Jen: It’s Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: It’s been a while since our last update. If you’ve forgotten, we are in Zurich. This is about the second full day, a Saturday. That was a lovely, beautiful day. We were going to walk all around downtown.

Jen: Yep! But before we get into all the fun stuff, just wanted to give you guys a quick update about Greg’s health. What began as a bit of a health scare turned into way more of a prolonged recovery period than either one of us were expecting.

Greg: Yeah, and technically I’m still recovering, but I’m doing much better. And we kind of really wanted to get back at this because we like sharing these updates of the time that we spent traveling Europe, and we just wanted to get back to doing it.

Jen: Yeah, and we just wanted to also say thank you for your patience and all your kind words that were sent after our written update.

Greg: Yeah, I was really kind of touched and moved, and I, I don’t know, maybe it was just I was on so much medication, but —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — so many people did reach out, like, just kind of said, “hey, we’re thinking about you. We’re praying for you.” Ah, it was really great, and thank you to everybody.

Jen: Yeah.

So like Greg said, it was a gorgeous Saturday morning, and we just decided to grab an Uber and take a ride into the city center of Zurich.

Greg: Yeah, we started off at a place called Paradeplatz, which means Parade Square, and was historically the place that they would do military parades.

Jen: Yeah, but now it’s a major hub for trams and buses, and it’s one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Switzerland.

Greg: All around Paradeplatz are a lot of the financial pieces that Switzerland, and specifically Zurich, has become known for. It’s one of the most important financial centers in Europe. It’s home to about 260 banks and manages roughly a quarter of all wealth that is managed abroad. Meaning people who want all their money to not be in the same nation where they live.

Jen: It’s also one of the world’s largest centers for private gold storage and trading.

So hundreds of other financial institutions operate in and around Paradeplatz as well. It’s kind of like a “who’s who”of global banking within just a few city blocks.

Greg: The cooler piece —

Jen: (laughing) For us, anyway.

Greg: Yes.

Is a chocolate company called Sprüngli, I think is how you pronounce it.

Jen: Yeah. So Sprüngli was founded in 1836 and they opened their Paradeplatz location in 1859. And it is actually one of the most famous chocolate shops in the world. Fun fact to kind of tie back to our Lindt chocolate factory — they were actually once the same company.

Greg: Yeah. Well, we went into the Sprüngli outlet, and it was really just a typical chocolate shop, like retail location. There was a long line, people buying lots of chocolate. But we had just done that factory tour, so we were a little bit chocolate-d out. We just went ahead and continued walking down what is known as Bahnhofstrasse.

Jen: So Bahnhofstrasse is one of the most famous and most expensive shopping streets in the world, comparable to Fifth Avenue or Champs-Élysées.

Greg: Yeah. It has a lot of luxury brands, but especially luxury watch boutiques, because Switzerland is actually the most dominant producer of luxury watches in the world…as measured by value for those people out there who might be sticklers. But the luxury watch industry itself generates about 25 billion Swiss francs a year in exports.

Jen: The place we were really headed to was the Beyer Watch & Jewellery Store. It’s an eighth generation of family collectors who run this store. The family business opened in 1760, and it’s one of the oldest watch retailers in the world. But what we were really wanting to see was the private museum that’s in the basement, and it includes timepieces dating back thousands of years.

Greg: Yeah, so when we got there, we really weren’t sure if it was the right place because it just looks like a normal watch store. There was a very nice guard out front who spoke English, and I asked if this was the correct place. He told us, “yes, this is the correct place.” He told us about some of the cool things that they had in the museum, like watch pieces from hundreds of years of the evolution, as it were, of timepieces, including some, like, sundials that were from ancient Egypt.

Jen: And I was really excited about this because I love watches! But…it’s closed on Saturdays.

Greg: So no admittance…

And we just continued up Bahnhofstrasse. We went to the Victorinox flagship store. If you are not familiar, Victorinox is the company that makes the famous Swiss Army knives.

Jen: Yeah, but they also make luggage and kitchen knives.

Greg: Yeah, a lot of stuff in there, but the shop was kind of small.

Jen: Yeah, I was really surprised at the size for a “flagship” store.

Greg: Yeah. But when you go, they have demos and show you how they make the knives. And of course, if anyone is purchasing a knife, you can see them assembling it in the store.

Jen: Yeah, ‘cause you can custom make your own knife so you can pick which little gadgets you want to carry around in your pocket.

Greg: Yeah. Unfortunately, they were not doing demos that day.

Jen: This is gonna prove to be a theme for this outing.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Anyway...

The next place that we headed towards is called Brunngasse Acht.

Jen: Brunngasse 8 is a building, and it’s the best preserved and most significant medieval Jewish family dwelling in Europe. And it sits in the heart of what, during the Middle Ages, was Zurich’s Jewish community.

Greg: And for those who like to hear me attempt German, that neighborhood is called Judengasse.

Jen: (laughs) For our German speakers, I hope everybody can forgive him!

Greg: Yeah...

Jen: But the building itself dates to about the 12th century, and approximately 1330, a Jewish family commissioned some wall paintings on the inside that are supposed to be really remarkable.

Greg: Yeah, and unfortunately, like most Jewish populations around Europe, in Zurich in 1349-ish when the Black Plague was occurring, many people blamed Jewish populations and communities for starting or spreading the plague, and they expelled the Jewish populations, and the buildings that they owned ended up either destroyed or passed on to other people or sold.

Jen: So when the new family took over the home, they covered these paintings and they were essentially forgotten for over 600 years. Until about 1996, when renovations were being done to the building and workers came across them purely by accident.

Greg: Yeah! And from that point, they were uncovered. They were studied. They tried to restore them to some effect, and a museum was created that opened in 2020. And like so many museums around Europe, the entry was free.

Jen: Yeah. It was also closed on Saturday.

Greg: Yeah. We, at this point, had come to understand that we probably should have paid a bit more attention to opening times and days.

Jen: And what day of the week it actually was! (laughs)

Greg: Yeah.

Well, around the corner from Brunngasse is a significant establishment. It’s specific to an art movement called Dada. It was a location called the Cabaret Voltaire.

Jen: Yeah. So just to give you a little bit of background, because I had to look it up. I wasn’t familiar. Dada is an art movement that emerged in Zurich around 1916 and it was founded by a group of artists and intellectuals who actually fled World War I. The art that they created was deliberately absurd, and it was a protest to the war. It also influenced modern conceptual art and surrealism.

Greg: So we didn’t go into Cabaret Voltaire, but we did learn this really neat coincidence is that Vladimir Lenin — yes, the Russian revolutionary —

Jen: (laughs softly)

Greg: — lived on the same street at exactly the same time that Dada was emerging. And also, James Joyce lived in Zurich at the same time.

Jen: Yeah, and James Joyce is an Irish poet and author if you’re —

Greg: Right.

Jen: — not familiar. Kind of —

Greg: Um…

Jen: — one of history’s greatest coincidences.

Greg: Uh, yeah. It’s just strange and almost —

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: — as surreal as the art when you learn this little tidbit.

Jen: Crazy.

Greg: Yeah. In any case, Dada’s not really our thing, so we just preferred to continue walking along and seeing some of the cool architectural buildings in history around Zurich, like the Grossmünster, I think it’s called, which is a church with iconic Romanesque towers.

Jen: Yeah. So we decided to keep walking and we went to Lindenhof.

Greg: So something about the site itself, Lindenhof is one of the oldest parts of Zurich, where there used to be, in Roman time, a customs post and a fort. And then later in medieval time, an imperial palace. So the square is kind of like on top of all that history and we thought this should be really cool.

Jen: Yeah, it just wasn’t really what we expected. There were tons of bocce ball courts and lots of trees and - because all of Europe smokes - lots of people smoking.

Greg: Yeah. And between the trees and the people standing there smoking, it was difficult to kind of go up and get a view of the water. It was, like, blocked a good bit.

Jen: Yeah. So we didn’t stay there for very long and decided we wanted to take a boat back to the hotel.

Greg: Bürkliplatz ferry dock was just a 10-minute walk away, so that’s where we headed. And got us some seats on a ferry, and we decided to sit towards the back —

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: — so that we could kind of watch the city pull away as we went down the lake.

Jen: So it was really cool. We got to see a lot of stuff from the lake. One of the things we saw was the Rotes Schloss, which is literally translated to the “Red Castle”. And it’s this castle-like building, which we had to look up because we’re like, WHAT IS THAT?! Apparently now it’s just an office building.

Greg: Yeah, but it is recognized as a significant cultural building in Zurich. It just happens to be an office building now.

Jen: Yeah, and there were lakeside villas and estates. Apparently it’s called the Gold Coast.

Greg: Goldküste

Jen: There you go.

Little small villages on each shore. People swimming in the lake, boating.

Greg: Yeah. And listen, Lake Zurich is beautiful and the day was beautiful. So all the scenery was gorgeous. But don’t forget, anytime you’re around Lake Zurich, you also have the backdrop of the Alps.

Jen: Yeah. It was just a gorgeous way to spend an afternoon.

Greg: Yeah. That ride back really kind of rounded out the day, even though there were so many things that we found out — not open on Saturdays.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: We still felt pretty good because we got to see some cool things, but the ride back just, you can’t be sad.

Jen: No. As a little boy once said, “there’s nothin’ better than a good boat ride”.

Greg: Indeed. Shout out to Aaron.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Um…the last, I guess, piece to discuss would be Switzerland in general is not a cheap place to see. Everything in Zurich, but all across Switzerland, extremely high priced.

Jen: Yeah. People ask us, “if you could live anywhere in any of the places you visited, where would it be?” And we often said if money wasn’t an object, we’d probably live in Switzerland because —

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: — it’s gorgeous.

Greg: Yeah, because at least in the summertime when we were there, Switzerland was fantastically beautiful.

Jen: Yeah. But again, it’s expensive. So if you’re planning a visit there, I would definitely be prepared to spend on the high end of your budget.

Greg: Yeah. The next update, we’re going to tell you how we hired a car and driver who took us from our hotel on Lake Zurich to a little small village called Lauterbrunnen.

Jen: Yeah, and despite Greg saying it differently every time…

Greg: It’s hard to say!

Jen: (laughs) Most of our update’ll be about our time spent in Wengen, which is a little village about halfway up the mountain in the Jungfrau region of the Alps.

Greg: Yeah, we’re also going to tell you about the hotel there, which was kind of like stepping back in time in a way, in a good way.

Jen: Yeah, I think this is probably one of our favorite spots in Europe.

Greg: I agree. So, thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we’ll see you at the next stop!

Hey everyone! We know it’s been quiet around here, and we owe you an update.

Last month, Greg had a health scare that put everything on pause. He’s getting better, but we’re still in recovery mode and it has definitely thrown a wrench in our energy for posting.

We’ve been pretty bummed about going dark on you all. We have so many stories and photos from our travels that we still want to share with you.

One bright spot? We’ve been having a blast watching the Olympics and reminiscing about all the amazing places we visited as we watch the amazing athletes from those countries. It’s reminded us how much we want to get back to sharing those experiences with y’all.

We hope to be back to posting again soon. Thanks for sticking with us.

Jen & Greg

Jen: It’s Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update will be the first of the time that we spent in Zurich. It’s another one of those locations that - it’s going to take us more than one update to cover it all.

Jen: Yeah, we went from Montenegro to Zurich because we wanted to experience the Swiss Alps before it got too cold because we didn’t have the proper clothing for snow and cold weather.

Greg: An interesting little fact about Zurich is it’s one of the happiest cities in the world. There is, uh, an organization in London that tracks the Happy City Index. And for 2025, Zurich ranked second happiest city in the world, just behind Copenhagen.

Jen: I can see that. It’s probably because Swiss people apparently consume about 22 pounds of chocolate per person per year.

Greg: Yeah. It’s tasty chocolate, too.

Jen: It is.

Greg: We flew into Zurich Airport, and like a lot of places in Europe, this really cool aspect of having a major passenger train station attached to the airport.

Jen: Yeah. It makes it really convenient, but getting to the trains themselves is a little bit of an adventure. So they make you go outside, like you’re going to pick up your baggage, but then you have to go back inside, then go up some stairs, like you’re leaving for the departures, to go back downstairs to get to the train platforms.

Greg: Yeah, it felt like being in one of those Escher paintings, where it seemed like no matter which way you walked, it was wrong.

Jen: Yeah, but we were following the sign, so it’s not like we were lost.

Greg: No. It was confusing.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: But we got it figured out, and we got on our train. We had a changeover in Zürich Hauptbahnhof, which put us on a very easy line to understand for us to get to Thalwil where we were staying, which is right on Lake Zurich.

Jen: Yeah, the walk from the train station to the hotel was about a mile long, so for us at that time, it really wasn’t that bad, even with backpacks. Our hotel was called Alex Lake Zurich, and we checked in and they gave us the most terrific room with a view of the lake.

Greg: Yeah, overlooking the water, very beautiful. Plus all around Lake Zurich, very beautiful.

Jen: Yeah, I think it’s probably one of the prettiest lakes I’ve ever seen in my life.

Greg: After checking in, they showed us around, and one of the things that we saw was this hotel restaurant downstairs. We took a look at the menu and immediately became very happy because it was about fresh food and vegetables and lean proteins and fish, and we were very excited to get back to eating stuff like that.

Jen: Yeah, I got fish that was caught in the lake outside, and I have never looked forward to eating a salad more in my entire life.

Greg: Yeah, we also learned something about utensils while we were there.

Jen: (laughing) Yes. So — because it was a whole fish — they brought us this knife, which I have always thought was a butter knife. But no, there’s an entire knife for fish.

Greg: Yeah, it’s the one that’s very small and has, like, a drop down to this flat portion. That growing up, I was told was a butter knife, but it didn’t really make sense because there’s already the butter knife. Apparently that is for removing the skin from fish and we never knew it.

Jen: Yep. Learn something new every day.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: So the highlight of this day was going to be our tour of the Lindt Headquarters in Zurich, which was in walking distance of our hotel.

Greg: Yeah, it’s one of the reasons we picked the hotel —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — if we’re being honest.

Jen: Yeah, so we decided to take a more leisurely pace and stop in one of the parks along the way so we could sit and enjoy the lake a little bit.

Greg: Yeah, it was a pretty nice little park, not a big one. But it’s right there on the lake, and it was us and two ladies who looked like they were just visiting while their dogs played together.

Jen: Yeah, this park was probably the site of one of our weirdest stories of the trip…

Greg: Yes, the weirdest story.

Jen: (laughs) So these two ladies that were there were talking and letting their dogs play. You know, there was a brunette lady, she had her dog. And a blonde lady that had her dog. We were further away sitting in the sun, just kind of enjoying the lake. And the brunette lady started walking back with her dog.

Greg: Yeah. So I’m talking to Jennifer about generally how amazing Switzerland appears to be —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: —if you can afford it. And her face just sort of, like, perks up and her eyes get real big and she looks directly past me. So I turn in time to see the blonde woman who had stayed back by the water, her leg just kind of settling because she chose to lay down.

And I’m, like, “Why did this woman choose to lay down next to the water?”

Jen: Yeah, so she didn’t choose to lay down. She was sitting on this stone wall and fell over like a sack of potatoes. Like she just passed out. And we didn’t know how close to the water she was on the other side of that wall. So I kind of freaked out and I popped up and I’m going to walk over there.

Greg: Well, that’s what I’m sitting here going, “I need a grown up!”

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So I start booking it towards the brunette woman with her dog going, “Ma’am, ma’am!”

Jen: And then I even start yelling at the lady, like, “Ma’am!” And we finally got her to understand, “Ma’am, your friend fell down.” And she kind of looked at us like we were crazy. Meanwhile, the blonde haired lady’s dog had run over and she said, “Oh, no, that’s her dog. She’s, she’s going to stay here.”

We’re, like, “No…she fell!” And it clicked at that moment for the brunette lady. And she was, “Oh, no!” And she got kind of frantic and started asking us to call the ambulance.

We don’t know what 911 is in Switzerland. So we told her that. Okay, well, she runs over there and “just hold my dog.” So I became a dog sitter for a day in Switzerland.

Greg: Yeah, and I’m a little bit sad to say, once that woman took over, and I’m kind of, like, feeling useless because I can’t do anything. I don’t speak Swiss German or Standard German, or I, and I don’t have a phone. I’m kind of just standing there, and then something in my brain clicked as…this might be a setup.

So now I’m on high alert. Did they realize that we were Americans from a distance and this is some kind of scam? So I’m just looking at Jennifer and I’m, like, “You keep that sling bag safe.”

And I’m like, wait, she can’t protect the sling bag —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — and hold the dog while the free dog is jumping all over the dog on the leash. So I’m, like, “Give me the dog on the leash.” It was…odd.

Jen: Yeah…chaotic as well.

And by that time, the brunette lady helped the blonde lady up. I don’t want to be mean about this, but she looked high when she got up. But it also could have been a medical episode. We have no idea what happened.

Greg: Yeah, I just find it strange if she were that high, the brunette woman would have noticed, and all of their posture and nonverbals that we could see at a distance, it seemed like a normal conversation between two friendly people.

Jen: Right. But she didn’t want us to call anybody for help. She didn’t want to call the doctor or anything like that. She said she was fine, and she lived a few blocks away from the park.

Greg: Which is what made us think it might have been drug related because why wouldn’t you want an ambulance if it was a medical episode?

Jen: Right. Once that all got settled, the brunette lady said, “I’ll walk her back to her apartment.” She took her dog back. And then we kind of felt bad. Like, are we letting this lady walk into an ambush at this stranger’s apartment? Because we still don’t know if they were friends for real or if they had just met in the park and had their dogs in common.

Greg: Right. So if it was a random encounter and now she’s walking with a stranger back to some random location, she might be in danger. But I’m still thinking we might be in danger. So I was, like, this woman seems to be in control and comfortable. Let’s let her do her thing. We need to start walking back to the area for the tour.

Jen: Yeah. I think we just watch too much TV.

Greg: Yeah, I do feel badly for having such a paranoid view of the situation. But, I mean, we’re in Europe and a lot of places warn you about how Americans get targeted, so I couldn’t help it.

Jen: But would that happen in the second happiest place in the world?

Greg: (laughs) Ha, right? Yeah.

Jen: So we decided to continue our walk towards the Lindt Headquarters, and that really only took us about three minutes. And we still had 20 minutes before our ticket time to let us in. So we found another park!

Greg: Yeah, this one was bigger. It was prettier. And there were a lot of people there doing the kind of thing you just think is like movie stuff and not real.

Jen: Yeah, like workers having their lunch on a park bench.

Greg: Yeah, couples walking around holding hands. It was… a little bit surreal.

Jen: Yeah, I was waiting on some musical moment to come up like, um, in Enchanted.

Greg: Yeah. (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

Greg (singing) How will she know?

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Anyway, it was a very lovely time in the park, even for just 15 minutes.

And then we went to the Lindt Headquarters. And the big thing that you notice when you are outside, but when you get close to the door and they open, you just hit with the aroma of the chocolate and you just can’t help but think, “This might be what heaven smells like!”

Jen: (laughs) I agree.

So the Lindt Chocolate Company is actually a global brand. And you’re probably most familiar with its truffles that are in brightly colored wrappers. They come in assorted flavors. But it was actually started in Switzerland by a man named Rodolphe Lindt.

Greg: Yeah, and apparently his contribution to chocolate making was an accident. In 1879, he left his little chocolate shop and forgot to turn off his mixing machine. So when he got back on Monday, it had been stirring for three straight days, and it produced a smooth chocolate that he had never experienced before and everyone seemed to really like.

Jen: So the first thing you see when you walk into this great big welcome area of this chocolate factory is this huge fountain…what you think is made of chocolate, but it’s not really.

Greg: No. And I tried to explain to Jennifer before we got there because we had a very…heated discussion.

Jen: It was spirited.

Greg: She was convinced it would be all chocolate pouring out of this thing at the top ceiling structure into this lower fountain area. First of all, the amount of chocolate they would be pumping up and down for that fountain. Secondly, people are gross. They would put their hands in there. They would spit in there. They might even pee in there. I don’t know. You can’t have it. It’s just not appropriate.

Jen: So Greg was thinking we were, like, going to fall into the Oompa-Loompa chocolate factory and we can’t use any of that chocolate anymore. Health Department Greg…

Greg: Right. But Jennifer was convinced it’s not the chocolate they use to make the candies. It can be whatever they want.

Well, guess what? When we got there, it is a big piece of, like, plastic painted to look like chocolate with little pieces of chocolate that roll down it.

Jen: But it smelled so good.

Greg: And I will admit, for all of my pessimism and concern, I was disappointed that it was not all chocolate.

Jen: (laughs) So after we took all of our pictures of the fountain, it was time to take our self-guided tour. And we grabbed our audio guide from the base of these stairs and stood in a long line waiting to get in.

Greg: It’s also not the smartest design because the first thing you do is walk into a very small, narrow room, which has a lot of decorations made to feel like you’re in a jungle where they’re trying to grow the cacao plants.

And there’s spots for you to listen to your audio guide, and they talk for anywhere from 45 to 60 seconds. But there’s one and then about 10 feet later, there’s another one. And so people walk in, they scan and block the entrance. Other people can’t walk in. And then they go 10 feet more and scan and wait again for another one minute long talk on the audio guide.

Jen: And that’s the ones that could get it to work the first time they scanned it. Because we had the same problem with that scanning issue as we went down the hallway. And it’s on both sides of the room, so you have displays on both sides. So there’s no clear path to get through to the other side.

Greg: Right. And there’s so many spots and everybody wants to scan their audio guide. And like Jennifer said, a lot of people didn’t know how to get them to work. So it was difficult to see everything that you had to see. You’re in this crowd of people and you really shouldn’t be so stuffed up at the very front of the museum. I don’t know why they designed it that way.

Jen: Yeah, but we finally made it to the end. And then we go into this other room that kind of gives you the history of when it came from Central America and slowly made its way to Europe.

Greg: Also, they talked about the social impact of having chocolate and drinking chocolate because that’s what it was in the beginning was mostly just a drink like hot chocolate.

Jen: Yeah, so that part was all really cool. Still got a little backed up because there were a lot of long audio guide snippets of information.

Greg: Well, and also at this point, we had begun changing our behavior, and we weren’t the only ones, of basically skipping many of the audio guides because so many people were around them or because, you know, the crowd being what it was, you wanted to get ahead of it.

And eventually, I would say halfway through the museum, we — and many other people — had just given up on the audio guides altogether because the placards that are near each section had a description that was often good enough.

Jen: Yeah, I agree. So the next room was a really fun room, at least for some of us.

Greg: Yeah, no, I was really stressed out in the next room.

Jen: (laughs) So this room had these big dispensers of chocolate that you could pull and sample each one with a little plastic spoon. You know, you get your sample of chocolate, you eat it, you throw your spoon away.

Greg: Yeah…that’s not what people did. And it really, really bothered me. We swapped out our spoons so the beautiful, smooth chocolate hits your spoon and it’s still a little bit warm and you taste it and then you see some grubby little kid with his cold virus or some old person who’s probably got COVID literally uses the same spoon that was in their mouth and they put it not under, not where there’s a, a gap of air. No! They jam it all up on it. So now their germs are all over that dispenser. It’s gross.

Jen: So needless to say, we didn’t spend too much time at those things. But towards the back of the room, there was another area that gave away, like, pieces of bars of chocolate. And they had different flavors in them like orange or, you know, hazelnut, those kind of things.

Greg: Well, it was intended for you to put your hand under it. It registers and drops a piece of chocolate bar into your hand. The problem became some people were treating it like it acts much quicker than it does. They put their hand, it wouldn’t drop. They would take their hand out, and then the chocolate would fall.

Jen: Yeah, so it was like a little hand sanitizer thing. That’s what people thought it was. I really think we ought to have these in our homes everywhere. Like, wave your hand under a thing, it gives you some chocolate...

Greg: Yeah, well, the first piece that I got actually ended up on the floor because I saw what was happening. And so I put my hand and left it until the chocolate dropped. But it dropped it with force that made it bounce off of my hand and hit the floor. And I wasn’t going to eat floor chocolate.

Jen: Yeah, so this is probably the chocolate that was made from the chocolate in the fountain that people put their grubby hands in, so…

Greg: (groans)

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Aw, you don’t need to say that. Ohhhh, but you know what? I survived.

Jen: Yep, we are still here.

So after we got our fill of chocolate and our blood sugar was a little off, (laughs) we decided to walk through to the other rooms in the tour. The next one we went in was this room with this huge globe on the wall that kind of lit up when you touched a certain point and it showed you the world’s consumption of chocolate. So that was kind of neat you could see that.

And then you go into this next room that it was almost like the yodeler game from The Price is Right, where everything was like a miniature model of Switzerland. So you had little villages and you had a mountain with a hiker going up it. Just kind of showing you the Swiss production of chocolate and where different things came from.

Greg: Yeah, I think the point of that room was to teach everybody just how many chocolate companies Switzerland used to have, because you learned about companies you’ve never heard of who started in the late 19th century and maybe went out of business before 1910. And then also it had big companies like Nestlé or Lindt or whatever.

So it was really interesting as a room. Plus, a lot of people were taking pictures because of all of the, the miniature models. It felt kind of like you were Godzilla next to the Swiss village.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: But, um, it was a neat room. The next room was also very interesting because it was like they had a time capsule of memorabilia from early 20th century and then like post-World War I and early, uh, 20th century up to World War II. And then in the ‘50s and the ‘60s, things like logo differences or, uh, tools that were used. It was really neat.

Jen: Yeah, I think one of the coolest things that we saw was, like, the molds that they used to make the chocolate bars way back when. They had some of those set out.

So we had one more room to go through. And this was probably my favorite room of all where they give you samples of the truffles. Now, granted, we have probably tried all of the flavors of truffles that they had, but we still were able to take one of each flavor for each of us. And they had persons on each end supervising to make sure you only took one a piece.

Greg: Yeah, but I felt singled out. They made for sure I was only taking one sample from each flavor. But people were walking up right in front of me and behind me, just jamming their hand in there and taking two, three, four of each one. Didn’t say anything to them, but they sure told me, “only one per.”

Jen: So Greg feels profiled.

Greg: I do!

Jen: (laughs) So I didn’t know how we were going to carry all of these truffles because they didn’t have a bag. But then I said, “Oh, I have a sling bag!”

And it was empty that day for the most part. It does fit 16 truffles, if you’re curious. Some of them did not make it all the way back. But my goal for the day was how to get these things to not melt.

Greg: Well, after you get out of that room, you walk past an area where they have sort of a smaller demonstration version of the automation that they have in their modern factory. And it was really cool to see just how they do a lot of what they do.

Jen: Yeah, so you see this all there on display, and then you see this really long line. Turned out it was a huge Rube Goldberg machine that gives you a sample of chocolate.

Greg: Yeah. And again, I was profiled. So you scan your entry ticket to the museum in order to get this big machine to do what it does. And it goes through the machinations and drops you your sample.

Well, the line is so long and they want to keep it moving that there are employees with boxes that are, like, “If you don’t want to wait, we have samples. You can pick one.”

So people are just going up and picking samples. I get up there and the lady’s, like, “Well, I need to see your museum ticket.”

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: You didn’t ask that person?!

Jen: So we didn’t wait in line, obviously, because it was really just all for Instagram. It was if you wanted to get a cool Instagram reel or something like that.

Greg: So that’s pretty much our experience at the Lindt Headquarters Chocolate Factory Museum. And we walked back to the hotel, a nice walk.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: We even stopped again at a different park. I think literally three parks along the way, we stopped at each of them. And, uh, we hung out in the hotel.

But we also realized, again we had been walking so much during our trip around Europe that Jennifer looked and we had walked almost eight miles that day and we didn’t even notice.

Jen: No, I wish I still felt like that.

Greg: Huh, yeah.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So the next update will also be Zurich, but we’re going to talk about how we walked around the city itself.

Jen: Yeah, we had our own little city tour that we had made up and we didn’t pay any attention to when things were open.

Greg: Right. So some disappointment.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: However, we also did a ferry ride on Lake Zurich to get back to the hotel, which was very nice.

Jen: Yes. There is nothing better than a good boat ride.

Greg: Ha! Indeed. So thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we’ll see you at the next stop!

We’ve been back from our “world tour” for a year now but through the process of posting to jenandgreg.travel, we have been able to listen to our daily audio-journals, look at all the pictures and be able to relive so many memories. And we truly enjoy sharing it all with you guys!

There’s still so much more to come so we hope you’ll stick with us.

Here are the “next stops” on our world adventure:

• Switzerland: Zurich and Wengen

• Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, Vatican City, and Rome

• A detour to Africa: Cairo, Egypt

• Greece: Athens, Santorini, Heraklion, and the Peloponnese

• The French Riviera & beyond: Nice, Monte Carlo, Lyon, Toulouse, and Bayonne

• Spain & Portugal: Donostia/San Sebastián, Bilbao, Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Cádiz, and finally Lisbon

So please stay tuned to hear about our travels “back in time” at a Swiss hotel, our road trip over a Greek mountain, the time when Jen thought she might have broken her kneecap, plus many more fun stories and pictures!

(Helpful hint: We try to fit our pictures into our transcript post, but sometimes we just have too many to share. So please don’t forget to click on the link at the top of the posts to see them!)

Thanks for checking in and we’ll see you at the next stop!

- Jen and Greg

Both: Hey everyone!

Jen: It’s Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update, we’re going to talk about the day we spent in Old Dubrovnik.

Jen: Yeah! So we chose to go to Dubrovnik because a friend of mine, Corina, and her husband, Brian, were on a Mediterranean cruise, and that was one of their port stops.

Greg: So for those who may not be aware, Dubrovnik is in Croatia, which is right on the Adriatic Sea, just north of Montenegro. And it’s a very popular stop for cruise ships and tourists because the Old Town is remarkably well preserved and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Jen: Yes. So to get there, we hired a car and driver. His name was Dusko. He was a really great guy, really nice. He normally gives boat tours around the Dubrovnik area, but in his “off time”, he does car driving.

So it was really beneficial for us because he kind of took on a tour guide persona, kind of telling us about Montenegro, telling us about Croatia, where he was from. So we got a lot of extra tidbits—

Greg: Yeah. It took us a little less than an hour to get to right outside of Dubrovnik. And when we got close, he actually asked if we wanted to do an impromptu detour.

Jen: The impromptu detour was to the top of Mount Srđ, which is the mountain that overlooks Dubrovnik. It’s about 400 meters above sea level, and it offers these great panoramic views of the rooftops of Dubrovnik, …the sea.

Greg: Yeah. And the views were absolutely fantastic. And he said that on clear days, you can actually see, like, almost 60 kilometers in just about every direction. So it was really, really cool up there. And it turned out to be the right choice because initially we planned to take the cable car that goes up to the top. There was a fort that used to be there. Now it’s like an old museum, military museum kind of thing. But at the end of the day, because of weather and because of timing, we didn’t end up doing that. So this was our only chance, as it turned out, to see that really cool view.

Jen: Yeah, it was awesome.

Greg: From there, Dusko took us right back down and drove the rest of the way into Old Dubrovnik, dropped us off right outside of the Pile Gate.

Jen: Yeah, which is where we were going to meet Brian and Corina. And it started to rain a little bit while we were waiting and we were kind of concerned that it was going to ruin the day, but it really wasn’t that bad.

So they showed up and I have to admit it was kind of like a Hallmark movie reunion scene. Corina and I hugged for the longest time. So it was really good to get that big hug and know that we were going to be able to spend the day exploring. And big shout out to Brian! He agreed to do all of this on his actual birthday.

Greg: Yeah, good sport.

Jen: So Pile Gate is part of the city walls that surround Dubrovnik, and they stretch up to two kilometers long and took centuries to build. They’re about 25 meters high, and in some parts, they’re, like, six meters thick.

Greg: Yeah. So a popular thing to do is ascend those city walls, kind of walk around them above the buildings and…and look out into the sea. And it’s really cool. But we thought we would be able to do that for free. It turned out to be kind of expensive. But more importantly, it was really crowded!

Jen: Yeah, I think a lot of what we planned to do that day was probably affected by the multiple cruise ships that were in port at the time. We just had a limited amount of time to spend that day, and we didn’t want to waste it standing in lines.

Greg: For sure. So the big thing, once you get through the city walls, you see this really big fountain. It’s called Onofrio’s Fountain. Onofrio della Cava was the Italian architect who actually designed and had built this elaborate water supply system to bring fresh water from a spring that was, like, however far away. And the fountain itself served as the main water source for the citizens until the late 19th century.

Jen: The fountain is 16-sided, and each side features, like, this unique carved stone mask where the water flows through the mouth of it, and it was damaged in the earthquake of 1667, which we’ll tell you more about later. It has been restored, but it did lose a lot of its original detailing.

Greg: Yeah, the coolest thing is the water that comes out of it, really clean, perfectly safe to drink, perfect coolness. Everybody goes up and fills their water bottles, which we did too.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: From Onofrio’s Fountain, we continued to what is the third oldest pharmacy in Europe on record and is actually the oldest continually operating pharmacy in Europe. It’s from a Franciscan monastery, and the pharmacy itself was founded around 1317.

Jen: Yeah, the pharmacy still operates today, and it actually sells skin creams and products that are made according to these ancient recipes used by the Franciscans using local wild herbs. You can visit the museum there, and you can see pharmaceutical tools, containers, and grinders from way back when.

Greg: Yeah. And it was another thing that when we looked for stuff to do, we thought was supposed to be free. But for some reason, they were charging about 15 euro a person. And because it was really crowded, we just decided it was best to skip it.

Jen: Yeah. Sometimes I’ve thought that maybe these things were being charged for because of the cruise ships and they were normally free. We just got the tourist tax.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: I mean, it could be.

After the pharmacy, we walked along what they call the Stradun. It’s the main street that goes through Old Dubrovnik. It’s about 300 meters long from the Pile Gate to Luža Square. It’s, like, a limestone tile paved thoroughfare right in the heart of Old Town. It’s where all the restaurants are, cafes and shops. The big thing, though, when you walk along the Stradun, you can hear the tour guides who were there talk about the earthquake of 1667.

Jen: Yeah, so on April 6th, 1667, at about 8:45 in the morning, a devastating earthquake struck Dubrovnik. It lasted between 8 to 15 seconds, and it was felt from 500 kilometers away.

Greg: Yeah, so all of those buildings along the Stradun were completely destroyed. Rubble blocked up the whole thing entirely. Something like 3,000 to 5,000 people happened to die, including the noble class and the city’s rector.

Jen: And huge stones rolled down from Mount Srđ. The ground was cracked open. The water sources dried up. The dust was so thick, it darkened the sky.

Greg: There was also a subsequent tsunami that came right through the harbor and destroyed almost all of the ships.

Jen: Fires from the toppled fireplaces and bakeries caused that rubble to burn for almost 20 days.

Greg: So the whole city was basically demolished, except for Sponza Palace and the Rector’s Palace.

Jen: Yeah, and the entire city had to be rebuilt, and the government chose to rebuild it in the Baroque style, which happened to be very popular at that time.

Greg: Yeah, so that’s why when you look at Old Dubrovnik, all of the architecture throughout is so uniform to the same style. It’s because almost everything that you see is all from the reconstruction following the earthquake.

Jen: Also, this disaster is noted as being the beginning of Dubrovnik’s decline as a major maritime power.

Greg: Right. So at the eastern end of the Stradun, it opens up into the Luža Square, which is like the historic heart of Old Dubrovnik. That’s where the Sponza Palace is, the Rector’s Palace, the Church of St. Blaise, and there’s also a structure kind of in the middle called Orlando’s Column.

Jen: So Orlando’s Column is right in the center of the square, and it’s about a four-meter-tall pillar that features an armored medieval knight….Orlando!

Greg: Yeah,

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Yeah they erected it in, like, the 1400s. It’s just like a symbol of the city’s independence.

Jen: Yeah, but a fun fact of this statue is that Orlando’s right forearm measures about 51 centimeters. And that was actually the official measurement unit in Dubrovnik, which was called the lokat, kind of like a cubit. Merchants would use this exact length to measure and sell their material.

Greg: Yeah. And apparently at the base, you can still see, like, markings of measurements, which is kind of neat.

We left Luža Square and we went towards Dubrovnik Cathedral, which their claim to fame, as it were, people like to joke is because they have the diapers for baby Jesus.

Jen: One of their relics is supposed to be the swaddling clothes of the baby Jesus. And they’re stored there in this very ornate silver reliquary from the 16th century.

Greg: Yeah, so apparently it’s just a thing in the translation. Swaddling clothes and diapers, not really the same thing, but when they try to translate it to English, they just use diapers. Or maybe because they know that’s going to get people to come and check ‘em out. I don’t know.

But, uh, they have, like, over 120 relics in there, including body parts from St. Blaise, and they claim to have a piece of the true cross. We did not go through their quote-unquote treasure room because, again, very crowded and we were limited on time.

Jen: So we left Dubrovnik Cathedral and walked to yet another church, the Church of St. Ignatius.

Greg: Yeah, so the Church of St. Ignatius is their big Baroque church. One of the appealing aspects to it, though, is right outside something called the Jesuit Stairs.

Jen: Yeah, so it’s this grand staircase that connects the square to the church itself, and they’re modeled after the famous Spanish Steps in Rome.

Greg: Yeah, the stairs really were cool, but also the church itself inside was really beautiful, and because it’s bigger, it could accommodate the crowd much better. So it was much more comfortable to kind of appreciate the things inside, whether it was paintings and artwork or if it was the decorations on the altar. We took our time in there. It was cool.

Jen: Yeah. After the church, we headed to our lunch reservation at a Michelin-recommended restaurant called the Taj Mahal, which, funny enough, did not serve Indian food.

Greg: No, it’s Bosnian food, which may also sound random, but it’s not really because Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, it’s all that shared culture, centuries of shared history. So the cuisine really does kind of blend together. It’s all like Balkan, Mediterranean, Turkish influence kind of thing.

Jen: Right. So it’s famous for a lot of traditional dishes, one being ćevapi, which is small grilled beef sausages served in, like, a flatbread with onions and a kajmak cream and a pepper relish, which was really good.

And there’s a soup that we didn’t try, but it seemed to be pretty popular called bey soup, which is a rich, creamy chicken and okra stew.

Greg: Yeah. And of course, they also have, like, baklava and some other kind of sweets that are more Eastern European. But besides that, it had this overall kind of authentic feel. I mean, we don’t really know what authentic —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — Bosnian is, I guess, but seemed genuine to us.

Jen: And the food was great and everybody was really nice. So it was a really cool experience to be able to kind of have our birthday lunch there.

Greg: Yeah. Still don’t know why they call it the Taj Mahal.

Jen: Nope.

Greg: So originally we had planned for after eating to do the cable car up to the top of Mount Srđ to see that old fort military museum and stuff. But like we said, because of the weather and we were running short on time, we had to just skip it. So turned out to be a really good thing that Dusko thought, hey let me take you on this detour.

Jen: Yeah. So instead of the cable car, we spent a little more time exploring, like, the side streets of the city and going in some of the shops. And we stumbled upon this tasty little gelato store.

Greg: It was really good gelato.

Jen: It was very good gelato!

Greg: Yeah. So from there, we just kind of made our way back to the Pile Gate, walked out through the city walls. And as it turned out, their cruise ship bus was already there.

Jen: Yeah, and we said goodbye, told Brian happy birthday. Felt like another scene from a Hallmark movie where I sadly watched them get on the bus and waved as they drove off. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah, but it was a good day! For Jennifer and I, it was still earlier than our original plan for when Dusko would pick us back up at Old Town Dubrovnik. We thought about walking around a bit more, but with the rain and everything, it just wasn’t going to work. So she messaged him if he could pick us up earlier than we expected. And that’s when we realized this was going to be a problem…

Jen: Yeah. He told us that it would probably be about an hour and a half. And then when we looked around, we realized because it’s so full of traffic.

Greg: Yeah. I mean, everything was complete gridlock. And as it turns out, it’s a road higher up that does a little bit of switchback curve to get down to where Old Town is. And all of it is just bumper to bumper and none of it’s moving.

Jen: Yeah. So he sent us a pin of where we needed to meet him. And it turns out that pin was about a mile and a half…uphill. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. Well, to be fair, it was not nearly as grueling as the Czech Republic “easy walk”.

Jen: (groans) Ugh, nothing is as grueling as that! (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. But we did have to stop a couple times, and remember, it’s raining.

Jen: Yeah, so we get up to the main road, where we’re supposed to meet, and we’re getting closer to the pin, when all of a sudden the car pulls over to the side of the road, and it’s actually Dusko.

Greg: Yeah. And once we got in the car, it was easy enough to drive back to Montenegro and the hotel. But the cool thing was during the ride, he kind of went back into that tour guide mode, told us all about the natural park island. I think it’s called Lokrum Island.

Jen: Mmhmm.

Greg: He also told us about some of the neighborhoods that we could see because the road really does overlook the water. And it’s really beautiful while you drive along that path.

Jen: Yeah, and he told us apparently a lot of Americans and Canadians are buying property there.

Greg: Yeah, which we 100% understood because Croatia was so beautiful, at least the part that we saw. And if we were in that point of retirement mode with enough money to just buy a house somewhere, why not? Because it was really great.

Jen: Yeah, so we got back to the hotel and we’re telling the staff about our day and they kind of laughed at us…

Greg: Yeah, well, because apparently in this region, they get 260 or more days of sunshine a year. And there’s really only about two or three days a year that it rains. It just happened to be one of the days we went to Dubrovnik.

Jen: Of course…

Greg: Yeah. Overall, Dubrovnik was a really great place to visit. It’s called the “Pearl of the Adriatic”. And we absolutely understand that.

Jen: Oh, for sure. I wish we could have spent more time there.

Greg: Yeah, me too. More than one day would have been much better.

Jen: Agreed.

Greg: So the next update is going to be after we left Montenegro, we flew into — Zurich, Switzerland.

Jen: Yeah, we spent some time in Zurich. We stayed on Lake Zurich, which was a beautiful area, toured a little bit of the city, and one of our favorite stops, the Lindt Chocolate Headquarters.

Greg: Yeah. And generally speaking, all of the updates from here on are going to be Switzerland and then Italy for a while. And then after that, Egypt. So we’re really starting to get to places that people constantly ask us about.

Jen: Yeah. And we like talking about ‘em!

Greg: Oh, yeah.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: They were great. They were so great.

So thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we’ll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey everyone! It’s Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This time we’re going to talk about Montenegro.

Jen: I’m not really sure how we’re going to be able to fit all of our month in Montenegro into one post, uh, but we’re going to give it our best shot.

Greg: Yeah, I think basically we should tell people about Montenegro ‘cause I think a lot of people maybe have not heard of it.

Jen: Okay! So Montenegro is a small Balkan country that is directly across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It is very popular with tourists from Croatia and Russia, Serbia, but it is growing more popular with tourists from Western European countries and even Americans as well.

Greg: Yeah! So there’s plenty of places to visit in Montenegro. There’s a UNESCO city called Kotor, and it was actually popular with cruise lines. It’s a stop for many cruise lines on the Mediterranean.

Jen: Yeah, we actually saw several cruise ships coming in and out of that bay from Kotor.

Greg: Yeah. Besides Kotor, there’s Cetinje, there’s Budva, there’s also a national park for the big mountain areas, and uh, there’s seaside resorts. We picked a small town called Herceg Novi.

Jen: Yeah, so Herceg Novi is right there on the coast, and it’s really close to the Croatian border. It has beautiful scenery. There’s green hills. There’s blue water. If you look out from the water into the city, there is a fort that’s there that kind of dominates the cityscape. And with all that being said, it is still really affordable.

But I think that’s probably because there are parts of town that are a little older, a little bit more run down. Not that we ever felt unsafe or it’s dangerous at all. It’s still a really great place to stay!

Greg: There’s also a promenade that you kind of walk along the water’s edge. We did that too. It’s a lot of restaurants. Some of the hotels are also along there, but it was a really neat walk.

Jen: Yeah, and according to Google Maps, Herceg Novi is “the medieval city known for its many steps”. And I think we climbed just about all of them.

Greg: Yeah…it was a little bit of a tough haul, especially with the narrow streets sometimes. But, um, overall, architecture, Old Town, we love it. This had that. There was a church. It was very old and really neat to see - inside and out - although it was really small.

Jen: Yeah, I think that church probably could have fit in maybe, like, the reception area of a lot of those European churches we went to.

Greg: Yeah, for sure. Uh, besides that, we did walk around the old fort that she mentioned. It’s called Forte Mare.

Jen: (laughs) Greg always says things with an Italian accent.

Greg: Well, it depends. If I’m in Italy, it’s Spanish.

Jen: Yeah. (laughing) It’s never country appropriate with his language.

Greg: Yeah, in any case, the fort is in a little particular part that gives a great vantage point of the bay so that you can watch for those attacks from the sea. Because, you know, it was built in the late 1300s.

I do question how much defense it provided, though, because apparently that fort changed hands a lot…

Jen: Yeah, I think it was run by the Venetians, the Spanish at one point, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire that we mentioned last time.

Greg: That’s right. The Habsburgs!

Jen: (laughs) So I don’t think defense was their strong suit…

Greg: I guess not. We did have one gripe about Herceg Novi specifically. We like sandy beaches. We did not realize that’s not what they have.

Jen: Yeah, somehow in all of our research, we missed that.

Greg: Yeah

Jen: Um, it’s rocky beaches there in Herceg Novi, and they’re a little bit tough on the feet.

Greg: Yeah, but we did swim in the Adriatic a few times, which was really, really nice. The water temperature’s a little chilly, but still very comfortable.

Jen: Yeah, it’s kind of fun when we’re out there swimming and we’re like, “We’re in the middle of the Adriatic Sea.”

Well, maybe not the middle…(laughs) but we’re swimming in the Adriatic Sea.

Greg: Yeah, which is kind of like swimming anywhere else, I guess, except the water is completely clear.

Jen: Yeah. And there’s these little fish that like to nibble on your toes and your legs.

Greg: Some of those little fish bit a little bit hard.

Jen: I realize that people, like, pay good money in some parts of the world to have this experience, like a spa, but, um, I will never be one of those people.

Greg: No. It was…awkward and weird.

Jen: (laughs) Yes.

Greg: But if you go far enough away from the shoreline, uh, the water gets a little too deep. Those little fish are not there.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: So for staying in Herceg Novi, we chose a little kind of mid-range hotel called Centar Novi. And the staff there really made it worth it. The service we received rivaled even the luxurious hotels that we chose during our travel. They were so great.

Jen: Yeah, and it was probably one of the cleanest hotels we stayed in. I mean, every day they would come in, and if you didn’t have your little sticker on the door, they were gonna full mop the room, change the sheets, all of that.

One day we were in the room working on something, and we heard them doing a turnover of the room next to us. And we went to peek outside to see what all the noise was. And they were flipping up the mattress, vacuuming under the bed, moving out the couch, vacuuming behind that. I’ve never seen that happen before in a hotel.

Greg: Yeah. And the thing that was surprising is when they would do the mopping and the bathroom cleaning and the sheets, that’s every day! Unless you hung the tag on your door that said, please leave me alone.

Jen: Yeah, they were really great. And like Greg said, the staff was awesome. There was probably about five or six of them that were there all the time. They got to know us whether they liked it or not.

Greg: Yeah. Also, it was really great because we didn’t speak the language locally. And they did speak English, most of them pretty well. And so if we went up front and said we’d like to order food to have delivered or we need to get a taxi, they would call, speak the local language. And, you know, in the case of the taxi, they’d walk down and outside, wait for the taxi with us, talk to the taxi driver and say, here’s what’s going on. Like, wait for them at this place, bring them back. So we really appreciated that.

Jen: Yeah, it was really awesome. And one special thing that I remember about the staff in general, probably about three days before my birthday, I said, “Man, I’m not going to get a birthday cake this year.”

I never ask for a birthday cake…

Greg: I was surprised that you made the comment.

Jen: And so poor Greg, unbeknownst to me, started to scramble. And he got the chef there at the hotel that made our breakfast to make me a cake.

Greg: Yeah. Now, a little bit of context. “Chef” is being generous —

Jen: Yes, but that’s what they said.

Greg: She prepares the breakfast because she’s also the person who makes the pastries for the cafe down on the first floor.

Jen: Yes. So the cake was a chocolate cake. And on top of it, it had kind of like what I think was supposed to be a vanilla mousse, but maybe had a little bit too much gelatin in it. So it was a little stiff, but it had a mirror glaze on it. And she had written “happy birthday” in English.

Greg: Yeah. And when we went up for breakfast on Jennifer’s birthday, Isadora - the chef - looked at me and I just nodded. So when Jennifer sat down, uh, with her breakfast, Isadora came out with the cake, couple little candles in it, and was very quietly and softly singing “Happy Birthday” in English.

Jen: Yes, because everything she did was quiet. She was a very soft spoken lady. So I think singing was probably way out of her comfort zone —

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: — so I really appreciate it.

So when we got the cake, we said, “Please sit down with us, have a slice of cake for breakfast.”

Um, and she said, “No, no, thank you. I don’t I don’t eat the cake. I just make it with love.” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting piece to that, though. We offered cake to a lot of the people that work the front desk. We offered to share cake with the people who worked in the cafe. Everyone would say no. It was like you wanted to go, I guess the cake’s not good. No, it was a good cake! They just didn’t want to take the cake from us.

Jen: Yeah, so we asked about this. We asked one of the staff members that we had kind of gotten close to, “So we’ve been trying to share this cake, but nobody seems to want it. Like, why is that?”

Greg: Yeah, so they said it’s kind of a holdover from the older generations who got used to when it was all communist run. Apparently, that behavior persists of don’t take gifts, don’t take favors, you don’t want to owe anyone. And, uh, we thought that was a really neat cultural difference.

Jen: Yeah. And we noticed a few other cultural differences, too, while we’re on the subject. One of those things we saw was in the grocery store that was on the first floor of the hotel. We were in there quite often. And whether it was a long line or a short line, people would ask to cut in line, basically. Like if a woman had a baby, can I please go in front? And nobody ever seemed to have a problem with this.

Greg: No, it’s true. One time we were next for the register ‘cause there was usually only one register.

Jen: Right.

Greg: And it was just this one guy who just needed one sponge. And there were probably about four or five people behind us. He walked up, spoke in whatever language, uh, and everybody just kind of like shrugged. And he looked at me. I kind of guessed what he said, but I just gave him the motion generically like, please, after you. Um and he just went right ahead, paid for his one sponge, thanked everybody and walked off. And it was like, no big deal.

Jen: Yeah. And then another time there was this lady behind us when we were checking out in line and she asked us a question in her language. And the cashier looked at us and said, “She wants to know if she can put your bill on her rewards card.” And we said, “Sure, that’s no problem.”

But everything always seemed to work itself out. Like it was so pleasant. Nobody got offended. Nobody got annoyed. It was what it was.

Greg: Yeah. Well, there was also a place in that grocery store to get food, which is kind of why we went there so often, whether it was like meatballs or stuffed peppers.

Jen: My favorite!

Greg: Yeah. Unfortunately, because we didn’t speak the local language and the women behind the counter…they did not speak English. Sometimes it was a little difficult, but, you know, I know we frustrated them, ah, once or twice, but they were usually very patient with us.

But the last time that we knew we were going to go there before we left, we broke out the phone, used Google Translate to kind of write, you know, a little something for them, just basically saying, “We really appreciate all of your patience and your smiles, and you made it really great for us during our time here. We’re going to miss you.” You know?

Jen: Yeah. And so when I handed my phone to the lady across the counter, she kind of gave us this weird look like, “Why are you giving me your phone?:

And until she read what we had written and she kind of got this look in her eye and I thought she was going to get a little emotional. And she handed it to the other lady who I affectionately called “the grumpy one” — (laughs)

Greg: (laughs)

Jen: — And they both kind of put their hand on their heart and smiled at us. I think it was just really neat for us to be able to make that connection with somebody.

Greg: Yeah, it’s always nice when you can connect with the local people while you travel.

One other cool thing about the culture in Montenegro, even though technically it’s not part of Serbia, they all used to be a part, you know, of the same country and the same culture. So, uh, they have a shared thing called kajmak, which the Serbian government in 2017 recognized officially as integral to their cultural heritage.

Jen: Yeah, and while we weren’t in Serbia, we still enjoyed it quite a lot.

Greg: Yeah, it’s kind of like butter, but like better.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: It’s not quite cheese, but…ahh it was just, it’s good. And they would give it to you to, like, put on bread and snack on, or they would stuff it inside of like, uh, a cutlet and make like a roulade that they would fry or whatever. And then when you cut into it, it would kind of just ooze out like a creamy sauce.

Jen: Yeah. And we were so excited about it after we came back from this restaurant and we told Melitza, the lady at the hotel, and she looked at us like, you can buy that in the grocery store. (laughing)

Greg: Yeah. They’re like, yeah, it’s kajmak, whatever.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Um, but yeah, look, the, the main reason that we were in Montenegro to let the Schengen area calendar keep rolling on, right? We’ve, we’ve talked about it, ah, more than once. And so Montenegro being outside of the Schengen area allowed us to do that. And we wanted to be able to spend some of that time working on the Substack and doing a lot of the updates of places we had traveled before.

Jen: And one of the added benefits that we didn’t even realize at the time, we were able to research a lot of places we wanted to go and plan a lot of our future travel while we were there.

Greg: Yeah, we got a lot of travel booked.

Jen: Yeah. I think we changed our minds on a few places a couple of times, but we had the time! (laughs)

Greg: (laughs) Yes. But look, when you spend a month somewhere, you end up with a little bit of anecdotal stories as well. And we have those.

Jen: Yeah, I feel like one of my favorites that we always tell is our very first night there, we were walking to dinner. And as we passed the cafe that was on the first floor, it was kind of on a raised area. And there was a three inch drain pipe that came out onto the sidewalk. And as we walked by, out of the drain pipe pops this little black kitten that was probably two months old. And he pounced on us like a panther.

Greg: Oh, yeah! Had his paws up in the air looking at us like he was going to try to do something!

Jen: Had this hoarse little meow. He was like he thought he was a huge jungle cat.

And I was so worried that he was about to try to follow us onto the busy street. But thankfully, he did not.

Greg: Also, I feel you’re leaving out the part where you wanted to pick him up, and I said, “DO NOT TOUCH THE WILDLIFE.”

Jen: This is true. This was probably the first of many times on this trip that Greg’s like, “No, you can’t touch the dog. No, you can’t touch the cat. Leave them alone.”

Greg: Yeah, so...funny enough, the dog she’s mentioning, we had gotten to calling the Neighborhood Enforcer.

Jen: Yes. So this was a beagle mix. So it had a special place in our heart. But this dog strutted around that town. He did not just walk around that town. He had a strut.

Greg: Oh, and when he crossed the street, every car stopped.

Jen: Yep! Everybody knew him. He would go to the grocery store, people would know him. We were in the restaurant across the street. He walked in, kind of gave it a once over, looked at everybody, walked out like he was the manager. Just wanted to make sure everybody was working.

Greg: Yeah! Walked into our hotel lobby at one point, just laid down and took a nap.

Jen: Yep. And I happened to go upstairs and sneak out a teacup so I could give the dog some water because I felt bad for him. He wasn’t a skinny dog. This was somebody’s dog. I don’t know why I felt bad for him!

Greg: No, in fact, she puts the, the little teacup down. She gets the water in it. And the dog’s looking at her like, do you want me to drink this?

Jen: (laughing)

Greg: And he took a couple of sips to be polite. And then he just kind of like looked at us like, what are you doing?

Jen: Went back to his nap. And Nevin upstairs, the hotel guy, he was like, “Y’all are crazy.” He thought we were the silliest Americans trying to take care of this dog.

Greg: Well, yeah, because from his perspective, he’s like, it’s somebody’s dog ‘cause he’s fat.

Jen: And he goes, “You can’t bring him in your room.” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) But —

Jen: I thought about it! (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. But, um, besides the animal story, one really strange thing. I think it was within the first couple of days. We’re looking out the window from our room that overlooked the marina and we could see the water. It was beautiful. But in the marina, there’s this bigger sailboat. And at the top is a flag. And Jennifer’s like, “I think that’s a UT flag.” And I’m like, “Noooo”.

Jen: (laughs) Greg’s like, “Why would there be a UT flag in Montenegro?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” So I take my phone and, like, zoom in and take a picture. Sure enough, Longhorn flag in the middle of the marina. I wanted to sneak down to the marina to see who was there.

Greg: Oh, no, no. They keep the riffraff out and that included us.

Jen: Yes. So it was only there a couple of days. So he left. So we didn’t get to see who it was. But it was really random.

Greg: Yeah. But, you know, a lot of little stories like that.

Once the month was up, uh, I think the, I guess saddest part was we had grown so close with the staff that it was a little bit emotional to say goodbye.

Jen: Yeah, we, I think we all got a little teary eyed. Melitza, the staff member there, she gave us a big hug and she said, “I’m not normally a hugger, but I will hug you.” It was just like we were leaving friends at that point.

Greg: Yeah, yeah.

So, uh, that pretty much wraps up, I think, almost everything for Montenegro. The one piece we left out, we’re going to talk about in the next update.

Jen: Yeah, so one of my close friends and her husband were on a Mediterranean cruise, and one of their spots that they were going to stop was in Dubrovnik…in Croatia.

So since we were so close, we were able to take a day trip there and be able to hang out with them for the day. So it was really awesome!

Greg: Yeah, so the next update will tell you all about Old Dubrovnik, which we both agree is worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Jen: Yeah, I wish we would have had more time there for sure.

Greg: Yeah. So thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we’ll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey everyone! It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This time we're talking about…Vienna!

Jen: Yay!

Greg: In the last update, we made a statement of - we felt despite Vienna being one of the most popular destinations in Europe, it is still underrated.

Jen: Yes, I agree. So to give you a little bit of context as to, to why we feel this way, Vienna has a lot of history. It goes back to 1273 when the Habsburg dynasty started their rule over a vast empire that included much of what we now call Central and Eastern Europe. This rule lasted until 1918.

Greg: Yeah, and Vienna was basically the de facto capital for the whole 650-year period, which makes it like the cultural heart and political heart of Central Europe.

Jen: Yeah, and this imperial legacy really helps explain their extraordinary architectural landscape. There are Gothic churches from the medieval period. There's lavish Baroque palaces and monuments from 17th and 18th centuries, like the Belvedere Palace and St. Charles Church. And then it goes into the 19th century where there's a combination of neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance and neo-Baroque styles like the Opera House and Parliament, City Hall, all kind of make what Vienna is known for.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: So the culture of Vienna during that period is just central to all of Europe and the world, really, because composers like Mozart and Beethoven thrive there. And Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, which was a huge step in the field of psychology. And there were so many other artistic movements that flourished around the 1900s.

Greg: Yeah, look, the bottom line is, from our perspective, you hear people talk about the greatest capitals in Europe, and they mention Paris, they mention London, they mention Rome, and Vienna usually comes after. And our standpoint is Vienna absolutely should be mentioned in those names, if maybe not even the forefront of those names.

Jen: Agreed completely.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: So when we arrived, that was actually day 137 of our travel. And like it has become our habit, we didn't eat breakfast that morning.

Greg: Right.

Jen: (laughs) Because breakfast is not really a thing in Europe, as we've said before.

Greg: Uh, and then, of course, we just checked in at our hotel, which was 600 feet from the State Opera House.

Jen: Yes. The hotel was called the Grand Hotel Wien. Like Greg said, it was very close to the Vienna State Opera House. And when we got there, we were given an upgrade. So we got a room with a terrace.

Greg: Yeah, it was a beautiful terrace.

Jen: Yes.

Greg: It was a nice hotel.

Jen: One of the cool things about the Grand Hotel Wien - it opened in 1870, and it was Vienna's first luxury hotel, and the first actually to be called “Grand” in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it featured so many different amenities that were revolutionary for their time. It had 300 rooms, steam-powered elevators, and it even had a telegraph office. It also had its host of celebrities that stayed there in the 19th and 20th centuries, and one of the most famous was Johann Strauss II, who became known as the “Waltz King”. He celebrated his 50-year jubilee at the hotel in 1894.

Greg: Yeah, so we left the hotel to get some food because by this point we had not eaten yet. And we really wanted to experience local food. It's kind of what, what we try to do everywhere we go. And Viennese food, I would describe as very similar to German food, except maybe a little more delicate, at least where we went.

Jen: We had a Wienerschnitzel and what they called a potato salad, but it was actually potatoes in butter with a little bit of balsamic vinegar over field greens. So it was a literal potato salad.

Greg: It was really good, though.

Jen: It was very good! But they didn't really have anything on the dessert menu that intrigued us. And dessert is one of our favorite things, let's be honest. So we pulled out the Google Maps and decided to search for dessert near us. And we found a place right down the road that was actually the original spot of one of our favorite desserts.

Greg: It is a Sacher Torte.

Jen: Yes, and this hotel has an entire gift shop that sells nothing but these tortes.

Greg: Yeah, and we bought…

Jen: Nothing but those tortes. (laughs)

Greg: (laughs) Yeah.

So the next day that we were there was our big walking around Vienna day. And that's really where I think we kind of developed our feelings because we started by walking towards what's called the Volksgarten, which, if you are familiar with German, means the “People's Garden”.

Jen: Greg's very fluent in German now, so he likes to translate things randomly.

Greg: I am not fluent, but it's interesting because you think of Volkswagen, it means “people's car”. In any case, while we were walking, we passed through several of the ‘platz’ and we passed buildings that it was like almost every 15 seconds we were, like, “What is that? What is this?”

Jen: Yeah, even the normal buildings, like regular offices and apartments, they were even pretty.

Greg: Yeah, they did a very good job of preserving a lot of that architecture from the 18th and the 19th centuries for which Vienna is known. And I, I love it for doing that.

Jen: Yeah, so some of the cool things that we saw along our walk were the Hofburg Palace, which is a huge building. I think now it's, like, a government building. And the Rathaus, off in the distance, you can see the spire of a building. And that's the city hall.

Um, but as we were walking along, looking at all these wonderful things, we smelled this horse smell.

Greg: Yeah, you know, like the stable kind of smell. It's very unique. And I saw some people standing in an area and then I just saw a horse and I just told Jennifer that was a horse.

Jen: And I thought he was crazy because nowhere along our walk did we see, like, horse-drawn carriages or anything like that. I didn't know what he was talking about.

Greg: Yes, so we just went over where other people were standing, and it was this glass area where you could look into what was kind of a big to-do stable as a part of the big, uh, palace building.

Jen: Yeah, and they were really pretty white horses. And I kind of walked around looking for a sign trying to explain what this was. And it was actually the Lipizzaner Stallions.

Now, if you grew up in the ‘80s, you may remember in your town seeing a commercial because these horses toured during that time. And I remember thinking, “Ahhh, that would be so cool to see because they were dancing horses!”

Greg: Yeah. And when we were watching the horses go from their arena back to the stable, we just said, let's see if they have tickets for any kind of performance while we're here.

Jen: Yeah. So they didn't have any tickets to a performance, but they do, um, sell tickets so you can watch their practice. So we decided to get some.

Greg: Yeah, they were pretty reasonably priced tickets too, so.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: From there, we did walk through some other places like Josefplatz or Heldenplatz. But the big thing is we went to the National Library of Austria.

Jen: So, no surprise, I really enjoyed this library. It was amazing. You walk in and you feel like you're Belle from Beauty and the Beast walking into his library at the castle. There are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books, the rolling ladders, and just beautiful paintings on the ceilings, and everything was just ornate and lovely.

Greg: Yeah, a little bit of a disappointment because they had some kind of, like, tribute display as well. So if you see the pictures when we put ‘em up —

Jen: (scoffs)

Greg: — some of them may have like posters of this guy's face. Um, but overall, it was it was a really cool library.

From the library, we headed towards the State Opera House because we had a tour, but we had extra time and we saw that there was this tea shop, like, right across from the opera house. So we went in and not only did they sell, like, loose leaf tea and various things related, they also had a place in the back where they would serve you tea that they sold. It was really cool because we just described what we like and they created customized blends right there and brewed it. And we got two different teapots. And I think it was like 10 euro for both of us.

Jen: Yeah. And it was a very neat little environment, too. It was like you were in a back secret room having tea. We wound up buying some tea to travel with. So we have now become those people who bring their own tea places…

Greg: Which turned out to be good, because while we were traveling a few times, we were like, we would really like to enjoy some tea right now. And we have time. We have it.

Jen: Yep! (laughs)

Greg: So once we were done with that, we went across the street to the State Opera House. However, it was raining, so we kind of had to run. But thank goodness we had our little packable rain jackets.

Jen: Yes. Very smart purchase. Good job, Past Us! (laughs)

Greg: Yes!

Jen: But the Opera House is really cool to tour. Um, it still has four rooms that are original to when it was built in the mid-to-late 19th century. The rest has been restored from damage sustained in World War II and just due to age. Unfortunately, we weren't there during opera season. We were kind of hoping to be able to see one just to experience that. But we were a little too early.

Greg: Yes, the opera season is also extremely difficult to get tickets, uh, even for individual performances. And they have an annual gala at the beginning of the season, which is literally world famous. And people show up. I should say people with money show up —

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: — from all over the world to attend that ball.

Jen: Yeah, the videos that they had from it were…something to see.

Greg: Yeah. Something else that was really cool about the opera house is in the main auditorium, there's this massive chandelier.

Jen: Yeah. So this chandelier is made of, like, three tons of crystal with 1100 bulbs. And it even has its own maintenance walkways built inside it. The cleaning all has to be done from above because it can't be lowered. And it takes more than a week to do that.

Greg: Yeah. But it was a really magnificent chandelier.

Jen: It was. For sure.

Greg: So we left the State Opera House. We went, um, a little ways to St. Charles Church, which I know we talked about how we were starting to get a little burnt out on churches, but this one has some really nice architecture and, uh, was a highlight for people who do visit Vienna because they let you walk up to various levels where you can be literally right next to the organ, which was kind of neat. And there's a, an entryway up to the top of the church, which gives you a terrific view of big parts of the city.

Jen: So St. Charles Church was built because Emperor Charles VI made a vow during the plague of 1713 that if the city survived, he'd build a church dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo, who was famous for helping plague victims in Milan. There's two massive, like, 47-meter columns that flank each side of the entrance, and they were inspired by columns in Rome, and they show scenes from the saint's life.

Greg: Yeah, it was really impressive and I'm glad we decided to do it.

Jen: Yep. So that kind of rounded out day two in Vienna. And the next day was when we had tickets to see the Lipizzaner Stallion practice at the Spanish Riding School.

Greg: Yeah, which it was really neat, but it was also a little disappointing. We built it up in our own minds that it was going to be more of a rehearsal for things that they do during their performance. But instead, it was more of a workout for the horses.

Jen: The arena itself was really beautiful. And I think the highlight of it was the chandeliers that were over the arena floor. Welcome to Vienna.

Greg: Yeah, it definitely fit with a lot of the different styles that you would see around town.

Jen: I didn't see any signs saying no photography, so I was actually able to get quite a few good pictures until I got fussed at for taking those pictures. And because we want to be respectful, we'll just share some “official” photos from the website.

Greg: We didn't see any signage, but we want to comply. We want to be respectful of their rules. So…

Jen: Don't want any bootleg photos floating around out there.

Greg: Yeah.

Well, there was a very humorous event that happened while we were there. Jennifer was leaning over the railing at one point, looking down at, you know, the horses in the arena. And you could see while they were doing their exercises, periodically a rider would reach back and pat the horse on his haunches. And the horse would then turn his head around and they would give them a carrot or something. And while Jennifer's leaning over the railing, I just reached my hand over and patted her like they do the horses. And she turned her head like expecting a carrot. (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: It was very funny. We laughed. But the guy and his wife who were next to us, he saw that and was amused. And he decided to pat his wife in the same way.

Jen: She was not amused.

Greg: She did not find it funny…at all.

Jen: (laughing) So naturally, we found that hilarious!

Greg: Yes, we laughed at his misfortune.

Jen: (still laughing)

Greg: Yeah, overall, while it was a little disappointing because it was just more of a workout, I'm still glad we went because it was a really neat experience.

Jen: Yeah, it was for sure.

Greg: So other than that practice, the big thing we did on this day was go to the Belvedere Palace, which used to be like a summer home for the royalty, but was converted into an art museum.

Jen: It amazes me when we go to these places that are called ‘summer homes’ for people.

Greg: Oh, yeah. No, I mean, the wealth disparity is clearly on display when they have things they call ‘cottages’ that in today's environment, we would say are full on mansions.

Jen: Yeah, but the palace architecture was definitely apparent in this building, but it's been redecorated to use as a museum.

Greg: We went to what's called Upper Belvedere, the main part of the art museum. And it is popular because of the collection of works by Gustav Klimt.

Jen: Yes. One of his most famous works is a painting called The Kiss. I hate to say this, but it kind of reminded me of like a five-year-old finger painting.

Greg: Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing is Gustav Klimt had work in the museum from his early period, which are fantastic and clearly demonstrates he had a great amount of skill.

Jen: He wouldn't be in a museum if he didn't.

Greg: Right. But there was a movement in art called the Vienna Secession, which was they rejected a lot of the old traditional ways of doing art and they intentionally painted things to look bad because it was contrasting so much with the previous style that everyone said things needed to be. At the time, it was considered avant-garde. But for me looking at it now, it just looks…bad.

Jen: (laughs) But I guess that's why they say art is subjective.

Greg: Yes. And there's a lot more than just how it looks, right? Like subject matter and how they portrayed women are all a part of that movement. But I mean, it was a little bit lost on me. However...

There was a portrait of a very famous chef at the time, also in the museum, a very smaller picture, done by Monet. And we were the only ones looking at it. And it was a terrific painting.

Jen: Yeah, when you stood far back from it, it almost looked like a photograph.

Greg: Yeah. And I don't want to oversell this, but keep in mind, I am not a fan of impressionists. And for me to say that this Monet portrait was terrific should tell you something.

Jen: It was cool. One of my favorite things and maybe one of my favorite exhibits that we saw in all of our museum tours across Europe was, um, a series of busts by Franz Messerschmidt, and it portrayed different emotions and expressions of people with different caricature, cartoonish, silly faces that I just really enjoyed.

Greg: Yeah, whoever he got to model for these busts did a very good job of really exaggerating his facial features, because I can't see how Messerschmitt could do that himself without a model.

Jen: Right.

Greg: There was also another section that was devoted to medieval art and early Renaissance art, which I appreciate. There was a beautiful triptych. If you're not familiar, it's this wooden, um, display used on altars where two smaller pieces on the side close over the centerpiece. Very reminiscent of your science fair, social studies fair project boards, right? And the outsides are usually stained wood, sometimes carved wood - and inside is usually a very ornately painted and decorated - sometimes gold leafing. And it's intended to represent whatever the patron saint is for the church or whatever religious event the church is dedicated to. And this one triptych in their museum was painted all the way around. Very, very well, too, for medieval style art. It was very, very well done. And you could walk all the way around and look at this thing. And I thought it was terrific.

Jen: Yeah, and there was also a piece that was from the 1100s, and it depicted Jesus on the cross. It was a wooden carving, which was actually the oldest piece in the museum.

Greg: Yeah, and we left out of the sort of art museum palace part, and behind it is this really cool garden, there’s a pond, and the sky and the weather were absolutely magnificent, so we got a couple of nice pictures.

Jen: Yeah, and because of the lovely weather, we decided to enjoy our terrace at the hotel, and we ordered room service and got to dine al fresco in Vienna.

Greg: Yeah, really enjoyed that way to kind of close out our time there. Also, the Sacher tortes that we purchased the day before were our dessert on the terrace as well.

Jen: (laughing) Yeah we, we ate those every day we were there.

Greg: Yeah. But, uh, the next day, we took a taxi because we were going to fly out of Vienna to go to Montenegro. There's not really, uh, train travel that you can do directly between those two locations, so flying was the only option.

Jen: Yeah, and we actually spent a month in Montenegro, and it was really fun to stay there. If you're like me, you had no idea where Montenegro is. I still don't know if I could find it on a map…

Greg: Well, if you look, it is right across the Adriatic Sea from Italy.

Jen: So we really enjoyed our time there. We got to enjoy the beaches there, the local town. We met some really great people. And we were even able to pop over to Old Dubrovnik in Croatia and spend the day with some really good friends of mine.

Greg: Yeah, so we look forward to telling you about our time in Montenegro and the beaches and the food. But that's the next update.

Jen: Yep.

Greg: So thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey everyone!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This time we're talking about our train ride to Prague, plus the time that we spent in and around Prague.

Jen: There's probably one word to describe this train ride from Munich to Prague, and that is “disaster”. It started out great. The train left about 9 a.m., and about 30 minutes after we left the station, we paused on the train tracks. And this is pretty common because you have to let other trains pass, but normally that only takes less than five minutes. But this time, we were on that track for about 20 minutes waiting on this train to pass.

So, we get going again, and about five minutes later, we get to the next station, where we proceed to wait again. And we wait, and we wait…and after about an hour, people started to get off the train, to walk around, take a quick smoke break, and we still continue to wait…for another hour.

So after two hours of waiting, we're like, “What the heck is happening?” I was starting to get a little worried because that's what I do. And Greg looked at me and he was like, “Don't worry. It's just a train delay. We'll get going soon. It's not like the train's going to be canceled.”

Greg: Eventually, we did get going. We got to the next station, which took about, you know, five or ten minutes. But we didn't just do a normal train station stop. We stayed stopped. And after about ten minutes, we became very, very nervous. And then we heard an announcement. Couldn't really hear it because the speakers were very low. And it was only in German and it was very quick.

So we poke our head out of the compartment we were in, and there are several non-German groups looking around like we were. I think there was universal confusion at this point. One very nice young man who was German who happened to be walking through the coach said, “Did you understand the announcement?” And I just kind of said, “I could barely hear it.” And he said, “They're saying that the train is now canceled.”

Jen: So I looked at Greg like, “I told you so!” And I proceeded to try to find the one staff member that we had seen on this train the entire time we had been on it. And I managed to find her up at the front of the coach. Um, she was talking to several other people trying to figure out what was going on. And there was a child nearby — I think it might have been her child — who was kind of doing a little translation into English and basically told us that the train is canceled, everybody needs to get off, the nearest station is Freising, and she knew other trains were leaving out of there, but she didn't know if there were any going to Prague. She did tell us, though, that there were some buses right outside the station.

Greg: Yeah, and the way she portrayed that was the company for the train was aware of how many people needed to figure something out and had ordered several buses to come and pick people up and take them to the next station. But when we got outside the station, that is not what it was. It was just a bus stop with well over 100 people all waiting to get on the very next bus that shows up.

So we looked at each other and said, “Do you think Uber is working out in this little German town?”

Jen: And it was. So we scheduled one of those really quickly.

Greg: So when we got to the Freising Station... we noticed that none of the trains were moving there either. And there was a train going to Prague that should have left about five minutes before we got to the station. We purchased tickets for the next train, which was going to leave in about 15 to 20 minutes. But when we got to the platform, we're pretty sure it was the train that should have already left still there. But we got on that train.

And while we were sitting there, we noticed a lot of people doing the same thing. I think it was about three different trains worth of people all started cramming into this one train.

Jen: Yeah, so we sat there for about 45 minutes to an hour, not going anywhere. And at that point, we had pretty much decided just to cut our losses and find an Uber to a hotel somewhere and just figure out how we were gonna get out of Germany the next morning.

So we poked our head out of our little compartment that we were in and saw about 50 people standing in this open area, that's really kind of intended for people in wheelchairs or people carrying on bicycles. And we would have to step over people, step around people.

Greg: Yeah. Right when we get close to the door, this guy who was standing near the door does not move out of the way like everyone else was. And he was probably 6'4", older guy, looked kind of rough, like he had a life of labor, not like he was an office worker, not a hipster German or any of that stuff.

He just speaks to me in German, which is an intimidating kind of language from the sound of it anyway. And I'm just looking up at him. And when he finally stopped, I just gave him this timid, like, “No sprechen sie Deutsch.”

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: And he just said, “OK”, and spoke to me in English. And he said exactly these words…”Do not get off of the train.” He explained what train service is like in Germany. But he said, literally, “If this train has not left by 4:00, that I will get off the train with you and help you figure out how to get where you're going.”

Jen: Yeah, and thank God for that guy, right?!

Greg: Oh, for sure!

Jen: We call him our German train angel.

Greg: Yes! Because…when he said that, we accepted it, we thanked him, we walked back to the compartment, climbing over all these people, and less than a minute after we got back in the compartment, the train doors closed and the train starts rolling. So if we had gotten off of the train, we would have been on the steps going back towards the station and seen the train start rolling away —

Jen: Ugh…

Greg: — with no ability to do anything about it. But thank God for our tall German friend who kept us on the train.

Jen: That's right.

So even though we were still on the train and we were moving, we still felt really uneasy about what was happening because we didn't really understand what was going on. And that turned out to be a very valid concern because about 30 to 45 minutes into this next train journey, an announcement came on. But…I was prepared this time and I had my phone out with Google Translate and thankfully the speakers were better. And it basically said that the train, at the next station, was going to stop and split in two. One section of the train was going to stay at the station and the other half of the train was going to continue to Prague.

Greg: Yeah, so we weren't altogether surprised by the idea of trains breaking up. What we were surprised…is that they were not going through the coach to tell everybody, you're in the section that's staying, you're in the section that's not. So we were very confused. Were we in the right section or not? I poked my head out of our compartment and I noticed there was a young German guy who was not sure if this coach was going to continue on or stay. There was a family, we later found out was from Mexico City, that were in the very next compartment to ours looking for train staff so they could verify. And during this time, Jennifer actually said, “I'm going.” And she started walking through other coaches to see if she could figure it out.

Jen: Yeah, so it was a really quick walk because I was super concerned that we were going to get to that next station and I was gonna be stuck on the part of the train that stayed at the station in a random city in Germany. But it was the creepiest experience because apparently they were telling other people in those coaches to move off of the trains. So I ran into a guy, actually, when I was walking through these coaches that said, “They told me this is not the right section to be in.” But he wasn't even sure if where we were, originally, was the correct section.

Greg: Yeah.

And at this point, we arrive at the station where the disconnect is going to happen. And there's probably about 10 to 12 people who are still trying to understand. No train staff anywhere around. And this poor young German guy gets on the train listening to music with his earbuds, turns and sees all of us staring at him, probably with the same expression of expectation. And this poor kid, and his face, just looks so confused. Like, why is everybody staring at me?

And he took his earbud out and kind of looked at us almost with pity and was, like, “Yes?” And we all just unloaded our fears onto him about which section is staying, which section is going. And he just said, “Yes, I take this train often. You're in the right section.”

Jen: (laughs) So what I learned on this train ride was that German passengers must be very good at reading the confusion and dismay on the look of foreign travelers’ faces.

Greg: Yeah, and once again, more examples of German people, with which we interacted, that break the mold that we tend to in America think of as German people.

Jen: Yeah, they were all very helpful.

Greg: Super great people.

So, we continued on in the proper section towards Prague. And that's kind of where things began to smooth out because the last stop before crossing the Czech border, the German crew gets off the train, a Czech crew takes over. And at that point, it became like a completely different train.

Jen: Yeah, for sure. It was definitely more of what we had come to expect as a typical European train service. There were announcements in three different languages, you know, Czech, English, and German. And there were several staff walking around asking us if we had any questions. They were checking our tickets. They were offering us snacks. Completely different experience.

Eventually, we arrived in Prague and we were very relieved to be there, albeit over five hours late, which put us there after 10 p.m.

Greg: Yeah, and it was kind of a bummer because before we would have gotten there when it was still daylight. So we could appreciate some of the really awesome older architecture that that train station has. Also, you know, it was 10 p.m. and we had to get to the hotel, check into the hotel, take showers and kind of go through the unwinding. But we had a tour set for the next day and pickup would be at the hotel at 7:30 in the morning.

Jen: So we woke up the next morning — on day 135 of our travels — and our tour guide, Michal, was right on time. We really liked him. He was a great tour guide. And we had two other people on the tour, so we were happy that it was a small group. One of the ladies was from Australia. She was about our age, maybe a couple years older. And there was a 20-something-year-old who was living in Brooklyn going to fashion design school.

Greg: The tour was for Bohemian Switzerland National Park. which is on the Czech side of the border, and Saxon Switzerland National Park, which is on the German side of the border. With those names, you would think that they're around Switzerland. They are not. The names are deceptive because hundreds of years ago, some artists from Switzerland were staying in the area. They saw this region and said, oh, it reminds us so much of our home in Switzerland. And so they called it Bohemian Switzerland because that's what the kingdom back then was. It was Bohemia. And on the other side was Saxony and they called it Saxon Switzerland. And the names just kind of stuck.

Jen: Yeah. And now having been to Switzerland, it doesn't look anything like Switzerland.

Greg: Yeah, I really didn't understand it. Um, they're both beautiful.

Jen: Yes.

Greg: But I would not have looked at this region and thought, this is just like Switzerland.

Jen: Yeah. Maybe they were wishful thinking.

Greg: Yeah. In any case, it was a couple of hours of a drive up to the first stop, which is in the Czech side of the border for this national park. It's a hike down to Wild Gorge.

Jen: Yeah, so let me tell you about this trip down to Wild Gorge. In the description, the tour said, “family friendly, anybody can do it”. It even said the words “easy hike”. This was not an easy hike. Maybe for people who have hiked a lot, but definitely not for us. And even Michal, the tour guide, said, “I don't even know why they have that in the description because this really isn't easy.”

So our trip down to Wild Gorge was about a hundred meter descent over a 300 meter walk to get there. About halfway down this steep decline, we realized…we're going to have to climb this back up.

Greg: So one thing we had forgotten is that there is, like, a little river that runs down at the bottom and there's a boat ride that you can take.

Jen: Yeah, that boat ride was very enjoyable. It was a nice little break. It was very misty, but the water was very calm. Very serene, I guess.

Greg: Yeah, it was enjoyable while we're on the boat. Unfortunately, at the end of the boat ride, it started to rain. So Michal pulls out a bunch of ponchos and says, “Here, let's wear these so we don't get wet.” Unfortunately, because of the hike down and then to the boat, we had gotten sweaty. And putting on ponchos that don't breathe when you're sweaty just really makes you even more miserable.

Jen: Yeah. And on the way back up, we had to cross this puddle. And I don't know if you've ever seen the videos of the little kittens that try to make this big jump across a space between couches or whatever. And then they jump and they fall straight down. That was pretty much me trying to go over the puddle. So I wound up with wet feet for the rest of the day.

Greg: Yeah, and the incline really was just wiping us out. At one point, I legitimately told Jennifer, “Please pay attention because I might begin showing signs of heart failure.” I legitimately thought I might have a heart attack. My chest was getting tight. I was struggling to breathe. And I will say, fortunately Michal told us ahead of time, “Do not go quickly. Do not overexert yourself. If you need to take breaks, do so. If you need me to help you, if you need anything, just tell me.”

Jen: Yeah, so we really appreciated that, first of all. And we just told them, “Don't wait on us. We know how to get back up there.”

Thankfully, the Australian lady was going about the same speed we were. She mentioned that she had bad knees, so we kind of stuck together throughout the day. And the fashion girl, she — like any 20-year-old — had boundless energy, and she was just basically running up the hill, it seemed like to us.

Greg: Yeah, and that's really where she started to get underneath my skin because I am struggling. I am convinced that I will die. I am thinking, “What happens if we have to call an ambulance? How will they come and get me from down here? How will they get me up out of here?” Because I'm fat!

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: And she's just going all around like some golden retriever puppy, super happy to be everywhere she is. And it was like adding insult to injury.

Jen: Yes…but eventually (laughs) we did make it back to the van. At one point, we stopped and looked at each other and said, “I wonder how much an Uber would cost to get back to our hotel.” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. My muscles, everything below the waist, cramping constantly. It was like my legs were just jelly. My knees were giving out almost every other step. I was so concerned about being able to continue.

Jen: Yeah, so from that point on, we made a stop for lunch. Michal brought us to this cute little inn and restaurant that was kind of on the side of the road. Unfortunately, it was pretty forgettable, um, but it was nice to be able to take a break and to experience some local Czech food.

Greg: Yeah. So we drove for, I think it was a little over an hour, to a location called Bastei, which is on the German side of the border. And Bastei is this area with, like, some iconic rock formations and misty mountaintops. And there's, uh, a bridge that they built at one point so that people could get out there and view all of this, ah, scenery and nature. There's old castle ruins that were, like, made of wood because that's how long ago it was made. So it’s, it's definitely kind of a peak spot that people like to tour. And when we get there, we get up to the spot where you, you pay for your entry. Michal turns and looks at me and he basically says, “Can you go on? Because if not, there's a different route and it's just all flat.”

And I kind of felt bad because there's other people on this tour who signed up for something and they might miss out because I'm just so weak. And I just asked, “Like, how many steps are we talking about?” And he just kind of, like, pondered and said, “Uh, about 30.” And I will tell you…that was a bold faced lie!

Jen: (laughs) Yeah, because if you know Greg, he counted every single step because when we got to the top, he was going to prove a point!

Greg: Yeah…it was over 300 steps!

Jen: Yeah. And so when Greg gave Michal a hard time about those, quote/unquote, 30 steps, Michal kind of turned around and said, “Well, I did say it was approximately 30.”

Greg: Yeah! Now, fortunately, this area was nothing like going down the Wild Gorge, which was very natural. There's mud and rocks, and that's how you're getting down. This was architected. It was built specifically as a tourist area. So the steps were very wide, very shallow. It was easy to kind of get through them. And even though my body had kind of given out, if I took it slow, I could make it the way that everybody else got to see all the cool stuff. And, you know, to be honest, it really was worth it, even though I was in pain.

Jen: Fun fact about this location, the final scene of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel was actually filmed right there at the Bastei Bridge.

So we got back in the van and drove probably about an hour to our third and final stop of the day to an area called Tisa Rocks, which is really cool because parts of the movie Chronicles of Narnia were filmed there. And this is a really unique place because it has lots of sandstone formations and surrounded by forest that just made it really magical.

Greg: Yeah. Unfortunately, from the van to the area we were going was a long walk. Fortunately, the incline was not as bad, but my body had given up. So very, very slow - both Jennifer and I. The 20-something-year-old fashion school girl, still so much energy. And to her credit, she never once complained about how slow we were going or how much attention Michal was having to pay to us. Um, the Australian woman was still having a good time because her speed was not much better than ours. But, you know, Michal did have to really keep his eye on us while we were going on this piece, too.

Jen: Yeah, I think he paid a lot of attention to us because he was really concerned he might have to use his CPR certification when we had a heart attack. But we finally made it to the main area and it's all these different rock formations. There's, like, caves and archways. And the young girl was just kind of hopping all over these rocks like a little mountain goat. And it was really cool to see.

Greg: If you have a mind for history, you really get drawn back and see all of this as prehistoric man would have. It's like, oh, that would have been a great shelter. Oh, I bet you could have fires right there. Or perhaps this whole area would make a good spot for hunting. It was a different kind of aspect to what we had seen before on this tour, but still really interesting.

Jen: Yeah, so the pinnacle of this whole thing was this flat rock that kind of juts out. And it reminded us so much of Pride Rock from The Lion King. And even Michal made that comment.

Greg: And even though our bodies were really hurting, we did still find the energy to get up on top of that thing and look out into the nature area below where it overlooked.

But from there, Michal likes to take a different path so that you see other things while you're going back to the van. And at one point, he turned around and looked at me and said, “Do you think you can make this?” So I look at him and see this really sketchy area. It's some very narrow, steep stone steps that were old and broken and there was a metal handrail that was rusted out and decayed. And the steps, besides being very deep, were very short. So I immediately turned around at Jen with this look on my face and said, “Are you going to be okay?!”

Jen: I looked at what we were going to have to go down. And I immediately start crying. I was exhausted. I was hurting, wet, cold, all of that. And Greg just looked at me and went, “HEY, just look at me. We can go a different way if you want to.” And I took a minute and I was trying my best to summon the courage. And I said, “NO, I'm gonna do it.” And I did.

Greg: So Michal went down in front of her and she had one hand holding on to him. With her other hand, she was holding on to me, who was right behind her. And yes, she did cry the whole way down. But I do look at this moment and very often I explain it as…this is what bravery looks like because she was just not in a place to take on this challenge. Exhausted, in pain, still miserable because of stepping in that mud puddle. But she said, no, I'm going to do it. And she did. And that to me, that's bravery.

Jen: Yeah, and I felt so bad for Michal because his face the entire time I bawled down the stairs was like, “What have I gotten myself into?” (laughs)

Greg: Oh, he clearly looked like he felt so guilty.

Jen: But we wound up doing it. And after it was all over, I was really proud of myself! That's not normally what I would do. I probably would have said, “Oh, we can go the easier way.” But I didn't want anybody else to miss out on it, so…

Greg: Yeah. So, long way back to the van, very slow for us, but we got there. And we should point out, you know, it was a couple of hours to get back to the hotel, but all of the times that we were driving between stops, the conversation in the van was very lively. And despite being emotionally exhausted and physically exhausted, we did tend to laugh and have fun with the other two guests and with our tour guide. Looking back, I think it was probably worth it.

Jen: Yeah, I think it was definitely worth it. It took us a little bit to get to that point of saying (laughs) it was worth it, but the Wild Gorge was just really beautiful, and the scenery itself was very idyllic. The Bastei Bridge was awesome as well because the misty mountain peaks just made everything so cool, and the old wooden castle ruins had terrific views. Tisa was super cool because the interesting rock formations were just so unique, and everything we saw was so pretty.

Greg: Yeah, I think it's also easier for us to remember the good and forget all of the struggles and the pain the more time goes by from when we were doing it all.

Jen: Yeah, I agree. (laughs)

Greg: The next morning at the hotel, we woke up and we were both so stiff and so sore that we could hardly move. Getting up to go to the bathroom was such a struggle that we just immediately looked at each other, like, “What are we gonna do?”

Jen: Yeah. But thankfully, our hotel had an in-house spa and we decided to see if they had openings for that morning for massages.

Greg: Yeah, which they squeezed us in. And there were two masseuses, but the one who got me was maybe all of 90 or 100 pounds. And I was absolutely convinced this was going to be a waste of money because there's no way this girl is going to be able to get my muscles to loosen up. But I was dead wrong.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: I mean, the moment where I could feel each of those muscles in my leg just finally, like, let go. Ohhhh, that was heavenly. It was almost like a high.

Jen: So I was sitting out front with a glass of water and Greg's masseuse comes out and looks at me and just goes, “I'm sorry”, with this look on her face. And I was like, “What's wrong?” I was certain he had passed out in the back or something had happened. And she goes, “It just took me a while because his muscles were very tight.”

So Greg comes out of the back and he had this look on his face. And I think high would be a good description of that.

Greg: Yeah, you know, when they talk about, like, dopamine hits, I think I was really feeling that effect. I mean, I gave that poor girl a hug. I was, like, this little thing managed to press down into my muscles like she was a 300-pound gorilla.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: In any case, both masseuses said that we were kind of in bad shape and needed to stay off of our feet for a couple of days.

Jen: Yeah, but we didn't want to be in Prague and not see Prague. Because at this point, we really hadn't seen any of the city.

Greg: Right! And there was one thing about Prague that we really kind of wanted to do, which was called the Royal Route, which is like a historical coronation path. They would walk from what's called the Powder Tower across Old Town, across Charles Bridge. And you end up at Prague Castle. So we said, we're going to catch an Uber to Prague Castle and we're just going to walk it backwards. So the masseuse tells us, stay off your feet.

Jen: Don't climb stairs…

Greg: We proceed to walk six plus miles that day.

Jen: And there were a lot of stairs...

Greg: Yes. So the castle in Prague was really kind of neat to walk around. But, you know, there were kind of really long lines for all of the interior tours. So we just kind of skipped those sections.

Jen: Yeah. So once we were done kind of looking around those areas, we walked on to St. Nicholas Church. And by this point, we were kind of getting a little less impressed with all the churches since we visited one in each major city that we had been in.

Greg: Sometimes more than one...

Jen: Yeah. (laughs) So we decided to grab lunch…and dessert. We got chimney cakes.

Greg: Yeah. So an interesting thing. Chimney cakes are called trdelník. It's this pastry that they wrap around a metal cylinder and then they bake it over an open flame. Then they roll it around in cinnamon and sugar. You'll see them everywhere in Prague's tourist areas.

Jen: Yeah, but they are not actually Czech at all. They're from Hungary and Slovakia. And I really wish, looking back on it now, that we would have done a chimney cake crawl like we did our Brussels chocolate tour. Because everywhere we looked, there were chimney cakes with toppings on them like candy. And then there were ice cream filled ones. And somehow I missed out on that. I still live with that regret.

Greg: Ha! Yeah.

So from there, we crossed Charles Bridge, which reminded us of Jackson Square in New Orleans because there were so many people. There were sketch artists and there were vendors and tourists and a lot of statues all along the bridge. It was a neat little place to walk.

Jen: Yeah, it was really cool. And you can look out over the water and see both sides of the city.

Greg: So from Charles Bridge, we did have a little bit of a disappointment when we tried for our next place was the Klementinum Library, which is a Baroque library. It was sold out and it made us really sad because from all the things we've seen online, it's supposed to be pretty amazing.

Jen: If you've never heard of it, the Klementinum Library is considered one of the most beautiful Baroque libraries in the world. And it was built in the 1720s, housing over 20,000 historical books and features beautiful frescoes on the ceiling, ornate wooden bookcases, and all these antique globes.

Yeah. So I think our tip for Prague would be if you want to see these things, definitely buy your tickets in advance because we didn't realize that they would sell out. But we missed out on a couple of pretty cool things.

Greg: Yeah. Uh, the next place we passed was the Astronomical Clock, which Prague is kind of famous for. But we did not see it do its famous show.

Jen: Yeah, we missed that. We were not there at the right time for sure. But we continued to walk on and we stayed in Old Town. So we were able to pass by Powder Tower, which was really close to our hotel.

Greg: Yep. And that's pretty much what we did in Prague. The next morning, we left by train to go to Vienna.

So, you know, wrapping things up here…Prague really was enjoyable. And as Jennifer mentioned, while we were there, it was understandable why so many young people, like college students, tend to go to Prague when they decide they want to go to Europe. Because it really seemed very affordable compared to, you know, the rest of Europe.

Jen: Right. I think maybe we were just spoiled, too, from coming from London and Paris. But I think it's a great destination to visit.

Greg: Yeah. But Vienna is better.

Jen: Yes. Vienna is so beautiful. And even though it's rated one of the best places in the world to visit, we still felt that it was very underrated.

Greg: Yes! Because there was one phrase I was repeating while we were walking around Vienna. “Whoa, what's that? Hey, what's that?”

Jen: Yeah, Greg was acting like I knew what all of these things were. Um, so Google Maps was definitely our friend on that trip.

Greg: Yeah. So we look forward to telling you guys about Vienna. And thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey everyone!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update is part two from our time in Munich. We are going to cover Neuschwanstein Castle and then wrap up with the Glockenspiel.

The update may be a little longer than we normally do because we really want to cover the amazing true story of Neuschwanstein Castle. And we utilized ChatGPT to craft an almost fairytale version of it to share with you.

Jen: Yes…

So, in a land far, far away, the Neuschwanstein Castle rises above the Bavarian countryside like something pulled from a dream. Turrets, spires, and cliffside walls that look almost too theatrical to be real. The name means “New Swan Stone”, a reference to the swan knights of medieval legend and to Ludwig II's personal symbol, the swan, drawn from Wagner's operas and old Germanic myths. He didn't choose the site at random. The castle overlooks Ludwig's childhood home, Hohenschwangau, and was meant to be both a monument to the past and an escape from the world he was supposed to rule.

Greg: But…Neuschwanstein was never finished. Construction started in 1869, and while the blueprint called for more than 200 rooms, fewer than 15 were completed. The castle was not built for court life or military defense. It was a fantasy retreat, Ludwig's private stage. He lived there for just 172 days before his dramatic fall from power and mysterious death in 1886.

Jen: Ludwig financed the castle almost entirely out of his own pocket, refusing to use the state funds. But he didn't have the money. By the end, he spent over 6 million marks on Neuschwanstein alone, more than triple the original budget. And he racked up 14 million marks in total personal debt. That number doesn't mean much to us today without context. So to give you an idea, one gold mark was worth 0.358 grams of gold. And at today's price, Ludwig's debt equals roughly 275 million euro or just under 300 million U.S. dollars.

Greg: His other projects, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee, were just as excessive. He built entire mirrored halls, artificial lakes, underground grottoes, all for himself. All while his creditors grew restless. Eventually, his ministers acted. In June 1886, they declared him insane based on second-hand reports, arrested him, and installed a regency. Three short days later, he was found dead in waist-deep water in Lake Starnberg, alongside the psychiatrist who’d had certified him mentally unfit. No one knows exactly what happened. Did he die by his own hand? Was it an accident? Was he assassinated? It is still all debated today.

Jen: But what's left is the castle. Empty, unfinished, and completely divorced from its original purpose. But somehow, more famous than anything Ludwig ever ruled. Today, it draws millions each year. And Disney modeled Cinderella's castle after it.

The irony? The fantasy Ludwig bankrupted himself to build is now one of Germany's most profitable landmarks.

Greg: The end.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: No, seriously. We just really, really thought it's such a fantastical story and absolutely true that we wanted to convey it in a way that sets the theme because when you go visit Neuschwanstein Castle, there is an obvious feeling of fantasy when you're there, or at least it was for us.

Jen: Right, for sure.

So our tour started in Munich, and it was an all-day bus tour of about 50 or so people. It was a two-hour drive through the Bavarian countryside. We even got to go on the Autobahn.

Greg: Yes, but there's a governor on the bus which keeps it below a certain speed.

Jen: Yeah, but we can still say we went on the Autobahn. We don't have to tell anybody how fast we drove.

Greg: Right? (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

So it was really kind of funny because our guides were Australian and Spanish, giving us a tour of a German castle, but we went with it.

And the guide from Spain, when she saw our last name, got super excited, spoke Spanish. She rattled off this phrase really quickly that I'm pretty sure she told us she could translate the tour into Spanish if we wanted her to.

And Greg and I both looked at her and just went, “we don’t, we don't speak Spanish.”

Greg: Yeah. She got a little sad ‘cause it was her native language. So when she had the opportunity to speak Spanish for the tour, she was really hoping that that would be the case.

Jen: Yep.

Greg: Unfortunately, I am not true to my heritage.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So the bus drops you off at Hohenschwangau, the town. It's a little, small village that's kind of at the base of both castles because there is a Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was the childhood castle of Ludwig II.

And I think an interesting fun fact — and we know everybody loves these fun facts — Hohenschwangau means “Upper Swan Region”. So when they were looking for a place to build a castle, they found a lake. And it was just dozens and dozens of swans, and it was beautiful to them, and there was the German Alps, and they said, “this is the spot”. So that's where they built that first castle, Castle Hohenschwangau, and it really is a very visually appealing area for sure.

Jen: Yeah, I agree.

So you can see the castle as you drive up, and it's just towering there out of the trees on the side of a mountain. It's really awesome. But when you walk through the town, it's also cool to see from the ground. And that day, there just happened to be a bunch of power parachuters flying around the castle. So the sky was super blue, the white stone walls of the castle stood out against the green trees, and the bright colors of the parachute just really made for a… unbelievable experience.

Greg: Yeah, I know people like to overuse the word “surreal”. But in a way, that's how it felt. This fantasy come to life. We were really there in it! It could not have been more perfect. We tried to get pictures to show because, I mean, you just had to be there to really understand it. The pictures just don't do it justice.

Jen: Right. It was a perfect day.

So to reach the castle from the town, you can hike up a very steep incline that could probably take you 40 minutes to an hour. Or you can take a three euro shuttle bus. And nobody from our tour chose the walking option.

Greg: And when the guide saw that no one chose the hike option, he literally said, “Good, I did my job well.”

Jen: (laughs) Yeah.

So the bus drops you off where the line for the MarienBrücke starts, which is the bridge that goes across the big gorge.

Greg: Yeah, we'll describe more about that afterwards, ‘cause when we first got there, the line was a little bit long. And they said, look, if we let you guys wait in this line to go across the bridge — which everyone wanted to do — we'll miss our time for the guided tour.

But from there, we then went on a steep decline towards the castle.

Jen: Along the way, we stopped at a lookout point that had a stunning view of Schloss Hohenschwangau along the lake.

Greg: Yeah, and I really liked how the stone from Schloss Hohenschwangau is kind of yellow, maybe, like, copperish, and the contrast with the lake and the green trees and the forest, and the lake was very, very calm, and it was really this fantastic view.

Jen: Yeah, I think we keep describing this view as “amazing” and “fantastic”, and it really was!

Greg: I think the word “fantastic” is so perfect because it was like fantasy come to life.

Jen: Yeah.

So from there, we continued to the castle itself and waited for our tour to begin. All the tours are led by official castle staff. They don't let any outside tour guides in. It keeps the experience consistent, but it's also a little rigid.

Greg: They do it for control. There's no pictures allowed. They don't even want you to pull your phone out while you're on the tour. So you really do appreciate the things when you're in there, but you don't have a way to document it. So we don't have pictures from inside.

Jen: Yeah, but if you look up the castle itself, there are some, like, artist renderings of the inside of the castle that are really pretty cool.

Greg: Yeah. One of the more unexpected areas of the castle was an artificially made cave that's just tucked between two rooms and you walk right through it.

Jen: Yeah, it was really dark and cold, just like a regular cave.

Greg: Complete with stalactites and stalagmites, gave you this feel that you walked through a cave.

Another room that was just as over the top is the throne room, which is massive, two-story vaulted ceiling, gold everywhere, but no actual throne.

Jen: Yeah, I think they said one was planned, but never completed.

There was also a small theater area that he created inside of the castle, complete with a stage, and the intended purpose for this was going to be private performances of Wagner's operas, one of his favorites. But in the end, there were no performances ever held there.

Greg: Right. Which is kind of sad —

Jen: Yeah…

Greg: — because that stage and that little room for the theater really did give you this great feel of the Valkyries and all these operatic things.

Jen: Another thing that we really enjoyed was this long hallway that was just one wall full of large windows that overlooked the mountains and the forest below. And then the opposite wall was, like, covered in this very bold pattern of purples and blues and greens. And it had long gold lines that created these diamond patterns that kind of reminded us of a jester's costume.

Greg: There were also so many windows besides that hallway that gave you fantastic views throughout the castle. I, we keep saying fantastic. You had to be there.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Other than that, the tour did involve a lot of stairs, multiple flights. Also, there's no opportunity to sit or rest along the way. And when you consider the decline down, you have to be careful because you really could trip and, and fall. Also, you have to walk that incline coming back out. It is not something that we recommend if you struggle with physical activity.

Jen: Right. I would definitely make sure all the members of your party can manage stairs and manage a lot of walking.

Greg: Yeah.

When we got out of the tour of the castle, everybody else is out there, starts walking back up the incline. Jennifer and I did the same thing, and I told her, “You see all of these people around us? This is the competition. We're all going to the same place.” So we HOOFED it!

Jen: It became a race.

A funny story about this hike back up this incline…

We passed a dad who probably wasn't much older than us, looking back at it now. But he was literally dragging his two teenage kids up the walk. They were grabbed onto his arms. He looked like a poor horse dragging a plow trying to get these kids up the hill.

Greg: Yes. And I couldn't help but laugh. This poor guy, you could see in a way he was beat down, but also he was determined to prove that he could do it.

Jen: Yeah. And it looked like that probably was not the first time that this had happened on his trip. (laughs)

Greg: True, true.

Eventually, we got up to the spot for Marienbrücke and the line was not that bad.

Jen: Yeah, so the bridge is called Marienbrücke, which translates to “Mary's Bridge”. And the Mary is Mary, Queen of Prussia, who is Ludwig II's mom. And her sweet son Ludwig gave her a very thoughtful gift of a very large bridge that spans two cliff sides that gave her the best view. She loved to hike, she loved the German Alps. And he wanted to give her something where she could experience the view like no one else could.

Greg: Yeah. And at the time, the bridge was a marvel of engineering because it goes over a very famous, uh, gorge in that area that loosely translates to “thundering gorge” or “roaring gorge”. It's like a thousand foot drop. There's a waterfall. It does make you a little nervous (laughs) when you're standing over it.

Jen: And I can tell you right now that my heart's racing a little bit just thinking about standing on that bridge. While this bridge might have been a marvel of engineering in its time, I doubted that it was still that same marvel.

Greg: Well, for everyone who is wondering, the bridge has been revisited. It is structurally sound. There's actually steel running underneath all of those wooden boards.

Jen: Yeah, I get that. The logical part of my brain said the bridge was safe. But every time one of those little boards shifted under my feet, my logic did not win out.

Greg: You went further along than a lot of people because part of the issue that we encountered is while the line was not long and we did get onto the bridge within just a few minutes, so many people just gather right at the beginning of the bridge. Some because they wanted to stay in the shade of that area, but most of them were too nervous to go further out on that bridge.

Jen: Yeah, I think there were a couple of relationships that might have ended on that bridge. (laughs)

Greg: No, I did hear one girl chew out her boyfriend while he was trying to drag her further out there.

Jen: She was, like, “You just take the picture for me!” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. But we did go further out, a little past the halfway point. We were completely by ourselves at that point. Got terrific pictures of the castle. Jennifer even took one of the gorge.

Jen: I did. And I sent it to a couple people and they were like, “NOPE!” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. So once we got our pictures and we kind of experienced that view, uh, we went ahead back to the shuttle bus, which took us back to the town. We hung out a little bit, got on the tour bus, drove us back to Munich. That was the end of that day. And I cannot imagine the day being a better one than what we experienced.

Jen: Yeah, I agree. The weather was great, the scenery was amazing.

Greg: For a castle that is the ultimate inspiration for fairy tales and fantasy. We experienced real life fantasy at this castle!

Jen: Yeah, it was awesome! (laughs)

Greg: Yeah.

So the last piece we're going to talk about is the Rathaus Glockenspiel, which was just a few minutes from our hotel. We took some time one day to go see one of the performances.

Jen: Yeah, our little baseball cards that we talked about last time kind of led us to this glockenspiel. It's on the top of the town hall in MarienPlatz, and it's supposed to start at noon. However…it did not.

Greg: Because when noon hit, there were several bell towers, like, there were some churches nearby and some other things that immediately start chiming out at noon and they take a few minutes to complete. And the glockenspiel does nothing this whole time.

So it was like 12:06 and everybody out there is standing around, like, “Did we miss a performance? What happened?”

Jen: So at first, it was just music, no movement for five solid minutes. And then it got quiet for about a minute. And everybody in the crowd started looking at one another, like, “Is it broken? Did , did we miss something?”

And then it started up again with the music and movement and everything.

Greg: Yeah, and this is what people come to see. There's the animated figures acting out scenes from Munich's past. There's also dancing couples. And the real centerpiece of it is the jousting match in which knights pass each other, like, two or three times. And then the last time one knight knocks another one off of the horse.

Jen: Yeah, everybody kind of clapped when that happened. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, there's so many gaps between the things happening where it's just silence for, like, a minute that everybody finds themselves not sure. Is it done? Is there more? So even when it was done, nobody knew if it was done!

Jen: Yeah, and it was funny because we were watching from kind of a restaurant area, and the only way people knew that it was over were the poor servers at the outdoor tables, and they said, “Yes, it's over.” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah, they had clearly experienced this multiple times a day, many days in their life.

As for the Glockenspiel and its performance, I'm glad that we did it. But it leaves you a little underwhelmed because there's so much buildup, and the way it kind of happens, there's just the confusion. And you can't appreciate it quite as much.

Jen: But I'm sure when it first started, it was an amazing thing to see because it was new technology.

Greg: So in any case...

That's pretty much the main things we did in Munich. And while we have been chastised by both Germans and non-Germans alike for missing Berlin, we are so glad that we got to go to Munich.

Jen: Yeah, the city itself and the Bavarian countryside was absolutely enchanting.

Greg: The next update definitely takes a turn… for the worse. There's a train ride that I can only describe with one word. Disaster.

Plus, we were going to Prague, and the first thing we had planned in the Czech Republic is a tour of Bohemian Switzerland National Park. And the way I like to describe to people that tour is to tell them…

It's the time we almost died. So there's a teaser for you!

Jen: Spoiler alert, we did not die.

Greg: Yes (laughs) obviously we did not die!

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So, thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update, we're going to talk about the five days that we spent in Munich. So it may take a couple of updates to get through all of it.

Jen: Yeah. We did a lot of sightseeing, but we also had some downtime, which we used to plan the next leg of our journey.

Greg: Yeah, so specifically in this update, we're going to talk about Nymphenburg Palace. We're going to talk about the English Garden and generally how we felt about Munich.

Jen: Yeah, I think my first impression of Munich was really that it was so much different than what we had come from before. We had come from a quaint little German town of Heidelberg to a more metro area for sure.

Greg: Yeah, but it was very clean. It was very orderly. There were some really cool buildings and stuff. We never really found out what they were. But when we were walking from the train station to our hotel, we went through the two main squares, Karlsplatz and Marienplatz, that we saw concert performance, a lot of people around a fountain, a lot of people shopping. It was pretty cool.

Jen: Yeah, the weather was great the whole time we were there, really.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: And the city felt really familiar and it didn't feel very foreign to us.

Greg: Right. Although I did have one kind of small problem. When you first look at going to Europe, a lot of people tell you there's no tipping culture. Don't tip wherever you go. We found that that wasn't really the case. But Germany, specifically Munich, when they interacted with us - and realized we were American - all of a sudden there was an expectation of tipping. In some cases, they outright asked us what we wanted to tip.

Jen: Yeah, it was kind of awkward.

Greg: Yeah. But other than that, it was a really cool place. I, I appreciated it.

Jen: We know you guys love these fun facts, so let me tell you one about how Munich got its name. The city was founded in 1158 by a group of Benedictine monks, and it was called Munichen, which means “by the monks”. And now it's just shortened to Munich.

Greg: Yeah, it's also the capital of Bavaria, which means brewing culture and beer culture is very big. Oktoberfest is very big there.

Jen: We weren't there during Oktoberfest, so we didn't get to experience that. But we learned that Munich is a lot more than just the beer culture. It's also a major tech and finance hub, as well as the headquarters to BMW.

Greg: Yeah, and BMW has a little museum with their headquarters, which we didn't really get a chance to go to. But there are several big companies that are headquartered in Munich.

Jen: Yep.

Greg: So we learned some of these things we mentioned because of these neat little almost mini baseball cards that were at our hotel. We noticed right away when we went in.

Jen: Yeah, I think since we're both former baseball/sports cards collectors that we were really drawn to this display.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: They were really cool because they had pictures of the different attractions. And then on the back, they had a description about them and a map kind of, of where they were in the city.

Greg: Well, yeah. And they also color coded them. So it was like if this is a architectural thing or a food thing, it was different colors.

Jen: Yeah. So we took one of each card and went back to the room and kind of planned our next five days from these cards.

Greg: Yeah. No, it was super useful. And one of the first ones that we picked out was Nymphenburg Palace.

Jen: Nymphenburg Palace was the former home of German royalty, and it was commissioned in 1664 by Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy. They had struggled for many years to get pregnant and have an heir to the throne. So when they finally succeeded and the child was born, they felt that the way to celebrate that… was a house.

Greg: I mean, a massive house. (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Yeah, it's interesting. The, the palace initially was just the one center building, which by today's standards, we would just call a mansion. But over a long period of time, they just kept adding to it. And it changed the style of the whole thing because, you know, I thought it was just going to be this Baroque palace like anywhere else. But you go through it and you, you learn, because I didn't know the difference, that it pulled in trends of French Rococo, Neoclassical, and it was really a beautiful building. But, you know, that's not the first impression you get when you walk up to it…

Jen: (laughs) Yeah, the first thing you notice is a big water feature with, like, 12 or 15 geese.

Greg: Right. But the first impression you get is the extreme amounts of geese poop everywhere.

Jen: (laughs) Okay, let's not focus on the geese poop…

Greg: No, really, it's a beautiful building. And once you get past the whole geese and geese poop, it is a marvelous sight, especially all of the windows.

Jen: Yeah, it makes the inside really light and a lot different than what we had experienced before in some of the other palaces we went that had dark paneling and dark painted walls. When you walk into this one, almost all the walls are, like, white or a very light color. And the windows just provide so much natural light. It makes it really great to walk through.

Greg: Well, yeah, because when you compare it to, say, Versailles, all of the windows have shading and blocking in front of them because they have to protect all of the furniture and the painting and the walls from the sun. As where here, it's just beautiful inside because all the windows are allowed to display that light.

Jen: Yeah. And one of the first rooms that you go into is this ballroom that the whole ceiling - it's kind of a curved ceiling - and it's painted with this mural of, like, cherubs and clouds and just really light colors. And it's so cool to look at. You have to kind of dodge people who are staring up at the ceiling. And then you notice that the flooring is pretty amazing as well.

Greg: Yeah, I mean, the whole thing outside and in, you do feel the inspiration from Versailles, but it's not like they just tried to copy Versailles. You could just see the subtle things that make you feel like you're back there.

But I think my favorite part of Nymphenburg Palace was all of the artwork throughout that showed the building itself, as you continue going through each artwork, would show you the evolution of the palace itself, which I just thought was really cool.

Jen: Yeah, it was kind of like an early version of before and after remodel photos. (laughs)

Greg: (laughs) Yeah.

Jen: One of the other cool rooms that I kind of thought was fun was, like, a gallery of all these individual portraits of women. And they were deemed to be - by King Ludwig- the most beautiful of all the women. And he commissioned about one or two a year, so it took about 30 years to build this gallery. But it was just kind of neat to be able to see the change in what was considered beautiful of the time. And then as well as the art style, too.

Greg: Yeah, you can definitely see the changing of fashion and the trends, uh, hairstyle and dress. It, it was neat.

Jen: Other than the inside of the palace, we also really enjoyed the gardens in the back. I think we spent about an hour outside.

Greg: Yeah, and speaking of Versailles yet again, you definitely get a very strong feeling of the gardens from Versailles when you are in the gardens at Nymphenburg Palace.

Jen: Yeah, and that's actually because these gardens were redesigned in about the 18th century by a student of the man who designed the Versailles Gardens.

Greg: Yeah, it was a really nice day, too, which I think contributed to us spending so much time in the gardens.

Jen: Yeah, and there were no geese in the back garden.

Greg: Yeah. Lots of people, though, walking with dogs and kind of just exploring it. I think it's a popular place for people to just go and walk around.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: So, yeah, we really enjoyed our time at Schloss Nymphenburg.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: From there, we went to Munich's version of Central Park.

Jen: The English Garden is a really sprawling park, but it's a lot more informal and open than Central Park.

Greg: Yeah, so the English Garden is bigger than Central Park. It's one of the largest urban parks in the world. But we specifically learned how big it was because we picked the wrong entrance and had to walk through most of it to get to where we wanted to see.

Jen: Yeah, what we planned to see was the Chinese Tower and the Beer Garden area. But we were able to explore some of the different paths and see a lake with paddle boats and everything.

Greg: Yeah, it was an enjoyable walk. I, I feel like maybe we should call it a stroll.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: But when we got to the Chinese Tower, it's just the structure they built to mimic Chinese architecture. But there's, like, a brewery and a little restaurant. And it's really just a gathering point that people hang out. We were kind of too hot and, and didn't really feel like eating anything. We're not really big on beer. So we just kind of soaked it all in. And it was really lively and we liked the time we spent there.

Jen: Yeah, we were able to find a spot kind of in the shade. So I think we hung out there a little longer than probably we should have. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: But people watching is probably one of my favorite things to do. And there was a lot of that there.

Greg: Yeah. Eventually, we got back on our way and walked through a different part to get to a different exit so we could see more. And we passed these open areas where people would be sunbathing. And there was even the stream that cuts through one section where people are allowed to wade into it and kind of hang out in the cool water.

Jen: Yeah. And we didn't find this out ‘til later, but that spot of the park is actually a “clothing optional” spot of the park…

Greg: Yes, no nudity. Good thing.

Jen: Yeah, we didn't see any of that. Um, not disappointed. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. Maybe in Spain we would have felt differently.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Oh, beautiful people in Spain…

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Yeah, so I think this is a good spot to break it up. This update, Schloss Nymphenburg, the English Garden, both really enjoyable for us. If you find yourself in Munich, we highly suggest you do those things.

Jen: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of things to see in Munich, as well as a lot of opportunities to just relax and hang out. There were several beer gardens, uh, that we unfortunately didn't go to. But if that's your thing, there's plenty of opportunities for that.

Greg: Yeah. So the next update, we're going to talk about Neuschwanstein Castle, which was a full experience.

Jen: One of the most memorable things about that trip for me was the bridge that you have to cross to go get your epic shot of the castle that happens to be over about a thousand foot drop over a gorge.

Greg: Yeah. (laughs)

And a lot of people were very nervous on that bridge. But overall, Neuschwanstein Castle should be fun to talk about.

Jen: Yeah, it was really cool to see.

Greg: So thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey, everyone!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update is about the beginning of our time in…Deutschland!

Jen: (laughs) Yeah. Germany was definitely one of those places we knew we wanted to visit because it's so iconic - the architecture, the food, the history. We knew we wanted to go.

Greg: However, we couldn't do everything. We were not able to visit Berlin. The Schengen area really puts a time crunch, and we had to make sacrifices somewhere. Unfortunately, Berlin is one of the places we had to cut from our itinerary.

Jen: Yeah, but if we ever make it back to Germany, it's going to be on the list.

Greg: I hope so.

So the first place that we did stop in Germany was a city called Cologne. It's really just an overnight stop for us to break up the train travel, but it has a noteworthy cathedral, which is the main reason we decided to stop.

Jen: Yeah, and I know you're thinking, Cologne doesn't really sound like a German name.

Greg: It does not.

Jen: It's because it isn't. It was actually named by the Romans, who founded the city in 50 AD. And they named it — ugh, I hope I say this right — Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.

Greg: Yeah, I'm glad you were the one to say it.

So, Colonia - I think - means settlement, and Claudia references Emperor Claudius.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: But over time, it just became Colonia, which, in modern language, turned into Cologne.

Jen: One of the main reasons we went to Cologne was to see the Kölner Dom, or the Cologne Cathedral. And its formal name is actually the Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus.

Greg: Again, better you to say it than me.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Uh, but no, I mean, it's this really impressive building, gothic architecture, and it's, like, six million people a year go to see it.

Jen: Yeah, it's, like, the most visited cathedral in Germany, I think. And it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which we visited a lot of those along the way.

Greg: Right. So when you see the pictures, the front facade has two massively huge spires, which made it the tallest building in the world from when it was completed, like around 1880-ish, until the Eiffel Tower was done in 1889.

Jen: Yeah, and those huge spires are very hard to photograph.

Greg: Yes, but they're adorned with magnificent stonework that I'm pretty sure was painstaking and took a long time. Like, I think the cathedral took 300 or 500 years to complete.

Jen: Yeah, it was very pretty. And thankfully, I was able to get a video that kind of pans up from the base to the very top of the spire so you can see some of that ornate stonework and just the great craftsmanship in the whole thing.

Greg: Yeah, for sure. And the inside was just as…impressive.

Jen: (laughs) There it is again.

Greg: I love the word, I guess. But the vaulted ceilings are, like, well over 100 feet high and surprisingly well lit.

Jen: Yeah, that was one thing that we noticed. A lot of the churches that we visited weren't as well lit as this one. And maybe that was because they added on throughout the years that blocked the natural light from the original plan. But this one, the way it stood, was very well lit and very welcoming.

Greg: Besides the cathedral, of course, first stop in Germany, we had to get some German food. We went to a place called Gaffel Am Dom, which had some very tasty food. We had some bratwurst and schnitzel. I even got the local beer, a Kölsch.

Jen: Yeah, which if you know Greg, that fact right there is very surprising!

Greg: Yeah, I'm not a beer drinker. It wasn't, like, a Guinness or even a lager. It's a very light beer, so that was okay. And it's small.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah. The size of that beer looked like a sample size for some people.

Greg: Yeah. Well, like we said, this was just a one overnight stop. The next morning, we hopped on a train and went to Heidelberg.

Jen: Yeah. Heidelberg, during our research, was a place that we decided to go to because it came very well-recommended on the sites for being the kind of charming, picturesque German town that we were looking for.

Greg: Sure. And the car ride from the train station to the hotel was very scenic. But to be fair, that's because almost all of Heidelberg is very scenic.

Jen: Yeah. The Neckar River runs through the city and you drive along and you see these picturesque buildings along these tiny streets and you're in this river valley. So when you look up to the side, you see the hills that are surrounding you and you look up on one of them and there's a castle.

Greg: Yeah, that's Schloss Heidelberg, which we will explain later. But the hotel that we selected is kind of right near the beginning of something they call Philosopher's Way.

Jen: So Philosopher's Way was this pathway that's been around for hundreds of years. And professors at the university, students at the university used to take this walk as more of a meditative stroll, they said.

Greg: So the next morning, we set out early and began our walk along Philosopher's Way. And we really weren't prepared because it's three quarters of a mile to get to the scenic overlook. And we did not realize how much uphill it was. Looking back, it wasn't that bad. We just really were out of shape and didn't expect it.

Jen: (laughs) And I have to add that before we started this walk, we did go to breakfast and had more terrific orange juice. So I think I'm just going to turn these updates into, like, “Jen's world tour of orange juice.”

Greg: I mean, I wouldn't blame you.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: In any case, you walk the beginning through part of the university. You see some old university buildings, also an old neighborhood with some older homes. And at one point, there was a gentleman, I'm pretty sure was in his late 70s, who walked past us uphill like we were standing still.

Jen: Yeah, that was kind of embarrassing. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah.

So eventually you get past the buildings, you get more into nature, and it's lovely, green and full of life, and there's a scenic overlook with gardens...

Jen: Yeah, and I think this is the point where it hit me. “Okay, this is why it was called a meditative walk.”

You look out over the river and you can see into Old Town and it just kind of brings you back to thinking what it must have been like when they were taking these walks before the buses were coming by or more people came into town. It was just really peaceful.

Greg: Yeah, but I take issue with using the word “walk”. I have an expectation if you call it a walk. It was a hike! (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: While we're there at the scenic outlook, the castle across the river, four cyclists come up and speak to us in German. And I just kind of looked at them and with my default phrase, “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: They were like, “oh, Americans!” And they proceeded to visit with us. And they were so happy that we had taken time to visit Heidelberg. And besides that, they were so interested in where else we had been in Germany, where we were planning to go in Germany. It turns out that their initial comment in German was to ask if I would take their picture with the castle in the background.

Jen: Yeah, and I think this interaction was so fun for us because it's really what we wanted when we started to travel. We wanted to be able to talk to local people and kind of connect with them. And I think even the short little conversation let us do that.

Greg: Yeah, and it definitely broke the stereotype you get from TV and movies of how Germans are distant and cold. These people were absolutely lovely.

Jen: So we continued our walk along Philosopher's Way and it began to bring us downhill, which led us to some very old stairs. I would venture to say original stairs.

Greg: Yeah, the footing wasn't great and we weren't in great shape.

So several times we would just have to move over to the side and let the more fit people walk past.

Jen: (laughs) But we took our time and we finally made it to the Old Bridge.

Greg: Right.

So the Old Bridge, I believe the official name is Old Bridge —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — in German, of course, not English. But it's from the late 18th century. It's a cobblestone bridge. It's very well maintained and it's very attractive, very visually appealing. There's the big, uh, archway at the end.

Jen: I think it's called the Bridge Gate.

Greg: Yes. And from there, you cross over into Old Town.

Jen: Yeah. And it was really neat to walk across these cobblestones because it was kind of rainy. And so it had that slick cobblestone look and you cross through this gate and it's almost like you're stepping back into time because you have these original looking buildings—I think they were original—and then there's this grand historic church to the side and then you look up to the left on the hill and there's the huge castle. So we just kind of wandered through the streets of the town just enjoying the scenery.

Greg: Yeah, and there were several squares.

Jen: Each little area had its own square filled with statues or fountains and surrounded by these old, original buildings. People were sitting at the cafes enjoying coffee or tea. And it was just really cool to kind of be in that atmosphere.

Greg: Yeah, I enjoyed Old Town Heidelberg. From there, we just walked a couple of blocks to the funicular that you can take up to Schloss Heidelberg.

Jen: So there are two different ways to get up to the castle, and one of them involves a hill and a lot of stairs.

Greg: Nope!

Jen: Yep. That was not going to be the option that we chose after our Philosopher's Way walk. So we chose the funicular, which, if you're not familiar, a funicular is just a cable car that goes up a hillside.

Greg: So we exited the funicular and paid for access to the castle. And right away, you can see this courtyard that has an outlook where you see the river valley. You see Old Town, the Old Bridge. You can see across the river. It was a fantastic view. We spent like, I think, almost 30 minutes there and we weren't the only ones.

Jen: Yeah, I think part of that time, though, was us looking at what we had just walked on the other side of the river and going, “whoa, we actually walked all of that way!” (laughs)

Greg: Yeah, and you know, we figured out the distance afterwards. It really was only about a mile from the hotel to the old bridge. It’s just because of the incline and then the steps on the decline, it felt like so much more.

Jen: Yeah, it definitely was nothing compared to some of the other walking adventures we’ve had. But at that time, it seemed like a lot.

Greg: Yeah.

So an interesting fact about the Heidelberg Castle is in, like, 1764, it was struck by lightning twice, causing a lot of ruin and a fire that destroyed parts of it. And interestingly, instead of just rebuilding it all, it kind of became this thing where the locals embrace nature and the ruins and they kind of try to preserve it as it is.

Jen: Yeah, they had a spot where they can have concerts and they have speakers that come and talk. And like a lot of castles, it has these towering walls on the side of you.

Greg: Some castles are more fortress and militaristic. And then much later, castles took on a more palatial aspect. And this was kind of in between the two. There were areas that felt more palatial, but that definitely had the walls and the overall military fortress aspect.

Jen: Another neat thing for the castle was it had its own apothecary shop, and so it's now an apothecary museum.

Greg: Yeah, and the big draw for a lot of people is this thing called the Heidelberg Tun.

Jen: What the Heidelberg Tun is, is this huge wine barrel that’s probably about two stories high, and it holds over 200,000 liters of wine that were basically the taxes paid by the local vintners.

Greg: Yeah, and you walk up these stairs to get to the top of it, and there's, like, a platform. Apparently that platform at one point was a dance floor. That's how big this thing is.

Jen: It was more of a novelty thing, but it was serving a purpose.

Greg: Yeah, so we pretty much wrapped up things at the castle, went back to the hotel. Our time in Heidelberg was charming and romantic, which is what we expected, and I loved how scenic everything was.

Jen: Yeah, I think Heidelberg was probably my favorite of the small towns we visited in Europe.

Greg: Yeah.

The next update will be about our time in Munich, but we spent five days there, so it's probably going to be two or three updates in a row about Munich.

Jen: So we got to see Neuschwanstein Castle, which was the inspiration for Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. We visited Nymphenburg Palace, which is the former home of German royalty. We saw the English Gardens, which is like Munich's version of Central Park. And we also saw a Glockenspiel.

Greg: Yeah, that's like a world-renowned cuckoo clock, basically.

Jen: That was really fun to see!

Greg: Yeah. So overall, we look forward to sharing our time in Munich with you guys. And…thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey, everyone!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update is about...

Both: Gentse Feesten!

Greg: Which is a Dutch term that means “Festival of Ghent”.

Jen: Yeah, we decided to go to Ghent because it's one of the best places to visit in Belgium, with lots of really cool architecture, and it's really a pretty town to see.

Greg: Yeah, and we picked a hotel called 1898 The Post, which is a boutique hotel right in Old Ghent. It's along the river. It's a really well-regarded hotel, and we thought it would be the best place to stay.

Jen: Yeah, it actually also used to be an old post office, so that added a little bit of extra charm to it.

Greg: Right, and then we got the email…

Jen: Yeah, that email that we referenced in the previous update that basically said, “Do you really know what you're getting into?”

Greg: That email — just to give you an idea — has the subject line, “Congratulations, your reservation is during Gentse Feesten!”

Jen: Which, when we saw that, we had no idea what that was.

Greg: Nope.

Jen: And then we just continued to read on in the email. And some of the highlights of the email I'll just share with you, “After more than 175 years, Gentse Feesten has developed into one of the largest cultural festivals in Europe. During 10 days, six festivals are being organized, and it's cost-free on 10 squares.”

And then another section says, “The hotel is located between the two main stages in the heart of the festival and music will be played during the day and the better part of the evening…until 3 a.m. on some nights.”

Greg: Yeah. To me, that's almost morning. I normally wake up within two hours of 3 a.m.

Jen: (laughs)

So they did also say if you decide you don't want to partake in the festival, you can cancel your reservation at no charge. So Greg and I talked about it and we did this little exercise to decide whether or not we wanted to embrace the festival or avoid the festival.

Greg: Yeah. Why you would want to go and why you wouldn't want to go and it was the same answer, kind of for both of us, on both counts. We both wouldn't want to go because it's almost two million people —

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: — that go to this festival. And I'm not really a person who's big into huge, massive crowds confined in small areas. And…the reason to go for both of us was part of this whole travel thing we started was to have experiences you couldn't get staying at home, to embrace different cultures and different events and this is exactly why we started all of this. So we just said, let's do it.

Jen: Yep. So just to note…at this point, when we got to Ghent, we had been traveling for four straight months and up until then, our travel had been very regimented, really. We had a schedule and we had everything set. But by month four, we'd become more comfortable with kind of winging it along the way. And it really allowed us to appreciate the Ghent Festival more because of the way we had learned to travel.

Greg: So to kind of give you a little bit better of an idea — it's music, which is a big part of it, but there's also theater performances in a different area of the town. There's a little area that's a carnival with rides and carnival food. There are puppeteers randomly in various areas around town, sketch artists, caricature artists. There's a section where they had opera and opera singers, there are street performers all throughout. It's a very large festival, and it is very popular from the crowds we saw.

Jen: And it's just a big party in the town!

Greg: Yeah. And I think the general intention is to be a celebration of Dutch and Belgium culture, but specifically in the area around Ghent.

Jen: Flanders area, I believe, is what they call it.

Greg: Yeah, I think you're right.

So we got there and had a whole afternoon and then we had a whole full day the next day before we left the following morning. That first afternoon, we walked around to kind of get a feel around the area of the hotel. And one of the things we did was go by the carnival area.

Jen: You can't have a fair without a funnel cake. So I got a more traditional Dutch dessert called an oliebollen — which is really fun to say — but it's similar to a Dutch beignet.

Greg: Yeah. So as we said before, the hotel is between the two main stages. So walking down the hall to our room across the river was a main stage — very large — and was focused on more Latin Caribbean music most of the time.

Jen: Yeah, it was funny because I told Greg, “I'm pretty sure they're playing Tejano music.” So it was kind of weird to hear that in Belgium.

Greg: Yeah, you could hear it just fine in the hall. And then when you go in the room, you don't hear that stage anymore because you're right next to the other main stage, which is more popular music or rock based. And it sounded like you just had the radio on in the room kind of loudly. But still, you could hear it all.

Jen: Yeah, and we really should have known what we were getting ourselves into when we saw that there were earplugs on the nightstands. (laughs)

So the band that was playing that afternoon was a band called Outback. It was a cover band. They covered a wide variety of types of music - pop, rock, punk, metal, all different kinds. And their lead singer was so energetic. He was all over the stage and the crowd was just eating it up.

So I had listened to them for about 45 minutes from the room and decided, I really want to go down there. And I looked out at the crowd and it was large, but it wasn't, like, super overwhelming. So I decided to just jump in and do it. Singing and dancing around with a bunch of perfect strangers was a lot of fun!

Greg: Another group that came up, which we appreciated, was called Franklin. They're a soul group, all girls, I think it’s three of them.

Jen: Mmhmm.

Greg: And they stuck really to Motown, a little bit of Muscle Shoals. And I appreciated it because the style, the vocals, they really did capture the spirit of what music used to be back then.

Plus, we had discovered by this point our own little area in the hotel down the hall from our room, which was great for watching performances on that stage.

Jen: Yeah, I dubbed it our VIP lounge because it overlooked directly the stage. And so it was a good way to be able to see the crowd, but not have to be in the crowd. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. And you really did get the audio in that room like you were at the concert, except not blaringly loud, just the right level for you to appreciate the music.

Jen: Yeah, and I think one of the favorites of the whole festival for us — and apparently for a lot of other people based on the crowd that saw them — was a Queen tribute band called Mother Mercury. The lead singer was a former winner of Belgium's version of Star Trek….Star Trek?

Both: (laughs)

Jen: Not Star Trek…

Star Struck, which is a British show that people go on and they impersonate famous singers. And this guy emulated Freddie Mercury so convincingly that the crowd almost acted like they were at a Queen concert.

Greg: And the crowd was very big. Like, Outback was probably a hundred, 200 people maybe. Their whole area around the stage was full, but it didn't really spill over into side streets and anything. Mother Mercury, there was no place for anyone to walk for two blocks worth of space. It was easily over 1,000 people, probably was a couple of thousand people.

Jen: Yeah, and I had looked back after it was all over, and apparently this group is kind of, like, a recurring guest at Gentse Feesten, and so they draw a huge crowd.

Greg: They did, yes. Well, besides the music festival piece, we also ventured out into an area that was more like folk music-based, but also some other pieces, because we wanted to catch an act called Hella, which I had seen on YouTube at one point.

So it's got like, you know, over 100,000 views. It's not millions of views, but they're pretty good. It was, uh, four women that had terrific harmony. They're very skilled vocally. Uh, unfortunately, about 10 minutes into the performance, rain started and everybody had to take cover.

Jen: Yeah, I think I enjoyed them too, just because they were so calming, their voices. And it was in a more secluded area of the festival, like, it was on the outskirts. So there wasn't the big crowds, so it was a more intimate place. And until the rain started, people were spread out on the grass, having picnics, enjoying time with friends. So it was a lot more chill and I think more fun.

We do have a little bit of video. We were there for a short time before it started raining, so I was able to get some video of them.

Greg: One of the other really cool things we did is the full day we were there after breakfast, we decided to go out and walk around the town. And while we were walking by one of the big churches, we saw a sign on a door because we wanted to go in. But it said, basically, we're about to do an organ concert.

Jen: So we just decided, let's stay for the concert. The concert itself was donation-based, so we just decided, we'll give them 10 euro. We walk into this beautiful church, take a look around and enjoy the surroundings.

Greg: There's an original-to-the-church organ that's hundreds of years old. Absolutely beautiful to look at.

Jen: Beautiful…but it needs a lot of work.

Greg: Yeah, and that was actually the point of not just this concert. It turns out you would attend this concert, and then when it was done, everyone walks to the next church and attends another concert.

Jen: Like an organ crawl!

Greg: Yeah!

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: And I think it was five or six churches, and they were hoping to raise enough money for restoration and, I think, some other efforts around organs in Ghent.

Jen: Yeah, the organist had an assistant that was pulling the knobs for him. So if you're not familiar with how pipe organs work, there's a bunch of different knobs that have to be pushed and pulled to make the right sounds and that's what this guy was doing.

And at one point I looked at Greg and I said, “I think the organist might actually be blind.” And I looked it up later online and he was. I think it just made it more poignant and moving as we listened to it.

Greg: Yeah. I mean, the whole thing was also unexpected. We just walked by the church we wanted to look at, turns out there was this concert. I had been wanting to attend an organ concert in one of these impressive cathedrals in Europe. So overall, it was an experience I'm glad that we had.

Jen: Yeah! And we saw another beautiful church.

Greg: Indeed. Wrapping up, I'm glad we decided to embrace Gentse Feesten.

Jen: Yeah, me too. I was kind of hoping we'd find another music festival along the way! (laughs)

Greg: I don't know that I could have done that more than once.

Jen: Oh, come on! (laughs)

Greg: But Ghent is a place I think I would like to see again, specifically because so much of it I couldn't experience due to the festival. But I don't know that I want to go to Gentse Feesten again.

Jen: That was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Greg: Yeah, I mean, almost two million people in just a week. I can't do that again.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: In any case, the next update is where we begin our trek into…Deutschland!

Jen: (laughs) We have lots of stories about Germany.

Greg: Specifically, we're going to start with our one afternoon in Cologne. And from Cologne, we went to Heidelberg, Germany.

Jen: Yeah, and Heidelberg, Germany is where we learned that we are not hikers. But it was still nice, and we can't wait to tell you about it!

Greg: Indeed. So, thank you for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This time, we're going to talk about Bruges.

Jen: Bruges is a charming little city in Belgium that in the Middle Ages was a major center for European trade. It's also called, “Venice of the North”.

Greg: Yeah, and that phrase is nonsense.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Bruges is nothing like Venice. It is much more like Amsterdam.

Jen: Well, they can't exactly call it “Amsterdam of the Southwest”…

Greg: That would be a lot more accurate than “Venice of the North”.

In any case, the overall vibe of Bruges is one that we liked a lot. It was relaxed. Very European, right? It's very walkable, a lot of romanticism, classic buildings and architecture. And we liked it a lot, especially considering what we went through to get there.

Jen: Yeah, it was definitely a much-needed respite - I guess would be a good word - after our experience in Brussels Midi.

Greg: Yeah. So we had that afternoon when we got there where we just pretty much walked around.

Jen: Yeah, we really liked it because we didn't have a set schedule. There was nowhere we had to be at a certain time, so we just wandered and found ourselves in some pretty cool places.

Greg: Yeah. We saw their square, sort of like Brussels’ - the Grote Markt.

Jen: Yeah. But I think it was a little distracting because it was Belgian National Day, as we mentioned before. So there was a lot of setup for tents and stages for a concert… port-a-potties… in front of all these cute little buildings.

Greg: Yeah, that was very underwhelming in a way. I think without all of that stuff there, we really would have appreciated that square because it did give you a feel of the big, really awesome one in Brussels. But with all of that stuff in the way, you couldn't capture that feeling. But it wasn't bad overall.

Jen: No, people were still hanging out at the restaurants, enjoying drinks and dinner so it was really lively!

Greg: Yeah. We also walked around to this area that had a big cathedral with a tower that's very high and impressively built.

Jen: That church is called Church of Our Lady, and it actually houses a Michelangelo statue called the Madonna and Child, which apparently is the only statue of his outside of Italy.

Greg: That's what they told us. It's smaller, though. It's not like a big piece.

Jen: Yeah, but we didn't even know it was there until we Googled. And unfortunately, we didn't get to see it because it's inside of the church, which didn't open until later that day.

Greg: Yeah, I think it was, like, 10 or 12 euro per person. And that's really the only thing to see.

Jen: We didn't really want to do that. So it's there if you ever want to visit.

Greg: So another cool thing we did while walking around was stop for dinner and enjoy the national dish of Belgium.

Jen: Yes…moules-frites!

Greg: Right.

Jen: I was excited about this because I did not get to have mussels in Brussels. So Bruges was definitely where I was going to get them. And we found this cool little restaurant. We were the only people in there because it was early for European standards, not early for our standards.

Greg: Yeah, it was early for European standards because they don't do dinner till 9 or 10 p.m.

Jen: (laughs) That's our bedtime.

Greg: So when we left, it was after 8 p.m., and there were a few tables that were starting to be full. But the menu seemed cool.

Jen: Yeah, it was a lot of seafood, so we were excited about that.

Greg: It was also a place that we stopped at because we heard the music they were playing while we were looking at the menu.

Jen: We sat there for a minute, and it's kind of one of those things where, like, “I know that song, but I can't really place it.” And then you realize—that's "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King. All of the songs were Disney songs on jazzy piano, and we played Name That Tune throughout dinner.

Greg: It was a fun little game!

Jen: Yeah, I didn't realize how much I would enjoy hearing Jungle Book songs on a jazzy piano.

Greg: Right. Overall, the food was pretty good, but I don't think we knew what we were getting into when you ordered the moules-frites.

Jen: (laughs) No, we sure didn't! Because I was expecting like a little dish of mussels like they have in the States, and then they bring a side dish where I can put the shells in there when I'm done. But when they walked out of the kitchen, they were carrying a stockpot. And I thought — Oh, okay, they're going to come do tableside, spoon the broth in a bowl, give me some mussels, and I enjoy it with the French fries.

But no, they left the entire stockpot on the table! So granted, it wasn't like a five-gallon stockpot, but I would say it was at least a gallon.

Greg: Yeah, it was probably one and a half, two-gallon-sized stockpot…full of mussels.

Jen: And they were huge mussels! Like, I've never seen a mussel that big here in the States. Make whatever jokes you will on that…

Greg: I was thinking of them, but I couldn't bring anything to mind fast enough.

Jen: (laughs) And in addition to the mussels, they bring a side of French fries that probably would have fed three of us.

Greg: I did enjoy those French fries, yes.

Jen: So I filled up on a lot of French fries, and I felt like I left as many mussels as I ate. There were so many.

Greg: Yeah. I really respect people in Europe - or at least Belgium - if they put away that many mussels because it was a lot.

Jen: It was.

Greg: It was a very enjoyable dinner. And unfortunately, we don't remember the name of the place.

So the main thing for the big full day that we had was our canal boat tour, which takes you a fairly decent distance around the city. And I enjoyed it!

Jen: Yeah, we saw a lot of pretty houses, and a couple of them were actually from movies.

Greg: Yeah, that was really neat. So there was a movie, um, that had Audrey Hepburn called —

Jen: — The Nun’s Story.

Greg: The Nun’s Story, I've never seen it. But the building they filmed, it represented the character's family home, is right there on the canal. It was a lovely home.

Jen: Yeah, and there was actually even rumors that she bought it after filming, but there's no proof of that.

Greg: But they said she did, and she would stay in it seasonally and walk across the bridge to a little local shop. Maybe it's true. I don't know.

Jen: It was a lovely house.

Greg: Yes. The other movie home they pointed out was from the Martin McDonagh movie In Bruges, where Colin Farrell is being accosted and jumps out into the water.

Jen: So if you’ve ever seen that move, you’ll probably remember that scene. I think that’s the only scene I saw in that movie…

Greg: Other than the boat tour, we walked around to some of the places we wanted to see more, like, the place with all the swans and ducks.

Jen: Yeah, there's a place called the Lake of Love. It looks like where one of the canals kind of end. And there's lots of beautiful white swans, some ducks hanging out. It's pretty, but it does not smell good.

Greg: Well, yeah, besides the birds, there's also the spot where all of the horse carriages sit.

Jen: Oh, yeah!

Greg: So that was part of the reason that it smelled the way that it did.

Jen: (laughs) It was not very charming.

Um, there was also a former convent —

Greg: Yep.

Jen: — that you were able to tour. The grounds were really pretty. It was very shaded with lots of trees, and the buildings were still intact. I think they said a few nuns actually still live there, but we didn't see anybody around.

Greg: No, it’s a very old convent from…I think it was the early to mid-18th century. And, yes, there are some nuns still there active. So that was cool.

Besides walking around there, we also walked through an area of their weekend market or what we would call a farmer’s market, which was very neat. There was this display of, like, a city map except it was made from lace.

Jen: Yeah, apparently that’s also a popular thing in Bruges. A lot of lace is made there.

Greg: The rest of our full day, we actually spent doing laundry. We needed to catch up on that. Very chill, very relaxed time there. But overall, I think we liked Bruges.

Jen: Yeah, I did. Like we said before, it was a good change of pace that we needed right at that time.

Greg: Mmhmm, yes. From Bruges, we went to Ghent. And Ghent is the update we have looked forward to sharing since we got to Ghent.

Jen: (laughs) You know it's going to be good when you book a hotel and then you get an email from them the next day that basically says, "Are you sure you know what you're getting into?"

Greg: Yeah, that was really weird. They emailed us to basically say, "We don't think you know what you're getting into."

Jen: And we didn't but —

Greg: No.

Jen: — it was still fun!

Greg: Yes, it was.

Jen: (laughs) So stay tuned for that one!

Greg: Indeed. And thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update, we are going to talk about our time in Brussels, where we did our own little self-led chocolate and waffles tour.

Jen: The first day we got to Brussels, we got there a little bit later in the day, so we really only had time for dinner and just kind of unwind at the hotel. But the next day, we spent the whole day exploring the town until we had to leave the following morning.

Greg: Yeah, so before we started out with a bunch of chocolate and waffles, we thought we should get real breakfast. And at the café, it dawned on us that we had really come to appreciate two main things about breakfast while we were traveling in Europe.

Jen: I was a huge fan of the orange juice all over Europe. They use high quality oranges that are always freshly squeezed and they don't add anything extra.

Greg: We also really took to croissant and pain au chocolat while we were there. And it was like, no, we don't want toast. We want croissant. Or if you want an add-on to a meal, like breakfast. Chocolate croissant. You want a dessert? Croissant.

Jen: So basically, the moral of this story is, if croissants are available, that's what you choose.

Greg: And I just like to say…CROISSANT.

Jen: (laughs) Yes.

Greg: So from the cafe, we began our own little chocolate waffle tour. Because normally we'll get a guided tour so that they take care of where we go and when and we just follow along and have fun. But all of the places that we saw were taking you all around Grand-Place or Grote Markt. And our hotel was in a neighborhood that aligned right next to Grand-Place. It was in Grand Sablon. So we said, we can do this ourselves! And we plotted out a bunch of places walking towards Grand-Place.

Jen: It allowed us to not have time constraints or have to pick what they give you as far as tasting goes. So we came up with a list of about seven or eight places that we wanted to stop, which we'll list for you in the transcript so you can check them out. And we'll just talk about the highlights.

**Jen and Greg’s Brussels Chocolate and Waffle Tour**

• Leonidas

• Elisabeth

• Maison Dondoy

• Neuhaus

• Gourmet Chocolaterie

• La Belgique Gourmande

• Passion Chocolat

• Pierre Marcolini

Greg: And there's a lot of highlights. Firstly…all of the chocolate.

Jen: So much chocolate. Marshmallow cakes that are a lot like pinwheels. So it had a graham cracker crust, marshmallow, and it was covered in chocolate. I love chocolate covered marshmallows. We got an orange sea salt chocolate, which I ate because Greg is not a fan of sea salt. We got —

Greg: — No. Sea salt on savory dishes is terrific. I don't like all the salty sweet stuff.

Jen: So if anybody's looking for gift ideas for Greg, do not buy him sea salted caramel. (laughs)

Greg: No, no chocolate covered pretzels. None of that garbage.

Jen: (laughs)

We also really enjoyed the first shop that we went into because we were able to chat with one of the locals. She gave us tons of tips for other chocolate shops and places to try.

Greg: Indeed. Ah, another place that we enjoyed was called Neuhaus, which was the place that is credited with inventing the praline.

Jen: All you South Louisiana people listening in…it's not a praline like I was thinking it was. So a praline in Europe is more of a creamy filling inside of a chocolate shell. And we tried several of those.

Greg: Yeah, the most prominent has a hazelnut filling.

Jen: Yeah, there's so much hazelnut in Europe.

Greg: Yes. But in the case of pralines, hazelnut filling was pretty tasty.

Jen: Yeah, a couple of the other ones we had were, like, a vanilla praline that was inside of a dark chocolate and then a strawberry filling inside of a white chocolate. So they were all really good.

Greg: Our next location was a café. It's called Maison Dandoy. Their chocolate shops do just chocolates. But if you want fresh waffles, you have to go to this specific location. That's what they do is fresh waffles.

Jen: Yeah, so there's two different kinds, and the first one was a Brussels waffle, and we know those in America as a Belgian waffle. It's not the same as what you see on maybe a continental breakfast that has the waffle maker. It's more of a crisp and light waffle, kind of like what you would find in a frozen food section at the grocery store, but just way better quality. And that waffle, we decided, was better with toppings, like strawberries and vanilla ice cream.

Greg: We tried some of it without the toppings on it, and it is a very good waffle on its own, but it is much better with toppings.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah, and the second one we had was called a Liège waffle. And that one's more of a dense batter with sugar pearls in it that caramelize when it cooks. And they make crunchy little pops of goodness. That one we decided it was best eaten plain.

Greg: Yeah, and we did try the Liège waffle with some of the strawberries and ice cream we had on the Brussels waffle. But it was kind of too much. Liège waffle plain is so good. It's every bit as good as the other kind.

Jen: Yeah, I'd love one of those right now, actually.

Greg: I would happily take either one.

Jen: Yeah, you can't go wrong either way. (laughs)

Greg: Right. From the waffles, we continued toward Grand-Place, but we kind of needed a break - no more eating chocolates. So we took this moment to do more sightseeing of Grand-Place. Well…it was pretty great!

Jen: Yeah, it was. (laughs)

So you walk into this huge square and are surrounded by these grand buildings that are Baroque-style or Gothic-style. And one of them is the Brussels Town Hall that was built between 1401 and 1455. And it's actually considered one of the finest examples of civil Gothic architecture in Europe.

We also saw three separate wedding parties at the town hall. So Friday was apparently a very popular day to get married.

Greg: Yeah. Not all at once, though.

Jen: Right. So the end of our chocolate and waffle tour, I think, is worth mentioning because that's where we got to visit the Pierre Marcolini store.

Greg: Yeah, the building really drew both of us in from the very beginning because there are beautiful flower sculptures on the outside. It's very colorful. The building itself has an older architectural feel. Inside, a little more modern, very clean, but also very attractive. And the smell of all the chocolate really just draws you in.

Jen: Yeah, so there we decided to try some vanilla chocolates.

Greg: But of all the places we went, none of it really gets to the level of that vanilla tart from Pierre Hermé on the Champs-Élysées.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah, that tart was so good. I still dream about that thing.

Greg: Yeah. So that was a terrific day in Brussels. The next morning really made us pay for all of the terrific experience of the previous day, because probably the worst train station experience we had in all of our travel in Europe.

Jen: Yeah...

So Brussels Midi train station, it's one of the central train locations that connects several major cities across Europe, and it has a reputation for being super chaotic and frustrating travelers with its layout, confusion, and lack of communication.

Greg: Right. Plus, the seating is very sparse, and it's very uncomfortable. The bathroom that we had to pay three euros to use was filthy and gross. And overall, I never want to go through Brussels Midi train station ever again. Also, we found out - after the fact - it's a fairly dangerous train station come nighttime and overnight.

Jen: Yeah, I'm thankful that we found that after we were done with Brussels Midi, for sure.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: I am usually the more anxious traveler of the two of us, and I noticed that when we were sitting down, Greg seemed a little bit more on edge than he normally does. He kept getting up and looking at monitors and shifting in his seat, and I couldn't really figure out why.

Greg: We're sitting in Brussels Midi train station, and I began to notice things like security, uniformed police officers all walking around. Normally, you don't see that in Europe. Or we had not.

Jen: Right.

Greg: Well, I saw them blocking platforms. And when people would go to enter the platform, they would turn them away. The monitor for our platform had not changed, and the train that was listed on the monitor should have left 20 minutes before. There should have been another one or two trains to load and leave before our train has shown up, and our train was probably going to arrive, like, any minute at that point.

Jen: Right. And it's still not giving us updates saying the train's been delayed. So we're not sure what's going on —

Greg: — which was very frustrating. Eventually, I told Jennifer, "Hang on, I'm just going to walk right up there." And unfortunately, the conversations with that security were not happening in English.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So I did not pick up much. But once they were done, he looked at me, and I just said, "Parlez-vous l’anglais?" And he said, "Yes." And I was very grateful.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: And I asked him if we would be allowed up that platform when our train arrived. And he said, "No, you're going to need to go back that way. And on the right, you'll see a hallway. Turn and follow the signs."

Jen: We go down this hallway and it is packed shoulder to shoulder with probably what felt like over a thousand people. I think it was over a thousand people. And the hallway itself is about 20 feet wide. There is no ventilation, so it is stifling in there and completely chaotic.

Greg: Everybody's miserable, and no one knew what was going on. They didn't tell anybody anything. Security wouldn't say anything. There were no announcements. And we never found out what happened.

Jen: And so the police would start yelling out different destinations like "Knokke" and "Ghent." And that would cause people behind us to shout those cities back at them and push forward because they thought, "Oh, my train's here. I need to get there as quick as possible." And there is nowhere to move.

Greg: Yet they continue to push, and you're getting squeezed to the people in front of you who are getting squeezed to the people in front of them. And if there had been a hard barricade in front of the very beginning, those people probably would have been crushed or suffocated.

Jen: Yeah. So needless to say, this just heightened the frustration in that hallway and made everything so much worse.

Greg: Plus, they would call "Ghent," and they would literally let four or five people go up the platform and then stop everything again. And you'd wait another 10 minutes.

Jen: So when they called "Knokke" again, we knew that that was probably our train because we were going to Bruges, and Knokke was the termination point for that train line. So we were kind of close up to the front at this point, so we started to push our way up forward as well.

Greg: Yeah. And I go up the stairs to the platform and it's empty. And I turn around and I don't see Jennifer.

Jen: (laughs) Because you got through and they tried to stop me. And I said, "NO, I'm with him." And I pointed at you, and they kind of turned around and looked. I walked by, and I got about five or six steps up the platform, and another security guard stepped in front of me. And I just looked at her and I said, "NO." And I walked right past.

And I have to tell you, I was pretty proud of myself for that because I'm not usually assertive like that. But I had packed my sassy pants that day.

Greg: Yeah, I was really proud of you, too, because like you said, it's not in your nature to be so assertive. But that's really what that moment called for. In any case, once she got up there, we strapped the backpacks on our backs and we tried to walk forward. But every coach had a security guard who just looked at us and gave us that universal hand signal for "keep walking."

Jen: (laughs) So we did. And every train car we walked by was full. People were standing up, even standing in, like, the doorways to go between cars. Until finally, we saw this one security guard who was leaving her spot, and I asked her, "Hey, can we get on that car right there?" And she looked at us in pure defeat and just said, "Sure."

Greg: Every seat full, all of the aisles between seats, people standing. Fortunately, there was a couple of little spots where we could stand, and about five or ten minutes later, it finally started to go. But we really had no idea where this train was going.

Jen: Yeah. And it kind of just made you stop and think for a minute about what it must have felt like back during World War II for people who were fleeing the Nazi army, who just went to the train station and then - not knowing where they were going - found whatever train they could get on, hoping it was bringing them to safety.

Greg: Yeah, that's not to equate what we experienced to what they did. But what we went through was so chaotic and our anxiety level was through the roof. And it just really brought home to us how scary and confusing it must have been for them because it was even worse.

Jen: Yeah, for sure. Thankfully…we did wind up getting to where we needed to go.

Greg: Yeah, so we arrived in Bruges, and it was a welcome sight because it was calm and serene compared to what we had just gone through to get on that train. So our next update will be about our time in Bruges.

Jen: Yeah, I really liked Bruges because everything was very walkable and it kind of had this romantic charm about it. We did a riverboat tour and I got to eat moules-frites.

Greg: So we will talk about that more in the next update. And thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey, everyone!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This time, we're mostly going to talk about our tour of the Harry Potter Studios, but we're also going to talk about tea time at The Ampersand and dinner that we had with some friends of mom.

Jen: Yeah, so I wanted to go to the Harry Potter Studios because I'm a bit of a Harry Potter nerd. I've read the books twice, I've listened to all the audiobooks, seen all the movies countless times. So we tried getting tickets on the website for the studio itself. We tried booking it through the tour companies. No luck.

Greg: No, in fact, I took a chance that a couple of hotels had packages. So I looked at some of the hotels that were in the area, and one hotel - a Hilton hotel - they had availability while we were in the area. And when you stay there just for a day, you get admission tickets into the tour.

Jen: Yep. So we stayed in a little Hilton hotel in Watford, England.

Greg: Yeah. When you get to the studio outside of the ticket office, they have big, huge statues of the chess pieces like from the first movie. You go in, and you sit, and you watch this little film. When it's done, the screen lifts up, and you see this massive door that invokes the feeling of being right outside of Hogwarts.

Jen: Yeah, it's kind of exciting to see because you know what's coming - or you think you know what's coming. So they ask the people in the audience if anybody has a birthday. And I'm not going to lie, I almost said it was mine just because I knew they were going to get to open the door —

Greg: (laughs) Right?

Jen: —leading to the Great Hall.

Greg: Yeah, the Great Hall, surprisingly smaller than you think when you see it on the film. But it is very impressive. I know I keep using that word every time we do an update.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: But it was not just the movie set. They also had mannequins with different school uniforms. They had various props that were related, all in there for you to see. But they don't give you much time.

Jen: No, I think we spent about 10 minutes in there.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: And then they kind of filter you out into the next section. And a fun fact about the Great Hall - it's actually one of the few sets that was used in all eight of the films. And it's very well preserved for people to visit.

Greg: Yeah. Well, after they push you through, they do tell you you can come back in later. But what they're trying to create is a big empty Great Hall so that when the next group opens the door, you get that moment of “ooh and ahhh”.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: So you can go back in after that moment and still see more of the Great Hall if you wanted, like all the candles that are up above.

Jen: Right. The floating candles are there. But there's so much to see in the other part of the studios that you don't even really think about going back in there.

Greg: Yeah, I sure didn't, because as soon as you go through the walkway into the next set, it's immediately hitting you with so much great information about directors and cinematographers, costume design, makeup, special effects. They all had little sections that described who they were or little projects they worked on during the filming.

Jen: Yeah, and that's all right when you walk in. And I was getting a little antsy because I could see all the other stuff, all the sets that were there. And I was like a little kid ready to go.

Greg: Yeah, and it wasn't just the sets, right? There were also costumes that were on display, props. But, you know, there were some very im — important…

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: …sets that are very recognizable, like the common room from Gryffindor's area, the common room from Slytherin's area.

Jen: Yeah, Harry and Ron's bedroom.

Greg: Yep.

Jen: Dumbledore's office with Fawkes, the phoenix.

Greg: Yes.

Jen: He's there. He's there…like he's a real thing.

Greg: (laughs)

Jen: (laughs) And one thing that I kind of stood in front of like a little kid, it was Hermione's dress from the Yule Ball. I have always loved that dress!

Greg: But, you know, there were also sections about special effects where you could be in front of a green screen riding one of the brooms.

Jen: Another section you're able to go into is the Forbidden Forest, which, if you've seen the movies, it’s very dark, very…foreboding, I guess.

Greg: And they give you trigger warnings.

Jen: They do. Strobe lights, smoke, if you're scared by loud sounds, because it's all there.

Greg: And massive spiders!

Jen: (laughs) Yeah. So Aragog is there, the big spider. Definitely, people walked through faster after they got past him. They were, like, I don't want him behind me. Um, Buckbeak is there. There's a display where you can actually touch and feel what the materials they used feel like.

Greg: Yeah, which to me was the coolest part about the Forbidden Forest because you touch and feel it and it's like this feels like real tree bark. It looks like real creepy tree bark. And they describe exactly what it took to make it. It's like four phases of treatment and application of various materials, and then the artists have to actually carve to make it look more realistic.

Jen: So this Forbidden Forest wasn't actually the same one that they used in the movie. The original one was built outside in a bigger space, but it wasn't the kind of material that would hold up in an outdoor setting. So when the movies were over, they dismantled everything. But cool fact, the original set builders actually came back to the studio and recreated a version of the Forbidden Forest so fans could walk through it.

Greg: Yeah, which I appreciated.

Jen: Yeah, it's really neat!

Greg: So there was another cool section in the studio where you see the Hogwarts Express train. And along the wall, you have the push carts going into platform 9 3/4. Although the funny piece is there's like six or seven of them — (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — because they know that's what people want.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah. And it's really funny because we left out of London, out of King's Cross station. So at King's Cross station, they have a display of platform 9 3/4 with a very long line of people wanting to take pictures of this same thing. And Greg's, like, “Do you want to wait in line?” I'm, like, “Heh, no, I'm going to see the real one.”

Greg: Right…the real one of six.

Jen: (laughs) Yes. And I did take a picture there.

Greg: So you eventually get past that stuff and see a concession area where you can buy butterbeer, get butterbeer ice cream, get a hamburger, stuff like that. Jennifer got some butterbeer ice cream.

Jen: Yep.

Greg: And right past that concession area is an outdoor area that has the Knight Bus. It has the wooden bridge.

Jen: Yep.

Greg: It has the Dursley house, which you can walk through. They don't let you meander in the home. It's a very specific path, but still cool to walk through the house.

Jen: Yeah. So they have different scenes that are recreated there — when Harry Potter gets his letter from Hogwarts and all the letters are swarming the living room. And then there's part in his room where he meets Dobby. I love Dobby. So that one was really cool to see. But we didn't spend a lot of time in that outdoor area because it had kind of started raining.

Greg: So from there, you go through a spot that's dedicated to everything it took to create the creatures and fantastical elements of the movie. So whether it was special effects, whether it was makeup, whether it was special costumes, they showed, like, how they achieved that. They also had the display showing you how they made Hagrid seem so tall. That was neat.

Jen: Yeah. So it's really cool. We've actually watched some of the movies since then to see parts of it. We're, like, “Oh yeah, we remember seeing how they did that!” It was really neat.

Greg: Yeah. So the last area you go through is a massive model of Hogwarts Castle. It's to scale. It's 1/24th the size. It's incredibly detailed, and it is supremely impressive.

Jen: (laughs) I don't know what else to add to that. It was amazing.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: It took up an entire room.

Greg: So yeah, I think we both had a great time. Even if you don't like Harry Potter, it is a terrific studio to tour if you like movies in general. I know we've seen the movies so often that it was neat because each little thing still resonated. And I'm really, really glad that we went.

Jen: Yeah. And this is one place we actually went in the gift shop.

Greg: Yes. They make you exit through the gift shop.

Jen: Of course they do.

Greg: And it is the largest exit gift shop ever.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah, if you can't find what you're looking for Harry Potter-wise in this gift shop, you're not going to find it. In fact, I was looking for - specifically - my house's Quidditch t-shirt. I'm Hufflepuff, if anybody's curious. But they never have any of that. It's always Gryffindor, which Greg is, or Slytherin. So I was able to find my t-shirt.

Greg: Yeah, also…everybody that's reading or listening has absolutely zero surprise to finding out you're Hufflepuff.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So from the studio tour, we stayed at the hotel —

Jen: Mmhmm

Greg: —woke up the next day, caught a train back to the London area to stay at our favorite hotel in South Kensington.

Jen: Yay, The Ampersand!

Greg: Yep. But when we got there, our room was not ready. So we decided to pass the time by doing one of the tea times that The Ampersand provides. It's themed.

Jen: So the hotel is in South Kensington in the middle of the museum district. So it's really close to the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Science.

Greg: The cool thing about the science tea is they bring out your tea set and then the lady literally says, “ARE YOU READY FOR THE SCIENCE?!”

Jen: (laughs) And we were. So the top tier has a little container of dry ice, and she pours a little bit of water in there. So you get the smoke and the mist coming down off your tea set. And then you get to discover all the fun stuff that's on there.

Greg: Yeah, they give you a little chemistry experiment type setup where you create your own fizzy lemonade. It's got little beakers and stirrers, and the ingredients are separate, and it gives you instructions. So if I were a kid, I would have thought that's the coolest way to start a lunch ever.

Jen: So one of the other really cute things that they had were these little containers that were covered with really fine crumbled cookies that look like dirt and a little brush on the side. So you get to dig for your own fossils, which they had little chocolate dinosaurs and dinosaur bones under the cookies. And you could discover those and eat those as a treat.

Greg: And of course, there's sandwiches and chocolates and everything that they normally had, the scones. They were all very tasty. But the thing that we remember the most is it was rooibos tea, which we had never had before.

Jen: Yes. And I guess after this and the chai, I'm now a tea drinker?

Greg: I think you are.

Jen: Weird.

Greg: Yeah. But rooibos is not actually a tea like we think of tea. It's like an herbal infusion of a plant that's native to South Africa. I think rooibos means red bush or something like that.

Jen: Yeah, I think that's what we found.

Greg: Yeah. So overall, it was an orange vanilla rooibos tea that I think the brand was Jing, and it was delicious.

Jen: Yeah, they have it on Amazon if you want to give it a try.

Greg: Yes, we've had Rooibos a few times since then. And it's also naturally caffeine free, which I appreciate.

Jen: Yeah. Greg usually looks for the caffeine-free stuff. Um, I just look for one that tastes good. And thankfully, this is one of them.

Greg: Other than tea time, the last thing to talk about in this update is when we met some friends of Mom — Paul and Sharon. So Mom and Paul both work in insurance, and that's how they got to know one another. And they hit it off. And Paul and Sharon have both come to the U.S. and visited Mom when they were here.

Jen: On holiday.

Greg: On holiday.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: And when she mentioned that we were going to be in the London area, they immediately jumped at the chance to meet up with us and we grabbed dinner. And I think what should have been just a couple of hours dinner, we were, like, together for four hours.

Jen: Yeah, I think we closed the restaurant down.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: They kept asking us if we needed anything else and we turned around and the tables were emptying. So…

Greg: Right?

Jen: But we had a great dinner with them. We talked about travel. We talked about cooking because they like to do both. And they had actually just gotten back from Spain, I think it was?

Greg: Mmhmm.

Jen: So they were able to give us some tips because they've gone to pretty much every place we were talking about going.

Greg: Yeah, that was really useful. We also made an agreement the next time that we're in the London area, we're going to get together so that Sharon and I can do a lot of cooking.

Jen: It was a lot of fun and we're glad we were able to make it work.

Greg: Yeah! I'm sure everyone is going to be grateful now that we are pretty much done updating about London and the UK in general. But overall, I think we both thoroughly enjoyed the UK. The Scottish Highlands were probably one of our favorite places we visited in our traveling, but also just London might have been one of our favorite cities.

Jen: Yeah, I think so. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. And it's for sure one of the places I want to go back to. Plus, I mean, I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to be able to make a permanent home in South Kensington.

So what's the next update?

Greg: Specifically Belgium. Although I don't know if we're going to start with Brussels or Ghent or Bruges.

Jen: Yeah, because we visited all three.

Greg: I can tell you, though, one update is going to include a rather long rant about why Brussels Midi train station is the worst.

Jen: Ugh, you don't want to miss that one.

Greg: Yeah. So, thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This time we're going to talk about historical places around England that we visited while we were there.

Jen: Yeah, we went to Stonehenge, Bath and the British Museum.

Greg: Yeah, so…we'll begin with Stonehenge. For those who maybe aren't aware, Stonehenge was built around 2500 BC. And we also know from excavating the site — I say “we” like I was a part of it…

Jen: Yeah. (laughs)

Greg: We were told it was built in alignment with the solstices and acted kind of like a calendar so that they would know when it was going to be cold season or when things were going to warm up. Planting season could be timed. Harvest season could be timed. Things like that.

Jen: So some of these stones weigh up to 25 tons and even the smaller ones are up to six tons. And they say that they were all brought in from over 150 miles away.

Greg: Yeah, it's actually a really interesting piece of the engineering that went behind Stonehenge for people who lived like almost 5,000 years ago. I thought it was really, really cool. And I kind of had a lot of awe when we were there at the history of it, the engineering. But I was also disappointed because of how many people were just kind of, like, trying to build up social media clout.

Jen: Yeah, there were several spots that they had around the stones that were giving you clues on how to take the pictures you've probably seen on your Instagram feed of people trying to prop it up or maybe hold it in their hands to where it was really tiny. And the lines for those areas were very long for people to wait to take pictures. So luckily, we went around to the other side and were able to take some pretty good shots with hardly anybody in them.

One of the other cool things that's at Stonehenge, too, is an area up near the visitor center that they've done a lot of replicas of the houses that people lived in, the tools they used, and the workshops they used. And what you learn there is that people were really tiny!

Greg: Yes! Some of those doorways you could not walk through without ducking if you were over five feet tall.

Jen: They are small but they are mighty!

Greg: One thing that I know people complain about a lot online that I've read is the road noise because there's a highway very close by. But really, you kind of have to be looking for it. Because we were paying attention to Stonehenge, to the visitor center exhibits and the replica huts. We didn't notice the traffic noise and unless you turn around and look for the highway, it's not really something you see a lot of.

Jen: There were several times where I forgot we were even that close to the road. It did really feel like you were out in the countryside. I would definitely say you should add this to your list if you're in the United Kingdom. It's fun.

Greg: Yeah, I agree.

The second historical site that we visited was a small town called Bath, which was first settled by the Romans about 2,000 years ago when they controlled a big chunk of the British Isles.

Jen: Rome controlled a big chunk of a lot of Europe is what we learned.

Greg: Yes.

Jen: Um, but they chose this specific place because it's located over a naturally occurring hot springs.

Greg: Yeah, and what Romans called baths, we today would say is more like a spa and gym. There was an outdoor pool, but there was also an indoor pool that was heated with a sauna. Right? And the way they did that is a raised floor that had furnaces on either end that pushed a lot of really hot air underneath. So it was really neat. Again, engineering from people thousands of years ago that I was impressed.

Jen: It was really cool to be able to walk in the footsteps of people from nearly 2,000 years ago and kind of be in the same spaces that they were in. One of the cool things that this place had done was put projections of different scenes on the walls of maybe exercises and games that they played during the time in the gym.

Another thing that they did was they have a little section of the building where you can actually taste the water from the springs. They have a little fountain set up and you can get a little sample cup. So we tasted it.

It wasn't good at all, honestly. It's supposed to have healing properties, but I don't really know how people could drink that over and over again and still be happy with themselves.

Greg: Yeah, it was kind of like a sulfurous taste, right?

Jen: Yeah, it smelled that way too.

Greg: Yeah.

Ah, besides the Roman baths, the town of Bath has another thing that draws people, which is the architecture is iconic Georgian architecture.

Jen: So this Georgian style, if you're not familiar, is named after the four King Georges that ruled England during the time from 1714 to 1830.

Greg: Yeah, it was very charming, I think, overall. You know, they have all the big chimneys stacked one after another.

Jen: Yeah, it reminded me a lot of the scene in Mary Poppins where the chimney sweeps are on top of the roof doing their little dance.

One of the other things - I just remembered - uh, was, because I like to read so much, I found this super interesting, uh, that Jane Austen spent a lot of her time there. If you don't know who Jane Austen is, she wrote Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.

And Mary Shelley spent about a year of her life there. She actually wound up writing a good part of Frankenstein there after reading an article where it described electricity and that they thought it might be possible for it to bring inanimate people back to life.

Greg: So that's Bath, which I would say we both enjoyed.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: The last piece we will discuss is the British Museum. But before we talk about the British Museum itself, we have to tell a story about how we got to the British Museum.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah.

So Russell Square in the London Underground is one of the deeper stations that are built further down under ground. So what that means is you have to go a further distance to get up to street level. You have to take one of two elevators. And as you can imagine, with a busy Underground station, these elevators fill up pretty quickly. Greg seemed to be the only one that was concerned about the maximum capacity of these things so Greg looked at me and said, “This is not happening.” Because, I mean really, people would push on and then more people would push behind. It was not going to be a pleasant or a safe experience.

So we decided to wait on the second one to come. Unfortunately during that time another train arrived in the station so that means more people are going to get in line. Yet another elevator car gets full to capacity. And we just looked at each other and said, “We're going to take those stairs.”

Now, we had heard a couple minutes before an older gentleman say, “You know, those are 176 stairs.” And it's like the second most stairs of any of the Underground stations. But we didn't let that stop us. So we decided to take those 176 steps up to the street level.

And after a little bit, we heard some people coming up from behind us. It was a dad and his son, looked like he was about seven years old. They were moving a lot faster than we were because we honestly had to take a couple breaks because 176 stairs is a lot of stairs to climb.

Greg: Yeah, it is.

Jen: (laughs)

So they were coming up behind us. And as they got closer, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that says, “The stairs are only for emergencies. Please take the elevators.”

So I look at Greg, like, what do you want to do? And the son looks at the dad and the dad looks at Greg, like, what are y'all going to do? And so we all kind of stood there for a second. And then Greg mentioned, “Well, we're probably over halfway there. Let's just go.”

So then that kind of was the dad's like, “Ok, we can all break the rules together!” And we went up the stairs. (laughs)

We hear in a little bit this kid go, WOOHOO! And we knew we were getting close. And there was the light at the end of the tunnel, the street…finally!

Greg: Yeah. So at the top of the steps, we just had to go through the turnstiles. We were out on the street thinking we're here one block from the British Museum. However, that was incorrect. We were one block from the back corner of the British Museum. The entrance was all the way on the other side. And the museum itself is like three blocks in size. It's massive.

So we had to walk - I think was the equivalent of about three or four blocks one way - then another couple of blocks after turning to get to the entrance. And then we weren't done walking because the entrance is just where the line goes through the gate. The line went another block or two past. (laughs)

Jen: (laughs)

So after going up 176 steps, walking seven or eight blocks was killing me!

Jen: The reason the line was so long is most of the museums in London are free, but you still have to reserve your time slot.

Greg: Then you have to go through, which is a lot of standing and walking, after we did the walk to the museum, after we walked up 176 steps. I was really concerned because the museum is not small, and I wanted to see as much as we could.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: Once you get inside, it really is great. That's why...

Jen: The Great British Museum. (laughs)

Greg: It is. So as an example, right up front, there's this room that's a library that was used by famous people over the time for doing research.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Greg: There's also all the different exhibits, multiple stories. There's an Easter Island statue. Very cool. There were African costumes that were very reminiscent to us of, like, Mardi Gras costumes that we saw growing up. There's an entire tomb they took from Western Turkey. It's the tomb from Halicarnassas, which they rebuilt in the museum. And it was all just terrific pieces of history and art. There's also Parthenon statues and reliefs. So…very, very cool.

Jen: Right. And there's actually some debate about those statues and reliefs and the rightful ownership of some of the artifacts in the museum itself.

Greg: Yeah, definitely. But I appreciated that they were there so that we could see them.

Jen: And one of the things that is under that debate was probably one of the most impressive things to us to be able to see was the Rosetta Stone.

Greg: And why is the Rosetta Stone so impressive?

Jen: Oh, man…

So the Rosetta Stone is actually kind of a key for us to be able to understand ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Greg: And I was very excited to see it, but it was not what I expected. It was chaotic. There…there was no order.

Jen: So we expected this to be a little more organized than it was. Maybe a special room reserved just for it. Kind of more of like the Mona Lisa, even though there are other things in that room as well. But really, it was in the middle of this long room, just in a glass case, amongst other statues of, like, Ramses and different things.

And it was surrounded by people. So it was really hard to get to, but we finally managed to get up there to the front to be able to see it and get close. And people were swarmed around us. Greg leans over to get a closer look at it. And about a dozen arms fill up the space to start taking up pictures.

Greg: Yeah, I kind of got stuck. The Rosetta Stone is not really like raised up to where it's kind of eye level. It's a couple of feet big, but it's sitting on a base on the floor. So if you really want to get a look at the whole thing at a certain point, you do lean over, that's what I did. And I didn't really have the ability to just stand back up. So I had to slowly kind of begin raising myself. And people reluctantly —

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: — moved their arms and their phones.

But as I was standing up getting my last look of the Stone, some guy - I think he was probably in his 20s - he put his arm over my shoulder while I'm standing up and put his phone literally in front of my face to take a picture of the Stone.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: And I just turned and looked at Jennifer and was, like, “I'm done. Let's go.”

Jen: Yeah. So we backed our way out of that slowly and moved on. But it was a really cool thing to be able to see.

Greg: Yeah. Everything there is really cool to see.

Jen: I think my favorite part was probably the design of the museum itself. Like you walk in and it's just this enormous atrium with so much natural light. And just the design of it impressed me a lot.

Greg: I think it's actually known for being a very well-designed museum.

So for the most part, that was our historical side of visiting England in and around London. The next update is going to be more about experiences and interactive things.

Jen: Yeah, we went to the Harry Potter Studios, which is a little bit outside of London, but also where they filmed the movie or the movies. And also most recently, if you're a fan of the Food Network, they filmed the Harry Potter Baking Championship there as well.

We also did a tea at the Ampersand. It was a science theme, so that had some neat little elements. And we got dinner with Paul and Sharon, a friend of Greg's mom and his wife.

Greg: Yeah, mom got to know them through her job with insurance, that's what Paul does back in the UK. And it was really great to get dinner with them.

Jen: Yeah, it was fun!

Greg: So thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update is not one that's chronological. As we said before, we went in and out of London, so we're doing it more about content we're going to discuss. In this case, the Royal Residences.

Jen: And our favorite neighborhood in London - South Kensington.

Greg: The last update where we discussed how much we do like South Kensington, we did not mention it's actually home to a fair amount of diplomats and expats. It's known for being fairly French and European.

Jen: Speaking of diplomats, we met a lady named Maxine who was married to a Spanish diplomat and has apparently lived in South Kensington for quite some time. Everybody in the area seems to know her, but we met her because we were at a coffee shop waiting on our laundry to get done, and we wound up talking to her for probably about 45 minutes.

Greg: She was - I don't know - maybe in her 80s. She was not a young person. And she used to be a figure skater who taught younger people ice skating for a portion of her time. And she mentioned her husband, Alfonso, the Spanish diplomat. They moved around the world. She has two kids. Both of them, I think, work with like the UN or something. But her stories about the neighborhood and her own life were really interesting.

Jen: Yeah, we told her she should write a book.

Greg: Yes.

Jen: She laughed at us. (laughs)

Greg: Yes.

It was noteworthy, though, because at the cafe, they knew her by name. Apparently, she goes there frequently. We then went to a pharmacy to pick up some things like toothpaste and shampoo. She was in the pharmacy. And of course, the people in the pharmacy also very familiar with her and knew her by name.

Jen: Yeah, and she told them, “Make sure to take care of my new friends.”

Greg: (laughs) Yes, she did. She was quite the character. And that's another reason why we really enjoyed South Kensington.

We should mention that Wimbledon was occurring during one of those periods. So our favorite hotel, the Ampersand, was fully booked and we could not stay there.

Jen: So instead of staying at the Ampersand this time, we wound up staying at one called 100 Queens Gate, which was not too far away. And it was a Hilton property, I think.

Greg: Yeah, yeah.

And our initial impression was not great, but it got significantly better while we were there.

Jen: So we got to the hotel a little bit later than normal because it was a long travel day. And so our patience probably was not as good as it should be. And when we went to leave to go to dinner, the door would not lock. So we had to call maintenance and wait on him to get finished with the door. And it took him way longer than it should have, in my opinion.

Greg: Once maintenance got the door fixed, we went to dinner. We get back from dinner and we realized that the bed is not the same as what we booked online.

Jen: Yeah. So we booked a queen-size bed, I think.

Greg: Yes.

Jen: And it was more along the lines of a full-size bed. And we are not small people…

Greg: No.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: I mean, I know when you look at it, it's a difference of like six or eight inches, but that six or eight inches means a whole lot. (laughs)

Jen: (laughs) Yeah. So we went back down to the front and told them, “This is not acceptable.”

Greg: Right, but the interaction was not great because they looked at us like basically we were crazy. Then they type on their keyboard, look at each other, and then start basically saying like, “Yeah, that's the double room. Everything's what it is. It's the double room.” To which we had to show them our reservation - which literally said - queen bed.

And I said, “If you would like to get a tape measure, we can go and measure that bed. A queen bed should be approximately 60 inches. Would you like to get a tape measure?”

And that conversation was not really going anywhere. So I said, “Listen, it's late. We don't want to deal with a whole lot of checking in, checking out anymore today. If we stay tonight and I check out in the morning, are you going to bill me for the rest of the time on my reservation?”

And the guy said, “You will not be billed for any days that you do not stay here. And I said, “Great, we're just going to check out in the morning.” And the guy said, “I understand. However, before you check out, explain your issue to the person who is on duty in the morning up here, because right now I don't have any rooms, but they may be able to find you something to make you happy.”

So I said, “That's fine with us.”

The next morning when we woke up, the service experience was so much better.

Jen: What a difference a day makes.

Greg: Ah, exactly.

So the woman up front was so helpful. And right away, when I said, “Here's what my issue is…”

She said, “I'm very sorry. Clearly, that reservation was not worded correctly, and it is an older description. I will make a note so that we can make sure this doesn't happen for somebody else. In the meantime, let me check my system.” She said, “Yes, we have a room with a king bed available.”

And I said, “I don't want to pay the difference…

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: …I booked a room that you are not providing.”

She said, “You will not pay the difference. This is on us. We're going to make you happy.”

And it's a big reason why in many cities we like to stay in four- and five-star hotels because that's the kind of thing that you get versus staying at like a two-star hotel where they're, like, you're just lucky you've got a bed with clean sheets.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: But after she took care of us, I ran into another issue…with my CPAP.

Jen: Right. So if you're not familiar with how a CPAP works, it has replaceable parts like the hose and the nose pillow, and it was time to replace those parts.

Greg: Right. I don't normally plan on using a lot of that stuff past its normal life expectancy, but in the traveling, I figured I would. But in this case, I did start to develop a leak, which is what happens when it deteriorates enough.

So the issue was, we have an American credit card. The American site where I can purchase these parts would not ship outside of the U.S.

But, again, it's ResMed. Their site specifically for the U.K. would not take an American credit card for parts that could be delivered in the U.K.

Jen: …and we don't have a UK credit card. (laughs)

Greg: We do not.

And they don't allow gift cards. Uh, what do they call those cards that you get from Visa, which are just like prepaid or whatever?

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: Can't do those either. You have to have a legitimate bank card or credit card from the EU or the UK.

Jen: So, Greg says, “We're about to see how good this hotel really is.”

Greg: I did, because I had figured, why not ask? And maybe they can fix this problem.

Jen: The worst they can say is no.

Greg: Right.

Jen: And they didn't say no.

Greg: They did not!

I went to the concierge. When I explained my issue, he said, “Well, let me take you over.” And he brought me to the same woman that had helped us before.

Jen: She was probably tired of seeing us.

Greg: Probably.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: She then said, “Okay, I will check with the manager, but we don't really have a company credit card for expenses, so it's not like we can just purchase the part and then bill you. So let me talk to the manager and find out.”

Long story short, the concierge and the reception, along with the manager, collectively found a way for us to be able to get those parts. It just was so far above and beyond —

Jen: Right.

Greg: — what a hotel is supposed to do.

Jen: It was really appreciated.

Greg: Yeah. And the room they upgraded us to was a very nice room!

Jen: King-size bed this time! (laughs)

Greg: Right. (laughs) Right. So the real meat of this update, though —

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: — is not about our favorite neighborhood or about that interesting and strange experience with the hotel. This update is about the royal palaces and residences. Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, and Buckingham Palace are the three that we saw.

Jen: Yes. I wanted to see all three of these.

Greg: Yeah, I mean, so did I. We didn't see them all in the same day. It wasn't like we did all three together. This is just three that we saw during periods when we were in London.

I guess let's talk about Windsor Castle.

Jen: So Windsor Castle was actually part of a tour where we also saw a couple of other things that we'll talk about in the next update. But we left London at about 7:45 in the morning, got to Windsor at about 8:30, 8:45. And it was a little frustrating because we had to walk a little bit and then we stood in line for about 30 minutes before we were even able to go through security.

So we get through security and the attraction part, the State Apartments and the Dollhouse - two different things you could see - don't actually open until 10. So we had to go straight to a long line. And we also had to be back at the bus to go to the next spot by 11. So we really only had an hour to get through all of this stuff.

Greg: You know, it really even wasn't an hour because it takes about 10 to 15 minutes to go from Windsor to the place the bus parks. And if you're not there at 11, you're at risk of being left behind.

Jen: Yes, because our tour guide said he did not mind leaving people behind. We were very mindful of that.

Greg: Yes.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Most people were.

Jen: Yeah. So once 10 o'clock came, we were able to go into the State Apartments. We would have loved to have done both of them, but we didn't think we were going to have time to do the Queen's Dollhouse and the State Apartments. And even doing just the State Apartments with the Great Hall and all the hutches that had all the china and all of the gifts from various diplomats, so many things to see that we felt very rushed because we had to briskly go through it. Even having a quicker pace through the State Apartments, it took us about 40 minutes.

Jen: Right. It took us about 40 minutes and we went outside and saw the line to the Queen's Dollhouse was still as long as it was when we went in.

Greg: Longer, I think.

Jen: (laughs) Yeah.

So we knew we weren't going to be able to do both. So we decided to just go ahead and start heading back to the bus. We passed by St. George's Chapel, but we weren't able to go in because it was Sunday and they actually have services there still, so…

Greg: Yeah, and if you're not familiar with Windsor, let me give you just a little bit. It is the oldest occupied castle in Europe. It's like 900 years of British monarchs in Windsor Castle continuously.

And you hear us mention the Dollhouse. That is specifically a very extravagant scaled replica of Windsor Castle that has like running water and electricity and a fully stocked wine cellar. It's crazy!

Jen: Yeah. Actually, there's a YouTube video if you want to look it up because they go through each little room and the miniatures and everything was taken out and cataloged and put back in. So it was neat to see running water in a dollhouse.

Greg: Yeah, it would have been nice to see it, especially because this was some kind of, like, 50-year anniversary.

Jen: I think it was longer than that. (**Editor’s note - 2024 is actually the 100-year anniversary of the Queen’s Dollhouse.)

Greg: Right. In any case, St. George's Chapel was closed.

Jen: Yes.

Greg: If you're not familiar with what that is, it is the resting place of several monarchs, including Henry VIII.

Jen: And more recently, Queen Elizabeth II.

Greg: Yes.

Jen: So, and Prince Philip, I guess…

Greg: I'm not sure.

Jen: I don't know. (**Editor’s note - Prince Phillip is indeed buried at St. George’s Chapel.)

But yeah, so she's actually buried there, but the only day of the week it's not open is on Sundays to tourists. So that was a bit of a bummer, but…

Greg: It was the only day we could make it happen.

Jen: Yeah, for sure.

Greg: Another little interesting piece is St. George's Chapel has a lot of very impressive stained glass. During World War II, they took all of it out in order to keep it safe from when the Germans were bombing the UK.

Jen: We learned a lot about how things were protected in World War II from the Germans. (laughs)

Greg: Yeah. Or in the case of like the Last Supper in Milan from Allied bombing.

Jen: Yeah, true.

Greg: In any case, overall Windsor Castle was very large and as impressive as you think when it comes to a historic royal castle.

Jen: Yeah, and I think I would recommend if anybody goes to visit and wants to see it. It's an easy train ride from London to Windsor. There's a station 10 minutes away. Just go do it yourself to have the time to explore the town and everything too.

Greg: Yeah, I agree. That's really our only complaint from Windsor.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: The next place that we will talk about is Kensington Palace. If you're not familiar, for a while, Princess Diana and Prince Charles with their boys lived there.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: Then Prince William and Princess Kate lived there until recently.

Jen: Right. 2022, I think, they moved to actually the Windsor Castle grounds.

Greg: Yes. So, it is the birthplace and childhood home of Queen Victoria, and she apparently described her time there as lonely and isolated.

Jen: That's kind of sad.

Greg: Yeah. There's a lot of stuff about Queen Victoria through Kensington Palace, and you really do, you learn two things. Number one, the genuine infatuation that she had with her husband from the beginning.

Jen: Albert.

Greg: Yes. And overall, her experience at Kensington Palace, she really was kind of alone a lot.

Jen: Yeah. One of the other cool things at Kensington Palace was The Sunken Garden area outside. That was actually one of Princess Diana's, like, favorite spots in the palace. And now they've transformed it kind of into a memorial for her with her favorite flowers, which includes forget-me-nots apparently. But there's a nice little statue of her with a little pond in front of it. It's really kind of a peaceful little area.

Greg: Yeah, but they keep you at a distance. You're not allowed to go that close up to that.

Jen: Right, right. You can see it from across the way.

But I would say Kensington Palace, I think I had in my head that it was going to be a lot fancier than it actually was. When you hear the word ‘palace’, you kind of have this thing in your head and, “Oh, the royals live there. It must be fancy.” Um, but it was a lot more modest than a lot of the other ‘royal’ sites we've seen.

Greg: Yeah, but when you consider when it was constructed and the original royals that lived there, it was palatial for its time. But yeah, in the standards that we think of today, it is kind of modest by comparison.

Jen: Yeah. I mean, it was definitely nice. But I wouldn't say…Wow!

Greg: No, it was lavish inside. Yes, but it was no Buckingham Palace.

Jen: Yeah. (laughs) True.

Greg: I guess there's a segue for you.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: Buckingham Palace is the last one that we're going to talk about that we saw. And look, Kensington Palace is definitely a palace, but Buckingham Palace has all of the grandeur that you think of when you think of ‘palace’.

Jen: Yeah, I mean, it's the red carpet, the gold leaf everything, the chandeliers, the artwork. I wasn't expecting to walk in and go into, like, a mini art museum.

Greg: Yeah, and the artwork they had was some impressive stuff. I mean, I think that, uh, we read it has like 7,000 paintings, almost a half a million prints, a bunch of rare manuscripts.

Jen: Yeah, it was really cool. And we also, speaking of art, got to see King Charles’ first official portrait that caused such a stir when it was first released. Um, they have it on display.

Greg: Yeah, and I don't understand why people were in an uproar about it. I think it's a decent piece. It's way bigger than I expected, but it's painted very well. And I get, you know, there's an artistic impression to it. I thought it was fine.

Jen: Speaking of King Charles and Buckingham Palace, fun little fact that I learned this time was you can always tell if he's actually in residence by the type of flag that's flying on the flagpole. So if the Royal Standard is up, that means he's actually there. Otherwise, it's just the Union Jack. Unfortunately, while we were there, the Union Jack was flying, so he was not at the palace.

Greg: Another cool thing we did not realize until they specifically point this out is that Buckingham Palace only lets you view 19 rooms whenever they open it up to the public. But there are, like, over 600 rooms in the palace.

Jen: Yeah, and I think I read somewhere after that Queen Elizabeth even said that she had never been in all 600 rooms of the palace.

Greg: So yeah, that's the three royal palaces that we visited at various times during the in and out of London. I thought each of them were really cool in their own way, and I'm glad we went to see each one of them.

Jen: Yeah, I am too. Definitely the part of history that I wanted to see, but I had no idea that it was also going to be like a museum with art and furniture and...

Greg: Yeah, well, and Buckingham has more than just paintings and prints. They had marble statues literally from ancient Rome.

Jen: Yeah, I love some Roman marble statues…

Greg: Yes, but that's a different update.

Jen: Yes.

Greg: The next update, we'll talk specifically about Bath, which is a city that has Roman baths from 2,000 years ago.

Jen: Yeah. Jane Austen also lived there.

Greg: And Mary Shelley.

Jen: Yes, she actually wrote Frankenstein in Bath.

Greg: There you go. Stonehenge is something we'll talk about in the next update.

Jen: Yep! And the British Museum.

Greg: The Great British Museum!

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So I hope you guys will look forward to that. And thank you for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update is about the rest of our time in Ireland, mostly around the Cliffs of Moher, but we did do a couple of other things.

Jen: Yeah, I was really excited about the Cliffs of Moher when we started planning our time in Ireland and it was just made better by the fact that we got to see our friends from Austin.

Greg: Shout out, Desai family!

Both: Woo woo!

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So we'll begin this one by talking about a little town called Doolin, which is right there at the Cliffs.

Jen: Yeah, and we decided to do a ferry tour that day so we could see the Cliffs of Moher from sea level.

Greg: While driving to that ferry ride, though, there was - I don't know - like a charming small town Ireland thing. We literally had to wait on cows.

Jen: (laughs)

Yeah, as we were driving down the road, this man was walking in the middle of it. And following him were about 24, 25 cattle moving from one pasture to another. They took their sweet time. We were patient and enjoyed the view. And then we got to drive on.

Greg: Yeah, it was funny to me, though. Cars did start to pile up behind me because I was the first one there and had to wait. None of them got impatient. None of them honked their horn or anything. It was like, “This is just normal Ireland, dude. We're going to wait it out. It'll be fine.”

Jen: (laughs) And it was!

Greg: Yeah. So we got up to the ferry, got on board, and had a terrific tour of the Cliffs. It started with all of these birds, and Jennifer got so excited because she saw puffins.

Jen: Yeah, apparently puffins go to the Cliffs of Moher to nest, along with some other birds, but…the puffins are the cutest.

Greg: I guess, just to give you guys an idea of what it's like, we got within a couple hundred feet of the Cliffs themselves, and they are over 300 million years old. It used to be the seabed in that area. But, you know, seismic activity keeps pushing it up, so it's just 200 plus meters of sheer dark rock cliff. And it's like a stretch of - I don't know - 12, 14 kilometers long. It is almost oppressive when you're kind of close up to cliffs that size and that dark.

Jen: Yeah, it's one thing when you look at pictures of them, because that's what I always saw. And I was like, that's why I want to see them. And then you see them in person and they're just ginormous and, like, ominous, especially with the way the weather was that day.

Greg: Yeah. Another interesting thing we learned about the Cliffs on that tour is a tower system that they made when they were concerned about a Spanish invasion and then later a Napoleonic invasion.

It's basically like the tower system from the movie Lord of the Rings.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: There's a tower and in the distance you can see another tower. And from that tower, in the distance, you can see another tower. And that stretches for a long portion of the coast of Ireland. And when anyone saw a threat coming in, they would light a fire. And every tower that can see the fire would light a tower, just like in the movie. It was kind of an interesting piece of the tour.

Jen: Yep. And there's actually an island out in the water. And they have a tower there, too. And they're pretty well preserved. Like, you can still tell what they're supposed to be.

Greg: One of the coolest parts of the tour is something I already knew. The Cliffs of Moher are actually the cliffs that they use in the movie The Princess Bride when they show you the Cliffs of Insanity.

Jen: If you couldn't tell, Princess Bride is Greg's favorite movie.

Greg: Look. Objectively, remove all emotion, statement of fact, The Princess Bride is literally the best movie EVER.

Jen: (laughs)

But the Cliffs of Moher were also featured in one of the Harry Potter movies.

Greg: That's right! There is a cove that was used for the portion when Dumbledore takes Harry to go find one of the Horcruxes. There's, like, this huge, massive cliff structure and the waves slapping up against them. And then they go inside and find the thing with the shell and he wants water and you can't get the water in the shell… So that was a piece of the movie that they use the Cliffs of Moher for that shot.

Jen: Yep. So there's another update with your Harry Potter reference.

Greg: Right, yeah. After the ferry tour, we chose to go to a traditional Irish pub.  It turned out to be probably the most touristy pub there, but it was, like, okay.

Jen: Yeah, it's called Gus O'Connor's, and the interior was just what you would think an Irish pub would look like, so it was a lot of fun. The food was really good, I thought, for pub-style food.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: And there was a lot of it.

Greg: So overall, I don't regret the touristy Irish pub.

The next day, we met Nirav and Ami and their two kids, Arin and Keya, out at the Cliffs of Moher on the top side.

Jen: Yeah, we've known Nirav for a long time.  We met him in college and stayed friends with him.  He and his wife and kids now live in Austin, and we miss them a lot.  So it was great to see a familiar face there, too.

Greg: It really was.  It uplifts you because when you travel this long and you really don't have a lot of that familiarity to have somebody, especially somebody as close as Nirav is, meet us out there…

It was a fantastic day, but it was also a strange day because we knew that the cliffs were windy. We didn't realize how windy.

Jen: My goodness, the wind...

When we got to the parking lot, we couldn't even open the door for a couple minutes because the wind was blowing so hard. And it was so cold that day, even though it was July.

And we even laughed about how, you know, it's 100 degrees in Austin and we have three layers of clothes on on the cliffs of Ireland.

Greg: Right. It's also comical when you see dudes that look like they could have played in the NFL.  I mean, like 6'4", 240, and they're getting moved by the wind like it's nothing.

Jen: Especially children, too. (laughing)

Greg: Oh, poor Arin.

Jen: So at one point, Arin runs over to Ami and says, “Mom, it just blew me into the wall.”

Greg: And you laughed at him.

Jen: You did, too. His mom laughed at him. (laughing)

Greg: Yeah, we…I think we all did.

But, up at the top, we walked along the Cliffs. They have, you know, a wall to keep people from getting too close to the edge. But there's a walking trail that goes, like, the whole length of it, right?

Jen: Yeah, the walking trail actually starts in Doolin and goes all the way to Liscannor. It's a rough trail.  It's not paved or anything.  So a lot of people come there to hike it. We did not…

Um, but right in the middle is the visitor’s center, which is where we went to the Cliffs.

Greg: Yeah, and there's this little interactive kind of thing you can pay for access in that visitor’s center. It's mostly centered towards kids, but I do think the kids had a really great time in there.

Jen: I had a great time in there.

Greg: Yeah, I think we all did.

Jen: But one of the other fun things that happened at the Cliffs was in the parking lot. We were trying to put our jackets on. And I look over, and there's this little fox just sitting probably about 20 feet from our car, just sitting there posing like a puppy. I guess he thought we were going to give him a treat or something.

Greg: Yeah. Initially, I was a little worried because anytime a wild animal comes right up to a human without any fear, one of the first things that I get concerned about is rabies. Fortunately, he had no other real signs of rabies. So I kind of let go of that concern. And then, of course, we found out later he's a little bit of a celebrity in the area.

Jen: Yeah. So Greg's worried about our safety and I'm just worried about the photo ops.

Greg: Yeah. But this is what he does. He comes up when people park, hoping that they'll basically drop food or toss food, and he'll literally pose for the pictures pretty much before running away.

Jen: He was adorable.

— Note to everyone: DO NOT FEED WILDLIFE! —

Greg: So we said goodbye to Nirav and Ami and their kids before we left the Cliffs of Moher and began our drive to Galway.

Jen: So on the way to Galway, we actually saw a roadside castle.

Greg: Yeah, Dunguaire Castle is actually one of the cooler ones along the way to stop and see. It's kept up pretty well. The original castle was built on Galway Bay, a very strategic point.

Over the years, whatever reason, it ends up kind of a rubble. Then, in the 16th century, they built a new tower castle over the fortifications from the original. And that one got restored in the 20th century. And so it's still fairly well kept up. It's a great castle. You can just literally park and then walk the sidewalk to the gate, walk in and see Dunguaire Castle.

Jen: Yeah. And they also have tours you can do and they host events there. So you might even get to go to dinner in a castle if you're lucky.

Greg: Dunguaire Castle was just a short stop for us. Appreciate the castle from the outside. Get a few photos. Then we went ahead right into Galway.

We picked Galway because it's on the major highway that goes back to Dublin, which is where we needed to be the next day. And we made plans with Nirav and Ami for dinner.

Jen: Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Greg: After we went our separate ways, thanked them for taking time out of their vacation to see us, we got on the road towards Dublin.

But kind of halfway there, we stopped at a very, very long-established settlement, like, literally going back to the Stone Age or the Bronze Age. Back then in Gaelic, it was called Atha Luain.

Jen: The city now is just known as Athlone, and its location is a great spot mid-river on the River Shannon. And so the castle was built there to defend that spot. And it's been the site of many territorial battles throughout the years.

Greg: You learn about some of those conflicts when you tour the castle. We were very pleasantly surprised, though. All the people who work there are so enthusiastic when you come in to teach you about the castle.

Jen: Yeah, they were super pumped to just let us know everything about the castle and the area. And if we had any questions, come find them.

Greg: I enjoyed the tour and the place we ate, and I thought it was a great place to stop.

Jen: Yeah, it was definitely a good stopping point and allowed us a little break before heading back into Dublin to drop the car off.

Greg: From Atha Luain, we went into Dublin, dropped off the rental car, and just went straight to the hotel. We didn't have really the time or the energy at that point to see Dublin, and we regret that a little bit.

We chose to book a ferry to get from Ireland back towards London, which means we were gonna go from Dublin to Wales and then catch a train in Wales. But…it's an 8 a.m. ferry. We had a taxi waiting for us at a quarter to seven. On their website, for the ferry, they tell you check in by 7:30.

We're in the taxi. Jennifer notices that the ticket says check-in by 7 a.m.

Jen: Yeah. And this was…we —There was no way we were going to get there by seven because of the traffic.

What should have taken us 15 minutes wound up taking us about 35?

Greg: It took longer than that because in the 35 minutes that we were in that taxi, we didn't even get all the way to the port.

Jen: This is true. So we're sitting stuck in traffic, and I look over and see another taxi driver that's going the opposite direction trying to get our driver's attention. So our driver rolls down the window, and the other taxi driver says, "You might as well let them out now ‘cause they're not letting any traffic through unless it's a car getting on the ferry."

Greg: So we all said thank you to that guy. And our driver, very apologetic, pulled off to the side. We very quickly paid for the amount of time that we were in there and then grabbed our bags. We were still almost three-quarters of a mile from the port.

Jen: Yeah. So we take off running. We're putting our 25-pound backpacks on as we go, passing people by that are just waiting to get on the ferry. They're all looking at us like we're crazy.

We're trying not to pass out because we are not runners…

Greg: No, we are not.

Jen: (laughs)

And we had both resigned ourselves to the fact that we were not going to get on this ferry.

Greg: And in fact, we should not have, except when we got to the port, they had, like I think, three people still going through the check-in process. And I want to believe that they recognized how screwed up the whole thing was at that point.

So they were allowing late check-ins because we did not walk in that door until almost 7:50.

Jen: So we didn't have to wait a long time for the ferry to leave, but it took us that long to get our heart rate back down.

Greg: Yes, I am not built for 25-plus-pound backpack, running a mile. It's just not who I am.

Jen: (laughs)

It's funny looking back now because before we left on the trip, we walked around with our backpacks so we could get used to them. And at one point we're, like, “I wonder what it's like to run with these things?” And so we did and realized we don't want to ever have to do this.

Well, now this makes the second time that we had to do this…

Greg: Yeah. And I don't like either one.

Jen: (laughs)

In any case, we did make it onto the ferry. We got off in Wales, caught our train into London, which means the next few updates will be all of the time that we spent in London.

Jen: Yeah. So we saw a lot of different things — Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, Stonehenge, the Great British Museum, as Greg calls it.

Greg: It's great!

Jen: (laughs)

And last but not least, the Harry Potter Studios.

Greg: You know, it was more than just this one visit. It was a lot of in and out that we did in London because we really did enjoy it as a city.

Jen: Yep! One of my favorites.

Greg: So stay tuned for that. And thank you for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: This update is going to be the first part of our time in Ireland.

Jen: We had to do a two-parter on this one because we didn't realize how eventful our time in Ireland actually was. It was really enjoyable. Like, I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun we had in Belfast.

Greg: We're glad we did it.

Jen: Yes.

Greg: So, we began by taking a bus, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel in Glasgow that literally drives onto a ferry.

Jen: I thought, you know, drive your car, you sit there, it's going to go for a little bit, but this is, like, almost a cruise ship. They had a little theatre you could watch a movie. They had snacks. You could sit in a lounge. It was neat.

Greg: Mmhmm. Yeah. Once the ferry arrives at the port in Belfast, you get back in the bus and it drives off the ferry. In our case, the bus station was basically around the block from our hotel.

Jen: And we spent one afternoon and a full day in Belfast.

Greg: Right. One of the first things that we did was go to a restaurant called Mourne Seafood Bar.

Jen: So, we found out about this restaurant on a show we binge watched, pretty much, while we were in Scotland called “Come Dine With Me: The Professionals.” It's this cooking competition show. One of the restaurants featured on it was Mourne Seafood Bar. And we Googled it, we're like, “Where's this at?! Okay, we're going to Belfast!”

Greg: Right, yeah.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: I don't want to say we went just because of this, but it was a catalyst.

Jen: And we were not disappointed. We took a look at the menu trying to figure out what we were going to get. It all looked delicious, but there was one starter that caught our eye ‘cause at this point, we are sorely missing Mexican food.

Greg: Yes.

And there was something on the menu called an avocado ceviche tostada. So, we're like, “Sweet. Let's get it.” We order it from the waitress and she goes, “Okay, well, let me just tell you, it doesn't have any seafood on it.”

We're like, “What!? You throw ceviche out there and you're not putting fish on it?” We got it anyway because it still sounded good and it was one of the best things we had that night, if not the best.

Greg: The flavors were probably the most authentic to Mexican cuisine that we've had since leaving the US.

Jen: Yeah.

Greg: So we went back to the hotel. That was pretty much the end of that first afternoon. The next morning we woke up and we went to the Titanic Museum.

Jen: Even though the Titanic sailed out of England, it was actually built in Belfast. And the museum is really informative and interactive and it tells you a little bit about the Titanic as well as the shipbuilding history of Belfast.

Greg: They really go over how the Titanic was built and a lot of the massive structures they had to create in order to build ships of that size. Plus, you got to see replicas of rooms like where the crew stayed or first-class cabins. There was a replica of the deck and the railing and it was really interesting to see all of that.

Jen: I think one of my favorite parts was this theme park-style ride that reminded me a lot of the Peter Pan one at Disney World where you get in this little car and it takes you on this little ride up and down two stories. And it shows you different scenes of a day of a laborer and shows you just what it was like for them when they built this ship.

Greg: From that ride, the museum has a complete shift because they begin covering the actual impact of the iceberg.

Jen: Yeah, it definitely took on a different tone completely from one room to the next. When you walked into that dark room with the messages of the SOS calls, there's a big wall with a list of everybody's name that was on the ship. Everybody was very somber for sure.

Greg: The museum starts to pick things back up a little bit from there. When they have displays, giving you pictures and stories of the significant figures whose actions during the events helped save lives. For example, the most notable one being, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”

Jen: Yeah, so if you're familiar with the Titanic movie, that's Kathy Bates' character.

Greg: (laughs) Yes.

As you get towards the end of the museum, they give you a section that is uplifting in a way. It went over all of the inquiries and government investigations and the subsequent improvements to maritime safety.

Jen: So from there, you walk down this hallway and it's this series of TV screens showing you a documentary of the team that found the wreckage of the Titanic. And surprisingly enough, this one museum didn't push you through a gift shop at the end.

Greg: It did not.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: In fact, the very end of it is a big 20-, 30-foot-long replica of the Titanic that is made of a material so that when they light up different parts, it shows you different parts of the ship. And music is playing that kind of takes you back through the journey you just went on from the beginning of the museum to this point.

Jen: I think one of the coolest things about that room were all the artifacts that they had that were from the ship. There were some deck chairs, some of the clothing that they found, a life vest, and the neatest thing, I thought, was the violin that was from a band member that was made famous by the story of them playing while the ship sank.

Greg: Yeah.

Jen: So right outside of the Titanic Museum is a secondary museum of the Nomadic, which was the transport ship that was used to ferry passengers and mail from a port in Cherbourg to the Titanic. And the Nomadic is actually the last surviving ship of the White Star Line, which was the shipbuilding company that made the Titanic.

Greg: I thought it was a very interesting display. You know, not necessarily on the level of the rest of the museum, but it was cool.

Jen: I think it was a good morning spent.

Greg: Right!

From there, we caught a ride to St. George's Market, which is one of Belfast's oldest markets. It's in a very charming Victorian-era building, red brick. It was really pretty. And it's just a big part of their local community and culture.

Jen: The market had a really wide variety of stalls there, selling fresh produce, seafood, baked goods. And there were local artisans that had their crafts on sale. The market was really crowded because we went on a weekend, but I think that just added to its lively atmosphere and the fun of it all!

Greg: I agree! It was a little bit uncomfortable for me to be so tightly packed in in some areas weaving between people, but with the music and the smell from the foods that they had, everything inside of there really stimulating and —

Jen: A little sad though that we ate such a big breakfast, because there was a lot of stuff that we could have eaten, but we were just too full.

Greg: Yeah. Yeah…

Jen: Mistakes were made.

Greg: Exactly.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: So that's pretty much what we did in Belfast. The next morning, we jumped on a bus and went to Dublin because that's where we had reserved a rental car so that we could begin driving to the area around the Cliffs of Moher.

Jen: Yeah, because all of the train travel like we had been doing before just wasn't going to be possible in Ireland. So we had to get a car.

Greg: Driving worked overall other than a few times where the roads are very narrow in rural Ireland, and I hit curbs at 30 to 45 miles an hour.

Jen: But it's really okay because we got the full coverage insurance, so we didn't have to pay for any damage.

Greg: Smart choice by us.

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: However, driving in Ireland was not all bad. There were several points that we just slowed down — or outright stopped — and stared.

Jen: It was just so pretty and so different than Scotland because I feel like Scotland was more “wild” and it felt more “untouched” by civilization. But Ireland had the charming little villages and you could definitely see that these areas had a more human touch throughout the years.

Greg: Right.

So eventually, we did get to our hotel in the area around the Cliffs of Moher. The next update is where we will talk about the Cliffs of Moher as well as our driving through Ireland back towards Dublin.

Jen: Yeah, I think the Cliffs of Moher gave us more stories than we were expecting.

Greg: Definitely. So…thanks for checking in.

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

Both: Hey everyone!

Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.

Greg: Last time, if you remember, we discussed our visiting of the Isle of Skye.

Jen: The first day we ended the tour in a charming little town called Portree, which is on the Isle of Skye. It's known for its colorful buildings that line its harbor.

Greg: It is a very popular base because many of the tours, or people visiting, do it over the course of a couple of days.

Jen: Yeah, because it is a little bit of a trek for many of the major cities of Scotland to get there and back in one day. So you do an overnight and you get to explore more.

Greg: Right. So we got dropped off in Portree by the tour guide. We found somewhere to get some dinner and they sat us by the window. Right after we sit down and we're looking at the menus, one of the people that we had gotten very friendly with on our tour — his name is Alex — walks right by, sees me in the window. We wave at each other and I just point at the chair. So he just nods and comes in and joins us for dinner.

Jen: So we really enjoyed the dinner with Alex and that actually led to us kind of becoming “friends” on the second day of the tour. And we hung out with him, too, a little bit when we got back to Inverness.

Greg: Yeah. The next morning, everybody met up at the stop, continued our tour at a place called Fairy Pools.

Jen: The Fairy Pools on the island of Skye are like a series of really crystal clear blue and green waterfalls and pools that are situated in different parts of this hike.

Greg: As the tour bus drove within view of the Fairy Pools, you see the valley and the gravel trail and people starting to walk down that trail. It is really cool, but at the same time, we looked at each other like, “Oh crap! That's miles…” People's brightly colored clothing that you see at the beginning, they become little dots further along. Then you lose the people entirely.

Jen: Yeah, and there's, like, a decline at first, so we knew we would have to go up that to get back. But once we got past that decline, you know, you look out and you're, like, “Oh, it looks like it's fairly flat, little bit of hills, not too bad.”

That was an incorrect assumption on my part. And we were only given, like, two hours at this stop, so we knew we had to watch the time so we'd be able to get back to the bus.

Greg: We got to a certain point, and I just looked at Jennifer and was, like, “We have gone easily over a mile. I can feel it.” And over 45 minutes at this point, I know we keep thinking that the big pool is going to be just over that next rise, but I just petered out right there. I said, “I can't go any further.”

There was another guy, who was a comedian like me for that tour, who also sat right there. And we all decided that was as far as we were going to go and started walking back.

Jen: Yeah, I got up two hills and said, “But what if it's right over the next one?” And then I finally just gave up. I said, “I'll look it up online.”

Greg: Yeah. And it was funny because during the walk back, people stopped me — for some reason — to ask, “Is it worth it to keep going?” And the older guy can hear me. And I'm saying like, “Oh, look, if I can get there, you can get there. You can do it! It's so beautiful.”

And he's just going, “Don't believe him. He's lying to you. Just turn around.”

Jen: One of the gentlemen that had stopped and asked Greg for his opinion kept walking on and the guy from the tour said, “Man, you really sold him on that one!”

Greg: (laughs) Yeah.

Jen: So we noticed walking along that a lot of people were like getting in the water, taking their shoes off.

Greg: Yeah. The water all throughout is completely transparent. You can see every little stone and pebble like at the bottom of the riverbed. And of course, you know, the mountains all around. It's just really impressive…

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: …scenery.

There's one other aspect about Skye in general, but especially around the area with the Fairy Pools. It's all covered in heather, and we were too early for it. But if we had gone later in the year, all of that heather blooms into this beautiful purple.

Jen: Yeah, we saw a peak of a couple of the bushes that had started to bloom, but definitely not to the magnitude of photos I've seen online, which was a bit of a bummer.

Greg: As I like to say very often, “look it up”!

Jen: It's true.

Greg: The pictures online that you can see are fabulous. So from Fairy Pools, when we got back up to the top, I was completely done, drenched in sweat.

(laughing) The guide even commented about how I looked when I got back to the van, but we were still in good spirits because it was nice.

In any case...the next stop from the Fairy Pools, Eilean Donan Castle.

Jen: Eilean Donan is basically a fortress that's on a small tidal island where several different bodies of water converge near a town called Dornie. It's surrounded by amazing mountain views and water. And the castle is actually one of Scotland's most iconic landmarks.

Greg: Yeah, and there's, like, a big thing about the history of Eilean Donan and, you know, what it means for Scotland's heritage. But by that point in the tour, because of Fairy Pools, we were really tired. We didn't want to walk and hike up through that castle. So we kind of just hung out outside of it, tried to get something to eat because there's concession.

And a funny piece, when the rest of the tour starts coming back, our comedian friend from the Fairy Pools, he saw that we didn't go in. So when he comes up, we were, like, “Hey, how was it?”

He's, like, “It's the best castle I ever saw! Wouldn't miss it for the world!”

Jen: (laughs) Yeah. His wife said, “Boy, you have your funny pants on today.”

Greg: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, she did.

Jen: He and Greg were the comedic duo of the tour.

Greg: Yeah. Eilean Donan was very nice from the outside. We imagine it probably was also pretty great inside, but we just didn't have the energy because Fairy Pools took so much out of us.

So we left Eilean Donan Castle and we drove through Glen Shiel.

Jen: And this is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Glen Shiel was breathtaking, honestly. We were driving through and on each side of you, there's these towering green mountains, waterfalls.

And as we start to drive through, our tour guide comes on the loudspeaker and says, “I don't feel like we can drive through this without listening to some bagpipes. And I'm, like, okay…thinking we're going to listen to like some little bagpipe jig to enjoy this.

I was wrong.

Greg: Yeah. He told us a little bit about why, because the Battle of Glen Shiel, like from the early 1700s.

Jen: Within the first three notes, I knew he was about to play Amazing Grace, and I lost it because that song gets me every single time. So I'm looking out the window, tears down my face.

Greg: When it starts playing, I immediately turn to look at Jennifer and her face is already red with the tears kind of starting.

Jen: (laughing)

Greg: And I reach out and she just like swats me and grabs the water bottle because, you know, that's the move when you don't want people to know you're crying you grab, like, water and try to drink something.

But I will say this, it was gorgeous landscape and the bagpipes and everyone was quiet and being very meditative in the moment. And I just thought to myself, “I'm so glad to be right here, right now.” Like I was just so happy in that moment, which is a little bit sad because Jennifer's over there crying. (laughs)

Jen: It wasn't all sad tears. Very overwhelming, I think, in the moment.

Greg: Yeah. So we finished the little drive through Glen Shiel. We started getting closer towards Loch Ness.

Jen: Loch Ness is a very large, deep freshwater lake. It's the 15th deepest lake in the world. The depth is 230 meters. And it's really dark water because of how deep it is, so it looks kind of…ominous.

Greg: Right. Which is part of what spawns the legend, which we'll share a little bit for those who are interested. If you want to know more about all of it, you know what I'm going to say…

Jen: Look it up!

Greg: Indeed.

So there was a local man who disappeared and the people blamed his disappearance on a monster in the lake. A Christian missionary and a Scottish nobleman joined to go investigate Loch Ness over this disappearance.

Legend says the Scottish nobleman got attacked by a serpent or dragon-like creature from within the water. The Christian missionary said a prayer which scared away the Loch Ness Monster and the nobleman was saved.

All of that was kind of just local legend until early 20th century. Someone shared a picture they took which purportedly showed the Loch Ness Monster in the background behind him.

Jen: The only monster we saw in the lake was a cute little duck. So I don't think it qualifies.

Greg: You called the duck a monster. That's wrong.

Jen: Well…that's the only thing we saw.

Greg: Yeah. So that was, you know, a neat introduction to the whole Loch Ness thing.

But the area around Loch Ness, I know we use the word a lot — impressive…

Jen: (laughs)

Greg: …beautiful, striking. It just is.

Jen: Yeah, it really is. There was a spot that he brought us to that we were able to get out and take pictures by the lake. We were one of many tour groups there. So we had to wait our turn, but it was cool to be able to see.

Greg: After we toured the area around Loch Ness, he just started driving us back to Inverness, which was where the tour begins and ends. But at a certain point — a little bit before we get to Inverness — he starts slowing down and he just says, “Are you out here?”

Most people just kind of looked at each other, like, “Is our tour guide losing his mind?” But Jennifer and a couple others on the tour immediately knew what this guy was doing —

Jen: We knew exactly what he was talking about! We had asked him several different times, “Are we going to see any Highland cows?” This was the highlight of our trip, I think! (laughs)

Greg: Maybe we should say, because people might not know, what is a Highland cow?

Jen: It's a very unique breed of cattle that's native to Scotland. And you've probably seen pictures, the ones with the shaggy coats and they have the big horns. But they have the sweetest little face and you just want to hug ‘em.

I had seen one the day before passing, but it wasn't a safe place to stop off. So I was really bummed and thought, “Oh, we're not going to see them.”

But when he found this field, they were out. And so he pulls off safely on the side of the road and we got our pictures of the Highland cows!

Greg: Indeed. They were maybe 20-, 30-feet from the fence.

Jen: Yeah. Me and one of the other girls did try to convince the cows to come to us. They didn't listen, but we got pictures and pretty much made our day.

Greg: That was the last real stop for the tour. He brought us back into town. We all went our separate ways, except Alex, who said, “Hey, you guys mentioned you were here for an extra day. So am I. Let's hang out, let's get lunch.”

And so we made plans for a local place that was kind of known for lunch. We hung out with Alex and he said, “I'm gonna go to the Highland Games. Why don't you guys come with me?”

And we just thought, “There are Highland Games right now?!”

So we walked with Alex for, I think, it was three quarters of a mile away from where we were. There was a concert with music from some local Scottish talent.

Jen: Who we actually had passed by the same guy that was playing in a bar the night before when we were trying to find dinner.

Greg: Yeah, this bar is loaded with people and they're all singing. And we can see in the window there's somebody on a stage. And we just thought, “Is this guy famous? I don't understand why this bar is so packed.”

And then it's the same guy at the Highland Games. And we thought, “Ok, I guess he is kind of famous here.”

Jen: So I got to go to a concert in Scotland, too!

Greg: Yeah. So other than the concert, there's the walkthrough of, like, crafts and things that you can buy souvenir-wise, food, or you can search for your clan and what their tartan is.

But there's also the strongman competitions, caber tossing and hammer throwing.

Jen: So the competition we actually got to see was the kettlebell tossing competition, where they took kettlebells and threw them over high bars at different heights. I was…impressed. (laughs)

Greg: People who listen to our updates or read them see this word all the time — and…and it's probably a joke at this point for them as much as us — but so much of all of our traveling really is impressing us.

Jen: Yeah, we had a lot of fun!

There was also a bagpipe band that kind of marched through, and they were actually Scottish. Not from Canada….

Greg: (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Jen: After we decided to leave the Highland Games, we took a walk along the River Ness.

Greg: It's very serene how you can just take a nice little casual stroll.

Jen: Alex kind of laughed at us. He said, “It's just a short walk.”

Greg: Yeah, his “short walk” after the Highland Games, I think, was almost two miles extra of walking.

Jen: (laughs) We're getting our exercise on this vacation for sure.

Greg: Yeah. So we said our goodbyes to our new British friend, Alex. Went back to our hotel, made sure we were packed up because we had an eight-hour train ride the next day.

The next update will not be about that. As we said, the next update is our time in Ireland.

Jen: Yeah, we saw the Cliffs of Moher, went to Belfast. So there's good content on that one too!

Greg: For sure. So stay tuned and thanks for checking in!

Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!

**Don’t forget to click HERE to look at pictures from our time in the Scottish Highlands**