took the hop on hop off bus and went around to the Tour of London.  The Tower was really cool.  We did the Beefeater tour, which was very entertaining.  At the Tower, we saw the Crown Jewels, the Torture room, the Green where Henry VIII’s wives (and many others) were beheaded.  They also had a “tournament” going on where two guys were sword fighting…it was pretty cool.  Hayden liked watching the sword fighting.  Walking around the Tower was really amazing.  To think that parts of it are almost 1,000 years old and to think about all of the history that has happened here is pretty crazy.  I’m reading a series of books now that is about the Tudors and that time in England and it’s really interesting to see all of the places that I have been reading about.

Tower of London

Tower of London

Traitors Gate at the Tower of London

Tower of London

Tower of London

Tower Green

Sword Fight!

Sword Fight!

Right across the way, we walked across the Tower Bridge.  We were lucky that it happened to be going up to let a ship pass when we were there.  It was cool to see.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge opening

Next on the itinerary is the Harry Potter Walking Tour for Hayden.  He’s pretty excited to see all of the places from the movie.

October 3, 2015

We are here in London and having a fabulous time!  We spent the first day with our friend, Amy, that we met in Africa.  It was great to catch up and we had a fantastic day walking around the city and seeing some of the sights.  We went to Buckingham Palace and got there just in time to catch the tail end of the changing of the guard…holy cow…what a mad rush of people!  There were TONS of people there and you could hardly move.  We did manage to see some of the guards and we eventually got pictures of the gates/palace/etc.  Unfortunately, the palace is not open to the public, so we didn’t get to go in, but that was fine with us.

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace

Changing of the Guard

Buckingham Palace

Wellington Arch

From the palace, we walked down to Harrods, (super fancy store) and got some lunch to take and eat in the park.  Harrods has a really great food court with about every type of food you could want.  For being such a nice store (and an expensive city), it was pretty reasonably priced.  We took our food and went to sit in Hyde Park since it was such a nice, sunny day.  We had a good time, and Hayden even got to check out the swans, ducks, and pigeons

Harrods

Feeding the ducks

From lunch, we walked around town a little more and made our way to Piccadilly Circus and to Trafalgar Square.  Everything was decorated NFL for the Jets – Dolphins game on Sunday…it was pretty cool.

NFL in London!

We got some good pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye at both day and night.  I like the comparative pictures…London really is a beautiful city!

Big Ben

Big Ben

London Eye and our hotel

London at night

The next morning, we went to see Westminster Abbey…WOW…super cool place!  The building itself is so neat, but when you think that it is almost 1,000 years old and here about all of the history, it is really amazing.  There are no pictures permitted inside, but it was beautiful.  It was built over hundreds of years by different monarchs, but they managed to keep the style the same, so it looks like it was all built at once.  Definitely a place that everyone should visit!

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

After the Abbey, we went to the Jewel Tower, which we thought would have jewels.  It is the oldest remaining portion of the original Westminster, but we were disappointed to find that there were no jewels, that’s just the name of the castle.

Jewel Tower

We walked around a bit more and saw some more cool stuff…here is Hayden with the horse guard.

Cavalry Guard

October 1, 2015

In the words of Hayden…BEST DAY EVER!  We came into London from Gatwick, got checked into our hotel and spent the rest of the day out at the Harry Potter Studios just north of London.  I have to say, it was AMAZING!  We are Harry Potter fans, so we knew we would have a good time, but the place was really incredible.  At the train station, a WB bus pics you up to go to the Studio and from there, it’s full on Harry Potter.

Our tour time was 2:00 pm and we got there right on time.  The tour is mostly self-guided, so we could spend as much time as we wanted.  We stayed there just about 4 hours and had a great time.  They have TONS of props, sets, costumes, models, etc through out the studios.  These are the actual studios where all of the movies were filmed, so it’s all completely original.  Having read the books and seen all of the movies (several times!), we recognized just about everything and loved to look around.  I’m not going to write a lot because I have about a million pictures to post…

Just one thing to add in addition to the pictures;  we got awesome pictures of all of us riding in the flying car and Hayden flying on a broom.  They are only in picture form, so I will have to scan them when we get home to upload them.  (Taking a picture of the picture wasn’t working very well).

On the bus to HP Studios!

We’re here!

“Ron’s” handprints

“Hermionie’s” Hand Prints

Harry’s bedroom under the stairs

Hayden in the Great Hall

Ceiling used to film the “magical” great hall ceiling

Dumbledore’s Podium

Gryffindor Uniforms

Harry and Voldemort Costumes

Ron and Harry’s Beds

Gryffindor Common Room

Various Set Props

Tri Wizard Cup and the Egg that was a clue

The Burrow – the Weasley’s House

Potions Classroom and Snape’s Costume

Scene at the Malfoy’s House

Wand Training

Wand Training

Hogwarts Express

Riding the Hogwarts Express

Riding the Hogwarts Express

Platform 9 3/4

Platform 9 3/4

4 Privet Drive

4 Privet Drive

The Potter’s Cottage

Riding Hagrid’s motorcycle

Driving the Flying Car…Aaahhhhhh

Buckbeak

Holy crap…this is my worst nightmare!!

Hogwarts Full Model

Hogwarts Full Model

“Credits”…everyone that worked on the movie has a wand box with their name on it.

Back at the hotel, we had dinner and are going to bed early so that we can be up and running tomorrow for our first day in London!

September 30, 2015

We made it to England…YAY (sort of).  We are happy to be in England, we have been looking forward to getting here, but it is bittersweet because it means our trip is almost at an end.

We flew from Dublin to Gatwick and spent two days here so that we could hit some of the outer areas from the city.  We decided to rent a car instead of taking a tour, which turned out to be much cheaper  We picked up the car from Gatwick so that we could be on our own schedule to spend the day out at Stonehenge and to visit the town of Bath.

First off…driving on the left hand side of the road was a bit of an adjustment, but Adam did great.  It was pretty weird for me to be sitting in the passenger seat on the left hand side of the car.  Luckily, we didn’t have an issues and got to Stonehenge in decent time.

Stonehenge was pretty cool.  They have a really nice visitor center and the area is beautiful.  The only problem was that it was very windy, so it was a little chilly.  We overcame that issue by starting the trip with hot chocolates!  We spent about an hour walking around the area, looking at the rocks and going through the visitor center.  It is really amazing to think about how they would have built these without our technology…it made us think a lot about Egypt again since they were about the same time period as the pyramids and similar feats.  Definitely a neat place to go and worth the drive out.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Holding up Stonehenge

Hayden trying to move one of the stones

Sheep!

Houses from the time when Stonehenge was built

Houses from the time when Stonehenge was built

After Stonehenge, we continued our way west and went to the town of Bath.  We had a few issues getting into town, but managed to find our way eventually.  By the time we got there, we were starving!  We found a place right inside of town that sound Cornish Pasties…they looked like calzones, but had all different fillings.  They were amazing!  The dough was more like a croissant, so they were super flakey.  Hayden had cheese and bacon, I had chicken and chorizo and Adam had steak and cheese…they were all super good!  After that we walked into town a little and managed to (by total luck) find the Roman Baths.  The Baths are in a nice square with the Bath Abbey and the entrance to the Baths.  We sat in the square and finished eating before going through the Bath.

Bath Abbey

Bath Abbey

Bath, Abbey

Bath Abbey

The Roman Bath was very cool.  Especially after spending some time in Rome, we really thought it was amazing how big and grand the Bath was especially since the houses and everything back in Rome were so small and close together.  The hot springs were really cool and the way they had all of the pools set up would have been so neat to visit back in the day.

Roman Bath

Roman Bath

Roman Bath

Hot Spring at the Roman Bath

Some of the remains from the temple and the surrounding area are still on display and they are in pretty decent shape…very cool to see.  I think one of the best parts is that you can see how the hot springs still flows today.  They run in basically, a river under the entire complex and you can even see the steam coming up.  \

Remains from the Roman Bath

Steam from the natural springs

Underground hot spring

At the end of the tour, we got to drink the spring water.  It was warm and had a distinctive taste to it.  Not terrible, but definitely not something that I would want to drink on a regular basis!

Drinking the spring water

After going through the Bath and looking around the Abbey, we had to find Sally Lunn’s…it is the oldest house in the town of Bath and dates all the way back to 1680.  Supposedly, they have really good buns, but we opted to get fudge instead for our snack.  🙂  Our last stop was walking around the park in the center of town before we headed back to the car to get back to Gatwick.  We left a little early, but wanted to avoid driving in the dark since we were still trying to acclimate to the other side of the road and the different traffic signs.

Oldest house in Bath, England

Bath, England

We did manage to make it back in one piece and tomorrow we will head into London for the most excited day ever (according to Hayden)…Harry Potter Studio Tour day!!!!  He’s only a tiny bit excited.  🙂

September 29, 2015

We left Dublin on Saturday and took the train over to the West Coast of Ireland to Galway.  By total coincidence, it is weekend of the Galway Oyster Festival, so it was a good weekend to visit!  We have been very lucky because the weather has been beautiful.  From what we heard, most of the time, it is cool and rainy this time of year in Ireland, but we have had great weather, so we are very thankful for that!

We got here and checked into our hotel where we hung out for the afternoon.  That evening, we had dinner in the hotel restaurant…holy cow…it was amazing!  Irish beef is undoubtedly, the best beef ever!  We each had a different cut of beef and both were amazing.  All of the food was so good that Hayden even ate his carrots and cauliflower and said, “if you could make vegetables like this, I would eat them at home too!”  I guess I need to work on my cooking skills when we get home.  🙂

The next morning, we spent in, but then got into town for the day.  We walked around the coastline, which was lovely.  The tide was out, so we walked way out into the shore and got a little wet before coming back to dry land.  We walked through into the Oyster Festival area and walked all through the town.  The city was very nice and they had lots of oysters around for the festival.

We got back to the hotel a little early and relaxed since we had to catch an early train to Cork in the morning.  We did manage to get up at about 3:00 am so that we could watch the blood moon for a few minutes.  We had a great view right outside of our hotel room window, so that worked out great!

Galway coastline

Galway coastline

Galway, Ireland

Galway Oyster Festival

Galway, Ireland

Blood moon over Galway, Ireland

We got up first thing Monday morning to head over to the train station to go to Cork to see the Blarney Castle.  When we got to the train station, we ended up finding a bus that was more direct then the train and they took our Eurail passes, so that worked out great!  The bus ride was long (about 4 hours), but we made it and didn’t have to worry about connections like we would have on the train.

As soon as we got into Cork, we dropped our bags at our hostel and took the bus out to Blarney Castle.  The castle was really cool.  The grounds were very well kept and there were tons of really pretty flowers.  We worked our way through the castle, including through the dungeon, the kitchen, some of the bedrooms, and the great hall.  We made it all the way up to the top where we kissed the Blarney Stone.  🙂  The view from the top of the castle was really nice.  You could see pretty much all of the grounds and even into the town.

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle grounds

Dungeon at Blarney Castle

Dungeon at Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Climbing Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

View from Blarney Castle

View from Blarney Castle

Battlements at Blarney Castle

View from Blarney Castle

Hayden kissing the Blarney Stone

Carrie kissing the Blarney Stone

Adam kissing the Blarney Stone

Just outside of the castle, in the gardens, they have a “Poison Garden” which was pretty cool.  All of the plants are somehow toxic.  Adam appreciated the marijuana and Hayden liked the Mandrake (they use it in Harry Potter).

Poison Garden

Mandrake (from Harry Potter)

“Toxic” marijuana

We found a playground where we climbed the wall…I was pretty impressed with myself for being able to get myself up the wall.  lol

“I made it over the wall!”

Hayden made it up the wall too!

Waterfall in the Blarney Castle gardens

We spent the night back in Cork before getting up first thing in the morning and leaving Cork to go back to Dublin where we fly to London!  How is it possible that we3 are heading to our last stop?!?!  At least we managed to find a leprechaun while we were here in Ireland!

My little leprechaun

September 26, 2015

After only three days in Ireland, we have decided that Ireland has the nicest people anywhere in the world!  We have had such a great few days and everyone has been so friendly.  Not only are the people great, the food is AMAZING!  I’m really wishing that I could smuggle home an entire cow’s worth of Irish beef!

We arrived here from Madrid at about 10:00 pm on Wednesday night.  We had found a hotel right near the airport, so it was a quick (but still expensive) taxi ride to the hotel.  We didn’t really know much about the area, but apparently our hotel isn’t in the best neighborhood.  We heard this from a few people, but it worked fine for us…there was a grocery store right across the street and a bus stop with the direct line into town, right next to the hotel.

After sleeping in quite late, we got up and made our way into town.  We were originally going to do the Irish version of the “Duck Tour”, but found a hop on hop off bus for even cheaper and that way we could get around all day. (and you know how much we love hop on hop off buses since we’ve done about 6 of them now…lol).  The bus ride was nice and gave us an overview of the city.  They even included free tickets to the Little Museum in Dublin, which turned out to be a great little museum.  We saw lots of really interesting historical things and even learned some history.  I think the funniest story was about the Easter Uprising of 1916 (where Ireland started to fight for independence from England).  The battle went on day and night for a week except for 1 hour each afternoon when both sides stopped fighting.  The reason was because there was a flock of famous ducks that lived in the pond and the sides would quit fighting for an hour so the duck’s owner could go out and feed them safely!

They also had a copy of the Irish constitution at the museum along with a podium (actually a music stand) that JFK used when he gave a speech in Dublin just before his assassination.

Little Museum of Dublin

Irish Constitution

Podium used by JFK just before his death

Of course, with U2 being the most famous band from Ireland, they had their own section in the museum.  I always forget how much I like U2 until I start to hear their music.

U2 exhibit in the Little Museum of Dublin

We continued the tour for a while and saw lots of really neat buildings.  One of my favorites was this building with the red ivy all over it…I just think it’s really pretty!

Dublin

We found a really cool Museum called “Dublinia”.  It tells the history of Dublin from back when the Vikings founded the city all the way through English rule and to present day.  The museum was fun and there was lots for Hayden to do.  Both Hayden and Adam got to dress up like Vikings and Knights.  They had models of different types of houses that have been in Dublin and had little rooms showing life in the village during each time period.

Vikings!

Viking Hayden

Kind of looks like Frodo!

Adam got to play dress-up too!

Inside a Viking house

Sir Hayden

Sir Hayden, ready for jousting

Uh oh, someone’s in trouble!

Just outside of Dublinia is the Christ Church Cathedral.  We have seen A LOT of churches,, so we only went in to climb the tower, we didn’t torture Hayden by walking through another church.  I’m pretty sure he will never go in another church again after all of them that we have drug him through!  The view from the top of the tower was really nice.  You could see most of the city and it was a decent day outside, so the view was good.

Christ Church Cathedral

View from St. Michael’s Tower

Christ Church Cathedral

The last place we went on the bus tour was to the Guinness brewery.  Although I’m not a fan of Guinness myself, it seems like you HAVE to see the brewery if you come to Ireland!  🙂  It is a huge place and has a lot of history.  Back in 1759, Arthur Guinness leased the land for the brewery for 9,000 years at $45 per year.  Since then they have grown significantly and bought the land themselves.  I think it’s pretty awesome that he managed to get a 9,000 year lease!  lol

Guinness anyone?

After the bus tour, we had an AMAZING dinner at a pub downtown.  I had Irish Roast Beef with potatoes, stuffing, carrots and other veggies…it was so good!  The place was huge and I almost finished everything.  Even Hayden has been eating vegetables here!  He had carrots and cauliflower and cleared his plate…amazing!!

The next day, we slept in again and then went to Dublin Castle first.  The castle was cool, but smaller than we expected.  The majority of it has been destroyed and rebuilt over the years.  We did go through the medieval area, but it’s only a small portion of the castle.  There is only one of the towers left and some of the underground areas.  We did get to go through the rebuilt areas that they still use today and that was pretty neat too.

Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle

Throne Room in the Dublin Castle

St Patrick’s ballroom in Dublin Castle

Chapel in the Dublin Castle

After the castle, we visited a few different museums.  All of the public museums are free, so we went to the Natural History Museum and the National History Museum.  Both museums were nice and had great exhibits, but we were a little pooped out and came back to the hotel a little early to grab dinner and relax for a while.

This morning, we are heading to Galway for the Annual Oyster Festival and to check out the West Coast of the country for a day or two.

September 22, 2015

Just finished up our time in Spain by spending a few days in Madrid.  We were pretty low key and didn’t do much other than walk around.  We spent two days in the city walking around and hanging out.

The first day in town, we went to the Naval Museum, which was pretty cool.  The Spanish Navy has a very long history and did lots of exploring back in the day, so there was a lot to see.  They had everything from old weapons (which Hayden and Adam love) to maps of the Spanish explorations, to models of Christopher Columbus’ ships and even recreations of ships rooms/cabins.

Some serious weapons

A very BIG longsword

Now THAT’S a big gun!

Spanish exploration of the world

Naval Museum

The Santa Maria

The Pinta

Inside of the museum was also a special exhibition about famous ships around the world.  They had a pretty big section dedicated to the Titanic with some items that have been recovered from the ship.

Dishes from the Titanic

Items from the Titanic

The rest of the day we spent at a playground near our campsite and then had dinner at Hayden’s favorite place…McDonalds.  As much as I am not a fan of McD’s, I have to admit that it is easy, cheap, and consistent!

The next day we went back into town and walked around the more “touristy” area.  One of the first things that we saw was this government building with a big banner welcoming refugees to the city/country.  I couldn’t help but think that this is something that would NEVER fly in the US.  As soon as any government office tried to put this up, I think people would go crazy.  I think it’s really nice to see people helping each other and being understanding about the plight of all of those people trying to escape their war-town country.

Not a sign you would see in the US….

Right inside of the city, they have a re-built Egyptian temple that was given to Spain as a gift for helping to move the temple at Abu Simbel when the Aswan High Dam was constructed in the 1960’s.  The temple was taken apart in Egypt and rebuilt here in Madrid.  Funny story about it…the temple gates were rebuilt in the wrong order, but once they discovered this, they didn’t go back to fix it.  Hayden was excited for (yet another) Egyptian temple and to get to practice reading Hieroglyphics a little more.

Egyptian Temple

Egyptian Temple

Symbol of Horus

Hieroglyphics

Egyptian Temple

After the temple, we walked to the Royal Palace.  It was pretty cool from the outside.  We are a little “palaced out” so we didn’t go in, but just walked around the outside.  It was really pretty and they had a very nice public garden area where you could just walk around or relax on the benches.

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

On our way back to the bus stop to go back to our campsite, we walked by a restaurant called, “Iowa”.  It didn’t really seem all that mid-western to me since they just served Spanish food!  lol

We are leaving Madrid tomorrow afternoon to fly up to Ireland.  We are SUPER excited to get to Ireland, but it’s a little bitter-sweet because this means the trip is almost over…it’s so hard to believe!!!

September 19, 2015

I haven’t posted in a while, but we have spent this week relaxing in Barcelona, Spain.  It has been fabulous!  We are staying at a campground right on the beach (literally a 2 minutes walk from our tent to the sand!).  We liked it so much that we ended up staying an extra day.  Adam may like it even more than Hayden and I because the beaches are “tops optional”.  lol

We got here on Sunday and spent the day getting settled.  Luckily, our travel luck seems to be changing and we made it here without any issues.  On Monday, we hung out at the campsite and spent the entire day at the beach.  The campsite even has a supermarket and a decent restaurant, so we had some Paella for lunch and got some groceries to make sandwiches for dinner.

At the beach

At the beach

At the beach

On Tuesday, we went into town to do some exploring on our own.  We found an Invention Museum online and wanted to check it out.  It was really neat and Hayden became inspired to be an inventor when we get home.  His first project is going to be a flying car that runs on bubbles.  We’re really hoping that it comes together because I’m thinking he could make some money with that!  lol

In that same area, we walked around the old part of the city and saw the original Roman walls and an original aqueduct, there was a lot of really cool history here.

We finished the day by finding a movie theater that was playing “Inside Out” in English.  I’m not sure what was better, the movie or the fact that the movie theater had caramel corn!  The movie was really cute, but the caramel corn was amazing!

Barcelona

Statue of Fluffy (not really, but it looks like Fluffy from Harry Potter)

On Wednesday, we did the Hop On Hop Off bus.  I know it’s a cheesy tourist thing, but even after doing it in about 5 other countries, I still always like them.  It’s such an easy way to see everything and learn a little bit about the city.  We spent pretty much the entire day on the bus.  We hung out at the beaches for a while and did most of the 3 bus routes.  We hit a bit of a snag when our bus broke down, but it stopped right next to a little shop that sold snacks, so Hayden got to use his newly learned Spanish…”Uno Churro Por Favor”  (one churro please) to get a snack.  He was pretty excited to speak Spanish and even more excited to have a churro.  lol

Christopher Columbus Memorial

Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona

On Thursday, we had an awesome day…we met up with Aunt Susan and Bob to do another day on the bus and to hang out together.  They were just finishing a cruise, so it was great to be in the same city and spend some time with family!  We had an awesome lunch of Tapas, and then found a really good place for dinner where we all had more tapas and paella…yum!  We went to the Sagrada Familia, which was amazing.  They have been working on this church for more than 150 years and its still incomplete.  It is huge and amazing!  Hayden got to help a guy on the street make huge bubbles (and he helped pop them), so he had fun too!

Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia

Hayden helping make giant bubbles

The second half of the day, we went to the beaches on the bus and spent a while hanging out there  The water is chilly (definitely not Florida), but it’s really pretty.  We had some ice cream and just sat around talking for a while.  The rest of the tour was nice, then we headed back to their hotel to drop them back off and got back to our own campsite.

Beaches of Barcelona

Barcelona Soccer

Barcelona Soccer

Barcelona

We were supposed to leave today, but decided that the beach was so nice that we would spend an extra day to just hang out and relax.  We spent all day today at the beach again and it was a nice break.  This week has been a good chance to recharge a little before we make the final month long push to get home again.  We are going to Madrid tomorrow for a few days, then flying to Ireland for a week and then our final week in London.  On Oct 6th, we will board the Norwegian Star and start our 13 day trip home on a transatlantic cruise.  I can’t believe that we are already thinking about coming home…time has gone WAY too fast!

September 14, 2015

We wanted to find one of the coolest castles in Europe to visit and this could definitely have been it!  The city of Carcassonne is over 2,000 years old and has tons of history.  It was an active city until about the mid 1600’s when it was gradually abandoned.  Luckily, in the 1800’s, an architect decided to study and rebuild it to the standards of how it would have looked during medieval times.  They did an amazing job and that is how Carcassonne is seen today.

Our luck getting here was a little better, but we still think we’re a little jinxed.  We made it to Carcassonne without much issue, but when we got to the town, we missed the last bus and had to take a taxi out to the campsite.  It was only a few km’s so it wasn’t too expensive.  The campsite was decent, but not much grass.  Unfortunately, it POURED down rain that night.  Thank goodness for our waterproof tent!  It was lightning and raining so hard that mud was splashing up all over the sides of the tent.  We managed to stay dry and the weather was fine from that point on.

We went into town the next morning to check out the castle and the village.  From the campsite, it was only about a 15 minute walk along a nice river.  The city looks amazing sitting on top of the hill!  This was the site that they used for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for the scenes that are supposed to be Nottingham Castle.

View of the entire city (castle)

The inside of the castle is restored as well as the outside, so it was cool to walk through everything.  We took the tour on the inside of the chateau where the people would have lived back in the day.  I think I would have been willing to live here!  🙂  There was a beautiful courtyard, neat rooms, lots of statues, and great views from every window as well as the city walls.

Inside of the courtyard

Town walls and towers

View from the town walls

View from the castle

View from the town wall

In one of the rooms, they discovered that the original walls had been covered over and they found the paint underneath.  In order to restore the room, they needed to carefully scrape off the wall covering, by hand, with a razor blade so that they wouldn’t damage the paint underneath…that’s a LOT of work!

1,000 year old paintings

The front of the castle looks just like you would imagine a medieval castle looking and the best part was that they had a restaurant right there where we ate lunch.  Probably one of the best views that I could imagine for lunch!  The food was awesome.  We had a traditional dish, cassoulet, which was really good…it is sort of like a bean soup, but with pork and duck.  I also got crème brulee…my favorite!!

Entrance to the castle

Carcossonne

Nice place for lunch!

After lunch, we walked though the shops and around the castle walls for a while.  There weren’t too many people there since the high season is over, so we had fun getting up on the walls and playing around.

Carcossonne

Hanging out on the city walls (just like in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)

Cathedral inside of the city

Carcossonne City

We finished the day walking back to the campsite and going to bed early to get up to leave for Spain in the morning!  We thought maybe our bad luck was over, but in the morning, when there should have been a 7:56 bus, it didn’t show up and we had to walk to the train station (about 4 km).  It wasn’t the end of the world, and we made it on time, but we are hoping that our luck will change back again once we get out of France!