Our Final trip Outside of England

After the wonderful wedding we attended, we headed to Northern Wales. Our last "out of England" adventure before moving back to the states.  Super weird to be typing that.

We slept in, and then drove up to Northern Wales (about 2 hours).  We got into the beautiful national park called Snowdonia.  It was breathtaking and the weather was gorgeous!  We drove around for a bit, and stopped to take some pictures that showed Mt. Snowdon in the background.  We planned on climbing it later that day.  A friend told us to visit Electric Mountain, which is the largest hydro-power station in Europe.  It is hidden in the mountain side, so you cannot even notice it when driving by.  We stopped in (after paying for 4 hours of parking) to get a tour.  Sadly, they were booked for the day.  So we decided to go find parking to climb Snowdon...just to find that all the lots to get to the path we were planning on taking were full.  We headed back to the parking lot we just left to pay for parking for a second time.  We were slowly giving up on this adventure, therefore we were just going to take the train to the top of the mountain.  Lazy, I know.  We got to the train station to find that the trains were all booked for the day.  We were striking out hard.

 In the National Park

Snowdon is to the right of Jeff's head

We gave up altogether, and headed to Conwy Castle, which was about a 30 minute drive away. We paid for parking for a third time, but the third time was the charm here.  The city was gorgeous, and it was partially walled city like York.  We walked around in the castle grounds for a while.  It was all open, no rooms like you may be picturing.  We climbed up a couple tours to not only have a beautiful view of the ocean, but the countryside as well.  We didn't spend a lot of time there, but we did enjoy the sights.  It was funny because there was a huge group of Americans touring the castle as well.  Some of which were being the stereotypical American tourists, and we hoped we never acted like them on our trips.  Ha! We walked a little bit of the city walls, and then headed into the heart of the city. 

 Inner part of the castle

 
Jeff and I headed down to the waterside, but before , we stopped in this small fish & chips shop.  We didn't have a plan to go there, but it was highly rated...even by Rick Steves.  For those of you who do not know him, he is an American author who travels around Europe writing about the do's/don'ts of European travel.  We have browsed through a few of his books, and he is honest and truthful about the places to see and not see.  But anyway---no joke on these fish & chips.  I don't really like fish, but this was excellent!  So greasy...yummo! We walked down to sit near the water to enjoy our snack.

The sign can't lie "probably the best"

Next to the water was also the Smallest House in Great Britain, so for a pound ($1.50) you could take a picture and see the inside.  I paid the money, as Jeff didn't care much about it.  It was SO small.  I tried to take a couple pictures, but you could never get a good angle because of the size.  Go figure, right?  Well worth the pound.  Jeff and I headed back to the car before traveling back to the hotel for the night.

 
Since we failed at the planning portion of Day #1 in Wales, we woke up early to head to the top of Snowdon.  A little bit about Snowdon...

• It is over 1,000 meters high (over 3,500 feet)
• Highest mountain in Wales
• You can get to the top by foot or by train
• Around 350,000 people make it to the summit each year (train and/or foot)
• Snowdon means "snow hill"---often being able to see some snow at the top
• If the weather is right, you can see England, Ireland, and Scotland from the summit 
• Takes the average person 6 hours to get to the top and back down by foot (train is 2 hours round trip). 

Jeff and I made it to the top by foot.  And before I get started on talking about the adventure, let me point out I thought it was going to take us 6 hours to get to the top.  Jeff had told me 6 hours earlier, but I never heard him say, roundtrip.  I was about ready to die when Jeff said we had only been walking for an hour. I just kept thinking, "Why would I want to keep doing this for another 5 hours?"  But I didn't complain, and just kept at it.  So you can imagine my surprise when we had been climbing 2 hours, and when we asked how much more to the top, someone said "15 minutes".  I was so relieved!!

 The first path we walked on.

On our walk to the top!

Our walk started out so peacefully, as we were walking along a path alongside some beautiful lakes.  I was thinking, "Wow  this won't be too bad".  My opinion quickly changed when we started putting some elevation in the mix and on top of it all the "paths" were gone and we were climbing up makeshift routes. At one point Jeff and I just stood there, looking up, wondering which way to go as we saw no path.  We climbed through some large rocks, and climbed up that way.  We didn't take very many pictures at this point, as we were focusing on where to walk safely.

 One of the "paths"  This was definitely mild compared to our other routes.

We made it to the top in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and that was with some "catch our breath" breaks.  We were so glad that we made it to the top so early.  Jeff and I made it to the top by 9:30, which was nice given the train didn't start dropping people off until 10:00.  We had some time on the summit to enjoy the scenery, er, white background.  It reminded me of our trip to Dover Cliffs, and we could not see a thing.  The frustrating part is the day before was beautiful, so I can only imagine how much you could see if we climbed it like our original plan. 

 Our friends have said that you can see the countryside for miles...guess we picked the wrong day!

The first train of the day.  It was so cold, windy, and rainy at the top!

It only took us an hour and 45 minutes to get down.  We actually headed down a different path by accident.  It was SO much easier than the path we took to the top.  I think it would have been an even shorter trip to the bottom if we would have found the spot where we were basically going vertical. 

Afterwards, we headed back to Nottingham.  Surprisingly it was only a 3 hour ride home.  Crazy to think about the UK and its size.  How cool to be near the water, on a mountain, in the city, or in the countryside all within a short drive. 

On to the next adventure...

Road Trippin' Around Gorgeous Normandy

Of course most of our trip was focused on visiting famous WWII places.  Although, we found a couple places we wanted to visit in between the history places.   Now, I remind you that this post is not in chronological order as it is just about the non-WWII places we visited.  For the WWII post, click here!

On Sunday morning, we headed to Mont Saint-Michel, which is an island in France.  When driving here, you began to see the island when we were still 15 minutes away.  The closer you got, the more of a "Wow" factor you got!  This island is basically built on top of itself...does that make sense?  It is so tall, and everything is just crammed on this small island.  The strangest part about it is that nothing else is around it.  There are just open fields and a few little French houses.  Part of the reason for that is the high tide comes up so far (around the island) that not much else can be around it or it would be ruined. 

On the road to the island.

We had to walk about 2 miles from our car just to get to the island.  There were TONS of people there, as I read online that over 3 million people visit a year.  To put that in perspective, the Eiffel Tower has 6.9 million visitors a year.  Pretty impressive tourist area in such a small amount of space.  Once we got into the city, there were just people everywhere.  We immediately knew we should have came at least an hour, if not two hours earlier.  The island was filled with small shops and restaurants.

 This is the walk to the island.  Just a bit further is where the water comes up to during high tide (or so we thought).

 Gorgeous, right?

The narrow streets filled with people!

In the past, it was able to stay untouched during The Hundred Years War because of the natural high tide defense.  Later it became a prison, but now it is most known for its beautiful abbey located at the very top of the island.  Unfortunately, the lines were super long so we were unable to visit the abbey without staying there for hours waiting in line.  We had too much on the agenda for the day to wait in line for a long amount of time.

 Close up of the abbey

This picture makes me laugh because we took about 6 selfies before this.  A man walked up to us and asked if he could take our picture for us. We must have looked like we were struggling. 

On Monday, we woke up really early to hit the road to head to the city of Eretat.  We were heading about an hour and a half to Normandy's White Cliffs.  We were both secretly crossing our fingers that we don't strike out again with the cliffs like we did just a couple days prior.  To our surprise, we had yet another moment of awe, as this was absolutely stunning!  The tide was fairly low at the time, so we went and walked down by the rocky beach.  Then we started making our way to the arches, stepping over rocks of all shapes and sizes as well as mini-pools of water in between the large stationary rocks.

 The view when we first walked down to the beach upon arrival

 The little pools of water. So pretty. I was surprised to not see any fish or creatures though.

We climbed numerous ladders, went through a mini cave tunnel, and made our way to the arch up close.  It was such an adventure climbing the ladders, guessing where we were going to end up in the end.  The tunnel freaked me out for a bit, as it was dark.  But luckily it was short and just a way to get to the other side of the beach.  There was one spot with a ladder that was resting on the side of the cliffs.  You looked up to see a small path that was basically going vertical up to the Eretat Cliff area where you could walk on top of the cliffs.  It is the only way out if high tide comes...ahhhhh! So scary!

 Small cave area.  The ladder we climbed to reach the tunnel.

 Inside the cave

 The famous arch

Words cannot describe how beautiful this area was, and it made our experience at the Cliffs of Moher run for its money.  It was interesting to see the warning signs around our walk around the beach, as when high tide arrives you could be "stranded" in one of the areas for up to 4 hours.  The tide comes up so far that all the area we walked in would be under water.  By the time we left (about an hour later) the tide was already starting to rise. We wished we could have followed the paths on top of the cliffs (you can get to them in another spot...not the scary ladder above).  I could have spent more time in this adorable city, and on the beach.  The weather was still pretty cold, as you can tell we have our winter jackets on.  But definitely one of the mini-trips I'll remember for a long time.

 One of my favorite pictures

 So much green goo!  We had to be careful walking along the edge (you can see the hand rail behind me) as it was so slippery!

 The ladder leading up to the top of cliffs

 The entrance to the cave tunnel

The safety sign

This pretty much sums up our time in Normandy, France.  We had an amazing time, and I know it was one of our favorites.


On to the next adventure...

60+ Degrees and Sunny...Then Tuesday Came

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you will already know that my mom surprised me and came to visit on Friday.  Jeff and my parents had been scheming since DECEMBER to plan this excursion. My parents and Jeff did not tell anyone, until my mom was on her way over...which I think it a pretty good kept secret! It was very sweet of them to surprise me, and I think I almost ruined it a couple times when I surprised them a few weeks ago.  Everyone who knew, kept the secret well! I am so glad she is over here for 10 days.

Reunited!

So since they had planned it so far in advance, my mom was able to join us on our trip to Lisbon, Portugal.  She came at the right time, given we only have a few big trips left! We left for Lisbon on Sunday morning. Mom got to experience the early to rise, jump in the car, and head to the airport-kind of morning.  It was a longer flight for us, a little over 2 hours, and we were in Lisbon by 12:00PM.  We jumped on the metro and headed to our hotel.  We were able to clean up, and go out to grab some lunch before completely exploring the city.  I officially had one of the worst meals since we moved here.  It wasn't bad in taste, but the pork was VERY overcooked. It was as hard as a rock! Luckily, Jeff ordered a giant dish of paella and my mom ordered pasta...so I was able to eat off of their plates a little as well.

Next, we were off to St. George's Castle.  It was quite the walk up to the area where the castle was located.  We had a great calf workout as all the roads were at an incline. We made it to the top where it had amazing views of the River Tagus, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean.  All of the buildings are so close together, that it looked as if they were all sitting on top of each other.  It was a very European feel, and reminded us of our time in Rome, despite all of the massive amounts of history.  There was not much to the castle, as it was all open and reminded us more of a fort than a castle.  Now, I remind you that we have visited some extraordinary castles (like our Edinburgh Castle visit), so our standards are set very high.  It was great being able to walk up & down the old stairs and see a new scene from each side of the castle.  We especially enjoyed the random peacocks that were walking around the area as well. And we even found a few cats!

 Right in front of the castle. It overlooks the river and all of the beautiful buildings.

 In front of the main entrance to the castle

Love this shot! The red/orange roof tops were beautiful!

After our visit to the castle, we headed down to the water's edge.  It was a beautiful view, especially to see the 25th of April Bridge, which is almost identical to the Golden Gate Bridge.  We walking along the board walk enjoying the 65 degree day.  Sorry, family/friends back home...I don't have much of a filter on my blog posts! We grabbed a famous Portuguese custard tart (or Pastel de nata) which is a must when visiting Lisbon.   As the three of us were sitting there enjoying it, we were trying to compare it to something we had already had before.  We decided it was a mix of flan, sugar creme pie, and a dab of lemon inside.  They were about the size of a cupcake.  Very tasty, and we all agreed we were shocked we didn't grab another one during our time there. Check out the Pastel de nata link for a visual, as I forgot to take a picture!

 In front of the arch that leads into a plaza area right next to the water

Down by the water (obviously)

We cleaned up, and headed out to a fantastic Portuguese restaurant, called Restaruante A Gina which was hidden back in a side street.  Right when we sat down they brought us bread, a cheese and pork spread, and fried potato peels.  We were chomping away, trying all the local appetizers.  For our main courses, Jeff tried the famous Portuguese cod, I gave pork another shot, and mom tried a chicken dish.  All were large portions with lots of potatoes, vegetables, and fantastic rice. We tried some of the house white wine, and debated on this traditional dessert that locals around us were enjoying.  We gave in, and tried the "custardy" cake that was drizzled with honey.  Pretty similar to the photo here.  I wasn't the biggest fan, but Mom and Jeff enjoyed it.

 My pork on the left and Jeff's cod on the right.

We headed out the next morning all ready to take on a full day of sight seeing, walking, and embracing the culture.  The three of us went off to explore a bridge Jeff and I learned about when visiting the Tower Bridge last month.  They had various bridges from around the world, and they were beautiful.  The Aguas Livres Aqueduct was used a long time ago to bring fresh drinking water from the mountains into the city. Unfortunately, we were unable to walk across the bridge because it was closed, but we were able to view it closely and take a few photographs. If you're reading in this in hopes to visit Lisbon, it is a must...but just go on a Tuesday.  

 The HUGE bridge. My mom and I even were able to see it from the plane.

 You can see how big it is with Jeff next to it

We got so many great pictures. It is awesome to have a third person to travel with, so we can continually rotate who is taking the picture!

We were pretty annoyed, as this was just one of many attractions that were closed on Mondays.  This made it difficult for us to plan our activities, given we flew in on Sunday and were flying out on Tuesday.  We made the best of the poor planning, and saw what we could! We walked around the city, up/down the steep roads.  We found a viewing spot to see the castle and buildings across the city.  We finally made it to a wonderful spot for lunch where Jeff and my mom enjoyed pizzas and I got a fantastic chicken sandwich.  We were off again, heading to the metro station.  We saw the ferries used for public transportation to a town called, Barrerio.  So...why not take the ferry across the river to see the other side? It was about a 15 minute ride to the other side. It was enclosed, so we weren't able to get the best pictures. But we had a great view of the bridge, Lisbon from afar, and it was fun being out on the water.

The view from the one open window on the ferry. You can see the bridge and Christ the King monument to the left.

After we arrived back on the Lisbon side,  we went to a church (no pictures allowed) and enjoyed a beautiful park. My mom was able to have her first European gelato experience.  We found this great place near the park that had an array of flavors to choose from.  My mom got strawberry & pineapple, I enjoyed raspberry & after eight (chocolate mint), and Jeff enjoyed strawberry & cheesecake.  Amazing.  It didn't seem like we checked off much from our to-do list during the day, but we covered a lot of ground walking around and just enjoying the simplicity of the city.  The night ended with some tapas, which we were able to try a few new dishes.  We even got my mom to try squid!

 They had a few swings hanging from the ceiling instead of chairs!

 We loved the tiles, although you can't see much of them in this shot. Everywhere you went the tiles on the ground were in a different pattern.

 The yellow trollies are all over the city. Both locals and tourists fill them up at every spot. 

 Giant tree in the park

We found another great viewing spot during our walk around the city.

The next morning we woke up bright and early so we could get to the sights early since we were flying out in the afternoon.  We finally rode on the famous yellow tram we had been seeing around the city.  It was about 20-25 minutes on the tram (or from what I remember).  It started to rain while we were on the tram, so by the time we got off...it was pouring.   Not only was it raining, but the temperature dropped, and we were freezing!  We grabbed our umbrellas and trucked through the rain to see the last few sights.  The Monument of Discoveries was beautiful, although we didn't appreciate it as much with the rain falling sideways and soaking us in the process.  We walked along the water side in attempts to make it to the Belem Tower.  Unfortunately, the pier ended...so we gave up. Just like that.  We walked across the street to visit the Monastery of Jeronimos instead. It opened, and we were able to walk around the grounds for an hour or so.  It was quite and pretty, but there was not much to it other than beauty.

 Monument of Discoveries...in the pouring rain.

 You can see how hard it was raining by just looking at Jeff's poor, wet jacket

Not sure if you can tell just how hard it is raining. Maybe our faces say it all...

 The rain stopped, and we headed to the monastery

 Inside the monastery

We grabbed some breakfast, and made our way back to grab our bags then head out to the airport.  When asking my mom about her time in Lisbon she said, "I enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful tiles on the streets, and I loved the desserts.  Most importantly, it was great spending time with you and Jeff."

 Somehow I forgot this picture when I published it yesterday! One of my favorites, too!

On to the next adventure...