So where did we leave off? Ahh, yes. We slept the night away at the Holiday Inn Republique. Well, the boys and I did. Dan had a rough night. That chicken that I told him not to eat caught up with him. He felt almost back to normal the next morning and was ready for breakfast. Good thing because it was awesome. Again, I’m telling you, great place to stay. It’s worth the breakfast alone. The room was large (by European standards), clean, staff was very courteous and the breakfast was to die for. We ate our fill and then hit the road. Another major plus about this hotel is a secure parking garage right behind it. It was about $30 US, but handy.
Mappy.com gave us a road that we never found. Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves driving down the Champs-Elysées towards the Arch! If you had told me we would be doing this I’d have been a nervous wreck. Two things were on our side. It was Saturday morning and it’s August. Most Parisians are on vacation and most tourists don’t drive there. As you can see from the shot through the windshield, there was no traffic. Yeah for us!!! Now Dan has bragging rights that he drove around the Arch de Triomphe.
It was only about 2 1/2 hours to Bayeux in Normandy. We stopped to visit the tourist office and then headed out to Omaha Beach where my grandfather landed 61 years ago.
That handsome bloke on the far left is my dear Gramps. Here’s a picture I took of Roy and Jean (I love being named after my grandmother) a couple of years ago up on their mountain in New Hampshire:
How cute are they? I can’t wait to get to Ft. Drum so I can spend more time with them.
But I digress…. So… we’re headed to Omaha Beach. Words cannot begin to describe the feeling I had being on this beach where so many fell. Here’s Daniel and Joe exploring the bunkers the Germans used. They line the coastline all the way around France.
As much emotion as I felt as I looked out towards the British Channel, it couldn’t begin to prepare me for what I felt when we walked into the American Memorial Cemetery. As luck would have it, we walked in only 45 minutes before they were closing. Dan was asked to help lower the flag. What an honor.
As he was helping to lower it, a woman that works there came up to me. She said it was their honor that a soldier was helping to lower and fold the American flag. I assured her it was the other way around. If she knew how patriotic my husband is she’d have understood totally. She asked what brought us to Normandy. I explained that my grandfather had been there and I thought it was important for the boys to see it and that I’d promised him I’d take pictures for him so he can see it in peace. She turned to me and looked me directly in the eyes. With all sincerity she said, “Give your grandfather a message from me, indeed, all of France and really, all of Europe should be on their knees thanking him and all those that liberated us” I could barely reply because I was so choked up. I promised her that I’d relay the message.
In the next post I’ll tell you about the journey around Brittany and our visit with Nilda and family. I leave you with my favorite picture from the trip:
There’s no feeling like it in the world. You know what I mean. Just as your car door clicks and you remember the keys are inside. Same thing when you hit the back button on your browser and lose your post that you’ve been working on for an hour. This only happens with picture-filled, link-loaded, really, really good posts. Argh! So. Here we go again, but I think I’m going to go bit by bit. I’ll do Paris first and then I’ll tell you about Normandy and Brittany and my visit with my pal, Nilda (Waltzing Natilda).
But first I have pictures to share. Back to school here in Germany at the Dept. of Defense schools. The boys really like their teachers and are looking forward to learning lots! Joe’s looking a little ornery, doncha think? His poor, poor teacher.
So… the trip. I had plans for all that riding/knitting time. Wonderful plans. Too bad I’m a complete dork and didn’t copy the part of the pattern I’d need to make that happen. I figure I wasted about 20 hours of fine knitting time. I was supposed to be working on the Pacific Grove Pullover from Just One More Row. I got the gauge swatch done and when I looked at what to do next…. nothing. I missed the center two pages of the pattern when I was copying it for the trip. Argh. I know you can completely understand how frustrating that was. Nilda’s lucky I didn’t have any sock needles on me (which is unusual) or I’d have broken into the sock yarn I brought her.
The trip from here to Paris is only 6 1/2 hours. I have to say I actually enjoyed Paris this time. Ha. Go figure. We did the four-hour quick tour. We checked into the hotel (I highly recommend the Holiday Inn Republique. I found out about it through tripadvisor.com. Make sure you get the breakfast included in your rate! WONDERFUL! Omelets/eggs made to order, fresh pancakes, fruits, meats… you name it. This could easily serve as brunch for the budget traveler) and then made way to one of the several nearby Metro stations. We headed towards the Arch de Triomphe:
They don’t look very happy, do they? lol. It gets better (well, not for Dan. He was dog sick that night in the hotel). We’d just walked about a mile down the Champs Elysees and the boys weren’t very thrilled about it. So we hopped back on the Metro and headed to the Eiffel Tower.
The boys loved it. The lines were massive, it was cold, windy and a storm was coming so we opted for one of the glass covered boat rides on the Seine instead of going up the tower. Let me tell you, this is an awesome way of seeing a lot of Paris in a short time. The boys are all about boats and trains (read: not walking) so this worked out well.
We rode it and took in the sites all the way to Notre Dame. From Notre Dame it was only a 25 min walk (with two boys) back to the hotel. I wish we’d known that when we first left because we’d had saved about $15 in Metro tickets because the Batobus (boat) is one price for all day. Oh well. Live and learn.
So that sums up our ultra-quick tour of Paris.
Another note about the hotel if you ever stay there… right across the street was a great place to get mussels and fries. It was called Leon de Bruxelles. However… if you have an upset stomach, the fish soup is not a good choice. Dan found that out a little later. He also will now believe me from now on when I say I think a chicken has been in our fridge a day or two too long….
In our next post we’ll go to Normandy and, the highlight of the trip, Brittany. But for now…. tha tha tha that’s all folks.
Eight short hours until we get into the car and start driving west. Paris tomorrow, Normandy on Saturday and, finally, Brittany on Saturday night where we’ll stay for four days. Here we come, Nilda (Waltzing Natilda), ready or not!!
I’ll be back next Friday with plenty of pictures. Yes, Bets, I’ll remember to take a picture of the Breton cows for you! Only for you, my friend!
What a whirlwind the last two weeks has been. We had a great time with Monica, Peter, PD and Sean. We rented a Mercedes and headed south to the Alps. Let it never be said that we don’t ride in style. I took this quick photo so that Monica and Peter would have proof that they rode in a Mercedes on the Autobahn during their trip:
Did I forget to mention that it was a bright blue Mercedes rental van? lol. We put some miles on that van and we never had the problem of losing it in the parking lot! Here it is looking down from Hohenschwangau Castle.
Our first stop was Berchtesgaden to see the Eagle’s Nest. You can click on the thumbnail to see a bigger picture but it won’t get much clearer. That is actually how it looked that day. We were literally in the clouds. We hiked up to the top of the mountain to get a shot by the cross and as soon as we got back into the Eagle’s Nest building the sky let loose and absolutely dumped rain. It was a wet, wet ride to Garmisch….
We stayed four days in apartments in Garmisch. We had the whole top floor. Our balcony was this one all the way across the front (little picture is view from our balcony) and Monica and Peter’s was the same thing but across the back of the house. Their balcony had a beautiful view of the Zugspitze:
More pictures from Garmisch:
No trip to Garmisch would be complete without going to Neuschweinstein and Hohenschwangau Castles:
We hopped down to Vipiteno, Italy for lunch:
This sidewalk cafe was at the base of the clock tower in the center of town. Right outside of town are two castles. We stopped to take photos in front of Reifenstein Castle:
The Grand Finale for the boys was the trip to Legoland:
And yes, there was knitting…. The guys went golfing one day while Monica and I caught up on laundry. My dear SIL…. whom I’ve been trying to talk into learning to knit for years…. finally picked up the needles. She’s a natural. Here’s what she accomplished in just a few hours.
It was sad to see them go. I wish we’d had more time to just sit and visit but there was so much to show them. It was fun for Monica to be back in Germany (she and Dan were here as kids when my FIL was stationed in Hanau). Dan took them up to see all their old haunts in Hanau on the way to catch their flight out of Frankfurt.
Dan left this morning to go to the States for a class in Virginia. The house seems way too quiet…..
We got home at 3am on Saturday morning. I’ve spent the past couple of days doing laundry and getting the house back in order. Now I have time to share some photos from our trip.
We got into Glasgow City Center around 10pm on Monday night. It was pouring rain and pretty much stayed that way for all of our trip. It kind of adds to the ambiance of Scotland though so it wasn’t so bad. In fact, if the boys hadn’t been sick it wouldn’t have bothered me much at all. We did miss out on a lot of scenery though because the clouds were so low. That just means we’ll have to go back! 😉
We got our rental car Tuesday morning and headed for Stirling. Thank God we rented the car. The tour bus we were expecting to take around Stirling isn’t running until after Easter. Some of the things to see are quite a drive from the center. We saw Stirling Castle, Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument. It’s a beautiful city.
From there we headed up to Aberfoyle where the Wool Center is. I got to speak to one of the women that spin there and bought some of her hand spun. All of the outside activities were closed because of the rain.
We continued on through the beautiful countryside to Crianlarich where our B&B is. If you are ever in the area, Jan and Sandy at the Riverside Guesthouse were wonderful hosts and their place is simply beautiful. This is the view we had from the large window in our room (the Dochart Room).
It was the perfect middle point for all the places we wanted to go to. In the evening we went to The Ben More for our dinner. The boys made friends with the new owners’ son, Charlie, and played pool with him each night while we enjoyed a pint after we ate. Again, a great place. The new owners have only had the place for a few weeks, but the food and friendly atmosphere was terrific.
Here’s an outside shot of the guesthouse from their website. Notice the blue sky? We didn’t see that. lol.
On Wednesday we headed up through the Highlands to Glencoe.
The scenery was gorgeous all the way up. We had spurts of rain with little bits of sunshine that gave us great views like this on at the visitor’s center in Glencoe.
They have a great exhibit on the history of the Glen. I was happy to find out that my Campbell Clan was not as guilty in the massacre that happened there as was once thought.
Thursday was all about the islands of Mull and Iona. We left the B&B at 6:30 so we could make it in time for the 8am ferry out of Oban.
Look closely at this photo of our rental car. See the green door? Notice how much room is not left behind our car? That was what you call a very close call. Some dummy I forgot to reserve the ferry!! I’m the most organized traveler on this planet and I forgot something as huge as that!! As you can see, we just got on that ferry. Our entire day would have been ruined if we had to wait for the next ferry a couple of hours later.
After the 45 minute ride from Oban to Craignure on Mull, we drove straight across the island to Fionnphort to catch the ferry to Iona. Here are Dan and the boys being cheesy for the camera with the Iona ferry in the background.
And another one below of some of the island sheep grazing.
It’s a good thing we’d only planned on spending an hour on Iona. The skies absolutely opened up on us and the only place to hide was in the alcove of the bathrooms by the ferry ramp. Joe was the only one not in a waterproof coat. He was drenched. To make matters worse, as we got off the ferry back in Fionnphort a wave came over the ramp and finished him off.
Our hostess from the B&B had packed a great picnic lunch for us. We ate it in the Ferry waiting room in Fionnphort waiting for the rain to subside. It didn’t so we ran to the car and drove to see Minty on Ardalanish hoping she’d have a dryer for Joe’s coat and shoes. I forgot to mention… I finished the scarf in her own sheeps’ wool in the car on the way to the airport but I completely forgot to take a picture of it. Bad, bad blogger! I bought the wool when I visited her farm with the Knitting/Spinning group in July. If you have really good eyes you can see it on her in this photo of her with her two-day old Highland calf. How cute is he? (the scarf is the Robert Seaman’s Scarf from Myrna Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves)
When we arrived she gave Joe a dry pair of socks and a wool blanket to wrap up in. She’d made us a delicious cake with apples and bramble berries and some tea. She made the boys some hot cocoa and we sat in her sun room taking in her beautiful view of the ocean.
After tea, we went down to the weaving workshop and to the barn to see the new baby cow. She showed the boys where her chickens lay their eggs (not in the hen house), let them climb up in the tractor and feed the chickens. As we were leaving, she gave me one of her Black Hebridean fleeces to take home with me. We only had about an hour before we had to get back to Craignure for the ferry back, but Minty managed to make us feel very warm and comfortable for the time we spent with her.
Here are some of the cows on the side of the one-lane road that goes through Mull.
We got back to Oban to wave at the camera. Jeremy didn’t see us. As luck would have it, he started his shift right when we were there waving frantically at the camera. We had a friend here in Germany text messaging us to let us know when the camera was on it. It was actually pretty hilarious. At least some of you all saw us and our friends here in Germany did too. It would have been a shame if no one saw the goofballs. lol.
This is my favorite picture from the whole trip. It’s the boys with Oban in the background.
When I was in Oban in July I bought some gorgeous wool lap blankets (thanks for the tip, Dodie!) for about $20 each. There was a sign saying they were on sale, but I thought it was a tourist thing and I’d get more when I came back. They really were on sale because they are twice that now. Argh. Now I wish I’d bought at least two more.
The next morning we got up, ate our last full breakfast and headed back to Glasgow. Somehow I navigated us directly to the car rental place without getting us lost. Okay… Dan had to make a couple of illegal turns, but we got there. I love Enterprise Car Rental. They picked us up the first morning and gave us a ride back to Central Station when we dropped the car off. We put our luggage in hold luggage at the train station and headed to the Science Center. When we got off the train we realized we were only a few blocks from the car rental. Now we know for next time. lol.
The boys LOVED the Science Center. They’ve been to Science Centers all over the place, but we had this one to ourselves after some school groups left. It was awesome.
We spent a couple of hours there and then headed to John Lewis so I could drool over the yarn. The exchange rate was so bad that I didn’t buy any but I did get the new Jaeger book. I saw the cover sweater in my new Knitters just before we left and knew I had to make it.
That about sums up our trip to Scotland. It was very hurried but we saw a lot and the boys loved it. Next time we’re going for longer than four days and we won’t try to fit so much in.
I know… hard to believe. I finally finished one of the Fluted Bannister socks. I cast it on way back in October. I’m in a self-enforced knitting lull as I wait for my Must Have Cardigan pattern to arrive. I want it to be the only thing on the needles once I start it or I’ll find any reason to put it aside. I love the look of cables, but I’m just a fair-isle kinda girl.
Speaking of the Must Have, I took Tori’s (Tori Knits) advice and washed the skeins yesterday so they’d already be blocked and ready to go. When I use the ball winder I usually wind once from the skein and then rewind from the cake. The first winding is usually a bit tight and want the yarn to be able to relax. It makes a huge difference as you can see.
Thanks to Norma (Now Norma Knits 2), I was able to start my gauge swatch. I had to go all the way down to a 2.5mm. I knew I was a loose knitter, but yeesh! I think I’ll do the sleeves first and use a 3mm since I’m pretty sure I’ll knit tighter doing the cables.
Another baby blog… I get to meet a lot of great people through my knitting addiction. I met my friend Nilda (Waltzing Natilda) on the Hebridean Isle of Mull in Scotland in July. She stayed at the same guest house so we had plenty of time to visit in the morning over breakfast and in the evenings in front of the fire at the B&B. Our most memorable moment though has to be the one-hour bumpy (and I mean BUMPY) ride in the boot of the car (station wagon hatchback…. little hatchback) that Dodie drove on the way to Tobermory. Hey Mullers! Who has those pictures, anyway?! Nilda is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and I look forward to her posts.
For someone who knits as much as I do, I sure don’t wear my sweaters very often. I was going through my drawers yesterday looking at some of my old labors of love. Since I didn’t get much knitting done this weekend to share, I thought I’d share my blasts from the past.
My all time favorite garment is this one from Ann Feitelson’s “The Art of Fair Isle Knitting”.
It’s the Fridarey vest on page 120. I bought the wool for it and the Scalloway yoke sweater while we were in Lerwick, Shetland in 1997. Here’s the yoke of the Scalloway:
The nice thing about these is that they are the perfect souvenir of that trip and I’m reminded instantly of how much we loved Shetland. Dan had just come home from eight months in Bosnia and we needed family time alone. Couldn’t have picked a better place. It’s the perfect get-away. Enough to keep you from getting bored, but all relaxing and you are surrounded by natural beauty. We spent a few days in Edinburgh, then a week in Shetland and then back to Edinburgh for a few days for the Military Tattoo.
I still have about five sweaters worth of Shetland wool kitted up. It’s my favorite style of knitting. That trip is the best one I’ve ever taken in my life. We went to the mill where they used to spin the Alice Starmore yarns, visited bird sanctuaries, watched the Shetland women knit lace and fair isle at the speed of lightening and watched them spin cobweb weight yarn like it was second nature.
I was inspired by a sweater I saw in Shetland at the Sumburgh Hotel at the where we were staying and knit one similar for Dan. I bought the yarn at Jamieson & Smith in Lerwick.
When we first arrived at the hotel and got to the top of the stairs I almost was so excited to see a brass plate that said, “Fair Isle Room” Is that fate or what? It’s called that because you can see Fair Isle (25 miles away) from the window when it’s clear out. We couldn’t go to Fair Isle because we didn’t time our trip right with the mail boat that takes you there and back. If you look at a photo of the hotel from the front , we were in the room with the big picture window upstairs. It was gorgeous. The house used to be a family home of Robert the Bruce. The sea is just in front of the house and there’s a croft that you can walk to just up the road. We happened upon a man shearing one of his sheep. Heaven I’m telling you. Sheer heaven (no pun intended).
Here are some photos of that trip:
Dan and I look a little shell shocked as we were pulling into Lerwick Harbor because it was about 5am. lol. As you can see, Daniel slept just fine in the tiny berth on our P&O Ferry overnight journey from Aberdeen. We couldn’t get over how it never really got dark at night. It looked like dusk at about 2 am. It was stunning with all the fog.
Here’s Daniel and I at the croft by the Sumburgh. You can’t see it very well, but the sweater Daniel has on was from my second project all from my hand spun. It’s done in 1×1 rib with a cable going up the sleeves. The yoke sweater I’m wearing was my own design based on Meg Swansen’s “Cardigan Details” video and EZ’s percentage system for yoke sweaters. I call it my one-week sweater. I knit it in a week while Dan was in Bosnia. Lots of knitting till the wee hours of the morning when I couldn’t sleep.
This photo of Daniel and I feeding a lamb is probably my favorite from the whole trip. It was taken at Burland on Trondra, a working croft you can visit. It’s run by Mary and Tommy Isbister. The nicest people. We had so much fun there we went twice. They had every kind of farm animal around. They invited us back for tea (hence the 2ND visit) and they gave a small toy to Daniel that is tucked away in his keepsakes box.
I think I’m going to go watch the videos now so I can fully reminisce.
Who are we really if we cannot laugh at ourselves. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Brace yourselves, I know it’s hard to accept, but I can be a dork at times. I know…. it’s hard to believe. My friends all know it but are kind and let it slide. I have good friends.
One of the benefits of being in the military is the opportunities that we’ve had to travel to places we might never have gotten to see otherwise. This summer we wanted to do something different. We’ve seen pretty much all of Europe. We decided on Egypt. It was Dan’s idea, not mine. I was skeptical at first, but after contacting the State Department and being told it was safe I thought it’d be a terrific experience for Daniel and Joe. Let me add a tourism note here…. NEVER go to Egypt in July!!! It was 120 degrees and the only AC was in our room at the resort and on the bus we took to Cairo and Giza. We couldn’t even go through the museum in Cairo because Joe was passing out from the heat. We ended up sitting outside for two hours talking to some Egyptian students while waiting for our tour group.
In my rush to pack, I grabbed my “Knitters” magazine thinking what a great shot I could get to send in. After coming out of one of the Pyramids we got the boys back on the bus and then we went out to take the “Knitters” photo. The tour guide had warned us not to accept anything anyone was selling or to let them take our photo until we were clear on a price. As soon as we got off the bus there were two men there asking us to get on their camel for a photo. As I was saying no one of them lifted me onto the camel as the other one wrapped a towel around my head. I was telling them to let me off and Dan yelled, “Just go with it! It’s a great shot” Yea.. he wasn’t the one six feet off the ground against his will. I played the trooper, held up the magazine and smiled. Here’s the photo Dan took:
Great photo, huh? Look a little closer:
Yes, my name is Jean and I’m a complete dork.
What’s sadder is that I didn’t realize what I’d done until I went looking in the magazine for the address to Knitters to send in the photo. At least I realized it before I actually sent it in.
In my defense, the knitters that did see the photo didn’t pick up on it. Either that or they were just being kind. So there, I’ve outed myself. Now you know, I’m a dork.
When I posted the photo yesterday of the snow I know there were those saying, “Heck, that ain’t snow!” Well, take a gander at what we woke up to this morning:
As I type this my oldest son, Jeremy, is on a flight to Iraq. Please keep him and all of our soldiers in your thoughts and prayers.
I thought I’d backtrack a little and tell you about my trip to Scotland at the end of July. Twenty-one knitters and spinners from all over the world met on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides off the West Coast of Scotland. It was SO beautiful there. My heritage is very Scottish so I think it’s in my blood to feel at home in that gorgeous country.
This is the Hall in that we had the classes in and some people stayed there for the week. I was in a B&B across the field from it. It was wonderful waking up to the view of the water, sounds of the sheep and the clean crisp air with a cup of tea under a nice warm wool blanket.
There were sheep everywhere. It was a mile walk into the town of Fionnphort and you could be sure there’d be many sheep and cow sightings along the way.
Debbie New stayed at the hall for the week and taught a class on playing around with color patterning and she explained some of the patterns in her book. I need to send my book or a bookplate to her for her autograph. This woman is awesome. Her mind is like a clock. It just keeps ticking away. I was amazed. Best of all she is a very nice, down-to-earth soul who was a joy to be around.
I can’t begin to tell you how great it was to be surrounded by so many others that love wool as much as I do. What a great group and a ton of knowledge and talent. I sent a photo in to Knitter’s Magazine of most of us outside the Hall. Hopefully it’ll be in the next issue.
We went to visit Ardalanish Organic Farm. This is all wool from the Black Hebridean Sheep on the farm. I got two of these babies (the cones of yarn… not the sheep… how I wish!) Oh… to have had more money with me!!
On the last day I took the short five-minute ferry ride from Fionnphort to the Isle of Iona To see the Abbey. What a way to end the trip. Very serene and oh-so-beautiful. I’d love to take my family back there one day. The only place I loved more is Shetland.
