It's Castles and Beaches In England!

I've been traveling since 2004 and while I've been to the London Heathrow Airport many times, I've never actually set foot in its cities or towns. I've always thought my first experience of England would be London but instead, it's turned out to be the villages of the North. We (Steve, his brother and myself) set out on an early drive out to a town called Alnwick where Steve's parents grew up and now live. It's what you'd imagine a small English village would be with its small houses, quaint roads, peaceful stretches of sandy beaches with the clouds as a backdrop. I spent a total of 3 days here in the North of England and absolutely fell in love with this area. His parents busied us with visits to a handful of historic castles, beach walks with the dogs and stops for tea and cake. I love a good tea in a cute shop!

There are hundreds of historic castles here in England. Some are ruins and some are still serve as homes to the royal. We personally visited Almwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Dunstanburgh Castle and Warkworth Castle while driving by a few others. Of the bunch I saw, Bamburgh is the most epic standing massively on a small sea front hilltop with records of its existence dating back to the year 547. When you see something built from the year 547, it makes everything else I see back at home seem insignificant. I used to marvel at the "est 1907" plaques. I may scoff at them now! Maybe. The most charming castle of this bunch for me would be, Dunstanburgh and that's because of the sheep fields you passby leading up to the castle. Dunstanburgh dates back to 1313 and it's shown in ruins but you're able to climb the steps to see field after field of this North England beauty.

This part of England is so quaint and quiet that it's hard to believe the reality we currently live in with the situations of a Trump presidency in the US and Brexit looming for Britain. The common thoughts from some locals around here seems to be that the US will be able to recover from a Trump presidency as this will blow over in a few years and the damage he has done is fixable with the next administration. So, while the short term effects seem drastic, the long term effect may be nominal. However, I have the Supreme Courts appointments on my mind! With Brexit, the thought is that while there aren't any short term effects, the long term effects could be quite detrimental particularly to the younger generations. I wouldn't disagree.

Another observation I had here was that their pharmacy drugs are significantly cheaper! My allergies came alive when Steve and I were on our way to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. I was able to buy some rather effective allergy meds at half the cost of what I'd get in the US. For example, a 24 pack of Zyrtec D would cost $29. A 30 pack of Prinsitine cost £9 pounds or $13 and it was on abut one get one half off so I essentially purchased a 30 pack for $9. The cost of our healthcare in the US has weighed heavily on my mind ever since I had my preventive annual check up and saw the bill for lab work. Outrageous! Needless to say, I've loaded up for the next three allergy seasons!

 This Europe trip of mine wasn't quite planned. It came up rather last minute as Steve had a conference to attend in Edinburgh and I tagged along to meet his family. His family have been so kind and gracious, I will miss them and look forward to our next visit. The funniest was when Steve's dad asked me,"does Steve still pile the sink full of dishes?" And when I replied, "um, no." His mother added, "Yi put a stop to that, she's very tidy." I'll miss our mornings waking up to views of sheep and open skies. Until next time, England! And with that, it's countries #32, #33 and #34 going on the backpack!

Scotland... A City Of Closes

After a few days of discovery in Amsterdam, I flew to Edinburgh to meet up with Steve now that his conference is over. We were hosted by his older brother, who greeted us at the train station in a Golden State Warriors T shirt not knowing the relativity of it, in a small seaside town, about 30 minutes outside of the city called Kinghorn. 

Edinburgh is small and not nearly as colorful as the city I had just spent a few days in but it packs a punch in history! It's charm is in its centuries old monuments, the castle on the hill, the way they refer to an alley way as a "close" and how even their "new town" looks much like an "old town." And, of course the bagpipes! We spent our days roaming around the main downtown area marveling at this aged architecture wondering how many tales and stories must these lanes and closes have. One of my favorites was a tall clock tower with the label, "toll booth." I suppose they used to be the entry to town having payed some form of currency. One of the most popular attractions in Edinburgh is a hilltop called Arthur's Seat which gives you 360 degree views of the city, however when in a city, my photog eye prefers to see the details of the forest! If you're in the New Town area, an eatery named The Pantry serves a tasty turmeric latte..must try!

 While Edinburgh is lively with the Queen's Mile packed with live acts and history, I'd be missing out on the sights of inviting Scottish villages had Steve's brother not live a short train ride away. Every train journey into and out of the city gives sight to their Forth Bridge, one that resembles exactly the Bay Bridge of back home, as well as, the Gypsy Carnival grounds in Burntisland. Burntisland is a neighboring seaside village to Kinghorn with a beautiful and large open seaside green space. Apparently, every year and for many months during the summer, this green space is occupied by this random carnival that just shows up. According to land laws, the field is public so no laws are broken although if I was an owner of a seaside home in this town, I'd have other thoughts! 

Warm and dry months or even days and weeks don't come often in Scotland. I was fortunate enough to have brought the sunshine from Amsterdam with me! Next stop: my first experience of England!

Haarlem, You're A Gem!

Day 2.5, I wanted to escape the crowds and found myself with many options. Do I rent a bike and ride out to Ouderkerk as suggested by a local bike renter? Do I ride a bike out to the beach? Maybe to Haarlem? Maybe out to Zaanse Schans, a village of windmills? I ended up taking the bus out to windmill village and then hopped the train to Haarlem. I arrived early enough to Zaanse Schans to avoid the large group tour buses which is at its best. The shops in the village aren't open yet at this hour (before 9am) but you get the morning peace to yourself and see the farm animals at its glory feeding in the fields. Windmills in a field, it's so Tour de France like! After an hour or so in this windmill village, I hopped the train to Haarlem and instantly fell in love!

Haarlem is a gem. While everything in Amsterdam is in your face, in Haarlem, you have to seek the details of the charm. It has quaint streets, a vibrant but low key town square and my favorite were the floral adorned quaint residential streets. The square packs your typical bit hits: museum, a couple of churches and a formal hall of sorts. This town's St Bavo church houses a beautiful massive organ that a young Mozart played on in 1766. The age of history in Europe still baffled my mind. While the town square is low key inviting, the residential
streets own the charm of this town. Nearly each door had a bike in front of it. Folks of all ages live here but it's the older women congregating on their bikes in front of door steps speaking with such succinct enthusiasm that made me smile. They would end every sentence with a "looo".... helloooo... good day-ooo. This little town packed a character that I consumed fully. 

What I enjoy most about Europe is the ease of train and bus travel! All in all, my time in the Netherlands did not disappoint and I remembered how much I love travel in Europe. The Dutch are kind and always so gracious when I ask for directions. Yes, even the sort of creepy gentleman that stopped me in the streets insisting on helping me get to where I wanted to go because I had a map in my mind and went on to insist that I was must be "rich" because I live in San Francisco. Is that the reputation we have?! Everyone in general have been extremely helpful and so nice! They want to get you to your destination as much as you want to get there. Every time I've asked a train info person which platform I should go to for a certain destination just to make sure, they always look me in the eye and succinctly say "It leaves in X minutes." A thought I had most often while strolling through Haarlem is if I could live as efficiently as these locals. Their residences here are quaint and small but efficient. Nothing is oversized here, unlike home where it seems that the bigger it is, the better it must be. I don't follow that norm much... perhaps I was European in my past life!

Amsterdam...It Wasn't Love At First Sight.

Far from it, actually. Amsterdam has always been on my list but it was on the "fit it in" list as I never thought Amsterdam itself warranted a flight across the country and pond. At last, I had the opportunity to fit it in on this leg. I arrived in Amsterdam in the early afternoon and spent it walking myself lost in circles which is normal for me for my first day in a city. Everywhere I walked, there were massive crowds of people. I thought to myself, "I've never been to Europe in the summer, this must be what it's like." I was not very impressed with day 0.5 in Amsterdam. 

The next day, I got an early start and took myself on one of Rick Steve's self walking tours and once that was over, I went on a walking escapade through Amsterdam's canal belts. It was here that I found Amsterdam's appeal. The city center is crazy busy and quite chaotic but once I got out to the side streets and neighborhoods, I was in awe and the inspired photog in me came through. The west end and the Jordaan area of this city is beautiful with its calmer quaint streets lining the less boat filled canals. The shops cross between familiar and interestingly different. It's in this quaintness that I was able to take in the architecture of this city. One thing I did notice about the houses here is that, every top floor window has a little captain's hook. I thought it was historically decorative at first but only to find that it's actually functional in use: that's how people transport large items up to the top floor. Go figure. One of the more powerful experiences was passing by the Anne Frank house. I didn't go in for the tour as you had to get reservations months in advance to wait in line or you can wait in the line for hours after 3pm for the same day option. It was enough for me to know that the significance of this building exists and that it's here. Around the corner of the Anne Frank house is the statue of Anne Frank. Just take a moment, stand in from it, the statue portrayal of this little girl is pretty powerful. One other area that I especially enjoyed was known as Begijnhof. It's a quiet courtyard of a housing community lived by nuns who hadn't taking the vow to lead monastic lives. The history in Europe never ceases to amaze me. It took a few hours walking the streets in the morning before I was comfortable finding my way without referencing a map. I had referenced it so much previously that it was picturesquely ingrained in my mind. 

For a small city, Amsterdam packs in a lot of landmarks, it was easy for me to navigate which street directionally I wanted to head towards based on which landmark I was near.  It was also on Day 2 that my photog eye found it's inspiration here! I'll leave you with these observations of Amsterdam: it probably has the most diverse cuisine offering I've ever seen in one town! Every local here cycles, that's how they get around yet not one wears a helmet, not even the babies. Everyone here seems to follows the traffic laws and rules to a science where drivers and cyclists can coexist without incident! Of course it helps that, infrastructurely, they seem to have been able to incorporate bike lanes that can take you from one end of the country to the other!