After saving up my holiday time from work we are thinking about a couple of weeks away. Specifically, a trip to Vancouver, BC, Canada to renew our US visas and a trip to a campground in northern California where we intend to do pretty much nothing for as long as we can get away with it. Perhaps somewhere near Yosemite or Lassen National Forest with a couple of day trips to see the sights. So, glaciers and geysers in one holiday. What’s not to like? 🙂

25/6/07 – 29/6/07
Unfortunately, due to time pressures this will just be a short report on our recent trip to London. Though Gaynor and the children all hold British passports they have not spent a lot of time there and we hoped to correct that in the event that we will move shortly from Europe[1]. We decided that rather than try to see a number of places in England in the course of a week, we’d concentrate on just London. Still, plenty to see.

We drove first thing Monday morning to Calais where we missed the ferry we had booked. Only by 10 minutes mind you but they put us on the next one with no trouble. All I’ll say is that the traffic through Europe during peak hours can be very hard to predict. The ferry was a nice break from driving and a new experience for the children. The next new experience was driving a left-hand drive vehicle on the left-hand side of the road. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It helped having driven on that side before. 🙂

We stayed in Barking, on a direct half-hour-or-so train (the Underground actually) ride from the city centre. The children enjoyed catching up on some all-English television, comparing some of their regular shows to the German versions (voice over-dubbed).

The next few days reads like a list of a museum crawl including the British Museum (extremely impressive; highlights including the Rosetta Stone and a whole pile of other stuff the Brits have ‘collected’ over the years), Natural History and Science Museums (we split up to do these simultaneously), Imperial War Museum (not nearly enough time here) and the Ragged School Museum (we learnt there are poorer school systems than German).

Other highlights included visiting Westminster, a stroll along the Thames, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London (from the outside), climbing The Monument, a walk and a play in Hyde Park, changing guards at Buckingham Palace and Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Sorry that there isn’t more time to pontificate over the trip but you can find a number of photos on our photo page. (Note the permanent link to the photo page, “Selected Images”, located on the left of every blog page).

The drive home was reasonably eventful with an extra two hours to get out of London due to a jack-knifed truck blocking access to the only highway with a river crossing for many kilometers. Of course we then missed our ferry home and, with the one we did get leaving an hour later than scheduled, it was the wee small hours of Saturday before we rolled into the driveway.

All over though, an enjoyable and thoroughly worthwhile excursion.

[1] Please don’t ask yet about exactly where we are going. We don’t know yet and we’ll make a post as soon as we do. 🙂

Update, 22 Aug: Creative Elijah has made a short movie of our trip!

29/12/06 – 5/1/07
The original intent was to drive — mostly because we are cheap — but a lack of a valid licence on my part and a “absolutely no desire” on Gaynor’s meant we ended up finding some last minute flights for slightly less than an exorbitant amount. Money aside (well money gone anyway) we decided to thoroughly enjoy our winter break and, though the initial circumstances were a struggle, Spain lived up to its end of the bargain in providing perfect weather and hospitality.

We couldn’t get flights to Malaga together and so we flew me with the boys and Gaynor with the girls. Gaynor and the girls passed through Madrid while the men took the Barcelona route. The arrival times were all supposed to be close but with various delays it ended up a real mess. In particular, locating my brother Donovan who was flying in from the US turned out to be one long wait-fest. It wasn’t that he wasn’t in the airport, it was that we had arranged to meet at the car rental location and unbeknowst to either of us we were waiting at one each with no knowledge that the other location was there. Just as Gaynor and I were about to make a multi-run transit to the resort I eventually figured out the presence of the other car rental location (inside the ‘secure area’ of the airport), muscled my way back in (some guards are real softies when a grown man is crying) and retrieved said errant, unwitting brother.

We managed to rent the cars without an international incident and set off — finally and gratefully — the the resort, about half an hour away. Unfortunately, the signage and directions were a bit vague at best and since it was now dark, locating the resort took an extra half hour as we alternating overshot and bumbled about. We still managed to squeeze in some dinner before collapsing and calling it a day.

For the rest of the week — apart from the glorious weather — we enjoyed late morning starts, late evening talks, jacuzzi sitting (interspersed with cold-pool dipping), walks along the beach, a walk through downtown Marbella, Sunday church in English and a fabulous dinner at a restaurant right on the beach. At the restaurant, Gaynor and Donovan went on an all-out splurge for a lobster paella which Gaynor describes as ‘delicious!’. We (well Donovan really) were feeling so flushed we even ordered dessert!

We also took a trip to Ronda — dramatic, historic and Moorish, according to Gaynor. Her highlight was the museum in the Mondragon’s Palace — an old Moorish palace. The photo of Ariana and the orange tree was taken in the grounds of this this museum/palace. One of the highlights for the children was the visit to, and climbing over, the old city walls. They reminded Joshua of “Lord of the Rings”, which, quite frankly, isn’t that hard to do at the moment.

We also toured some archeological ruins around Marbella. These included the remains of a 3rd century Roman villa and baths. The baths were at a different location to the villa and had a great view of the ocean. In fact, beside the baths was an old Moorish military look-out tower. We also visited the ruins of a 6th century Paleo-christian church excavated in the 1960s. The baptismal font, in particular, was very interesting. See our photo page (follow “Selected Images” link top-left of this page) for a picture. Donovan has also posted some pictures from the trip on his own blog.

On New Years Eve, after Bryna had retired for the evening, we brought out some cheese, crackers and some fancy grape juice and had a session of “Three Questions”. This is where everyone, after day-long consideration, brings their written answers to the questions:

• What was the highlight of the past year?
• What was the lowlight of the past year? and,
• What do you want to accomplish in the coming year?

The written answers are passed to the next person who reads out the relevant answer as each question is discussed around the group. An encouraging way to bring in the New Year.

So overall the trip was wonderfully relaxing. As usual, we had a great time together and add yet another recommended destination to our list.

OK, so we are a little behind in reporting some of our trips, including Bavaria, Paris and our summer holiday to Croatia — in reverse chronological order. So first one first let’s go through our haul over to Croatia.

The purpose of this holiday was different to last year’s summer excursion. Last year it was all about getting to one of our most-wanted-to-visit places (Italy) and also get in a little bit of relaxation as well. This year the ideas were different.

The drive to Croatia was broken up with a stay overnight at Augsburg — no sightseeing, only somewhere to stop, eat and sleep. We reached the campsite mid-afternoon the next day with enough time to set up tent, make some dinner and meet the neighbours. The people next to us were very friendly, greeting us in German (since they saw the car’s plates) and then switching to English when I explained in German that my German wasn’t so good. Turns out they were Slovak and were very kind and friendly to us our whole stay. Both the mother and father also spoke Croatian — which turned out to be very useful later in our stay — and the wife also spoke Hungarian! These Europeans!

Pretty much from the next day the name of the game was do as little or as much as you liked. Gaynor, of course, had a book or four she’d bought to read. “Holiday” is a synonym for “book reading” in Gaynor’s language. Gaynor also enjoyed a swim in the bay first thing most mornings and considers it a great way to start the day. The children spent time in and out of the expansive pools of the campsite and various trips down to the bay shoreline for swimming as well. They had a great curly waterslide with water pumped out of the bay and this was an especial favourite of the children. Unfortunately not too many photos from around the camp as most of us were too busy with nothing to do but, to the right here, you can see an example of the sort of sunsets we had to put up with.

We did manage a trip or two into the town of Rovinj itself, working our way to the church and up the church tower. We seem to climb these whenever available with Gaynor staying at the bottom with Bryna and the other children coming up with me. Churches themselves don’t cost to go in but the towers usually incur a charge. The attendant did warn that the stairs were a little worn in places. I passed this information on to the children along with instructions to step on the outside of the stair if it looked a bit dodgy. I knew Elijah was listening carefully since I had never seen him move so slow when awake! He placed his foot gingerly towards the outside of every step as though it contained some volatile explosive. In the end I had to hurry him along, even though the stairs were pretty worn.

As well as the seemingly obligatory visit to the church we also patronised a couple of restaurants, one of which — Figarola, as seen in the picture — is now our new favourite restaurant in Europe. We highly recommend it to you if you are ever in the area. Apart from the wonderful views, Gaynor was particularly impressed with the seafood risotto with all the of seafood sweet and tender, not overdone like so many other places. It was creamy and well seasoned with fresh herbs that rounded out the flavour to perfection. Other delicious servings included a pork schnitzel with a special seasoned crumbing (Fenton), grilled chicken breast in a creamy sauce (quite a departure for Mara from her standard spaghetti bolognese) and a pork and prawn kebab (Joshua).

We really enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing time only wishing it could have been longer. The drive home included a couple of multi-hour waits through the mountain tunnels of Austria and another overnight stop in Augsburg. This time though we took in the town centre and the cathedral, which is home to the world’s largest and oldest stained-glass windows. We didn’t stay too long but still another pleasant memory to add to the trip.

Unfortunately our time away this year will be a little less than we would like, due mostly to being book-ended between my experimental preparations at work and the children returning to school. Joshua also has a week-long excursion with the youth at church (see our online calendar for more ‘when’ details on these things). So not to make Donovan jealous but we are heading to Croatia — specifically Rovinj — to camp for a week or so.

We strongly considered Britain as an option but, in the end, decided we couldn’t risk ‘wasting’ a summer there, given the definite possibility of rain (and we’d be camping). So we opted instead for a virtual guarantee of sunshine and warmth with a toss-up between the south of France and Croatia. Ah to have such options! In the end Croatia got the nod since the children wanted another country in their passports — they also get Slovenia — and it’s supposedly cheaper.

Logistically it’s about 1100-1200km away and while most of that is on the German autobahns our van typically sits only at about 120-125km/h. So we’ll probably break the trip up with a stay overnight somewhere. While the weather here has been beautifully warm the last two or three weeks, we are definitely looking forward to extending that streak and complementing it with some fairly decent Do Nothing(TM).

13/4/06
We have previously posted a few reports about trips we have made as a family. Many of these give a glowing report and generally depict a happy time with enthralled visitors. So that our readers don’t receive an unbalanced view of our travels we feel compelled to include our recent trip to Amsterdam.

The official reason for the trip was work related. My (Fenton’s) Dutch residency paperwork was finally completed a couple of months ago and the next step to finally move (officially) to Germany was to get permission (a visa, stamp in passport) from the German embassy in the Netherlands. I called the embassy and arranged an appointment, 11am the next day. Gaynor had wanted another family trip and so it was decided to combine the two. Amsterdam is about 2.5 hours away and, after battling a little bit of traffic, we arrived just little late. (I mean, you really should not too surprised hmm?) A security screening and a short waiting room stint later, I was told by a quite apologetic embassy worker that, being Australian with promised employment, I did not need a visa to go to Germany. She apologised for not asking my nationality when I had called the day before. I wasn’t too upset as it meant I didn’t need to provide any money or copies of official documents — including passport photos with biometric data, whatever that means exactly. So anyway, what it really meant was that the rest of the day was ours.

Gaynor promptly returned with the children in the car. They’d been circling since there wasn’t really anywhere to park. We set off to find somewhere to park the car with the idea to catch a train or tram right into the city centre. Unfortunately, at this point the car’s exhaust system had the idea that it was tired of holding together in the middle and promptly stopped doing that. I’d known for a number of weeks that there was a hole in system, still its departure was sudden. The dramatic increase in both exhaust sound and metal-dragging-on-the-ground sound was enough to convince us to quickly find a parking place. Assessing the damage led to confirming our initial fears. We firstly called the ADAC (the German equivalent of the NRMA, RACQ or AAA) to find out we didn’t have on ‘international’ policy. They agreed to upgrade us for next time. They said they would notify the corresponding Dutch organisation, who would call shortly, however after a half hour wait of nothing I decided we weren’t going to hear. Our pre-paid mobile phone had run out of credit (pay for incoming international calls I expect) and with no way to replace credit we were on our own. We are, meanwhile, feeding a nearby parking ticket machine (and they are very hungry in Amsterdam!) with the belief we may be leaving soon. After it becomes clear we are not, I take a walk to a hardware store and purchace some strong wire and cutters. A short while and a wiring up of the errant exhaust pipe later we decide to take lunch at a nearby pizzeria, determined to make the most of the time we have and press ahead with most of our plans anyway.

Though the weather up to this point hadn’t been brilliant it had been holding out. Now, however, a light drizzle had started to set in. By the time our tram had made it into Central Station it was getting heavier. Nevertheless we pressed on, walking to the main city square, known as The Dam. The photo — at the Dam in front of the old Royal Palace — shows a wet, cold sorry lot barely holding position. Don’t let the few faux smiles mustered for the photo fool you. Joshua couldn’t even bring himself to be seen 🙂 (Note Elijah’s extra hat).

From there we headed to the Historic Museum, which had been a highlight of my trip here in 1999. Now our fortunes were about to improve. Not only would we be out of the rain but we wouldn’t be charged the full admission price for the final hour they would be open. They had a fascinating and extensive exhibition concerning Anne Frank, including one of her diaries and a letter written to her father towards the end.

After they kicked us out we wandered to a few places of interest, including the South Church, and taking in the atmosphere of the place — which given the chill and drizzle didn’t come across with the greatest of impressions. Hey, it happens.

Eventually we decided we’d had enough ‘atmosphere’ and decided to call it a day. Tramming back to the wounded van, we loaded up and *cough* enjoyed a rather loud trip all the way home. We’ve thought about a return trip — one with a non-self-dismantling car and in nicer weather — but chances are Amsterdam has blown hers. Still we chalk it up to experience/character building/needing my residency sorted anyway and it was still nice to spend time together as a family. 😀

Here is a blog about a trip we made last October:

Immediately after Fenton’s trip to the US we took advantage of the opportunity offered by the Autumn holidays (Herbstferien) to travel to Frankfurt and Prague. We left late as usual (to be fair Fenton had arrived back only the day before, and the weather had been particularly wet making getting washing dry (we have no dryer and the heating wasn’t yet on) particularly difficult). We got to the Temple in Fredricksdorf in the early evening. Spent the next day alternating between attending the Temple and entertaining the children, which included teaching them how to knit. Saturday afternoon we went and met my Aunty Shirley and her partner Gerhard. We spent the afternoon with them at Saals, a recreation of a Roman fort. Bryna was particular taken with the ‘pretties’ — jewellery and coins that had been found there. The rest of the children seemed interested without being carried away.

That evening we had dinner at Shirl’s and met my cousin Krista, for the first time, and her boyfriend Mike. A very pleasant evening. Krista speaks a little English with Mike and Gerhard really speaking none at all and so it gave the children a chance to use their German and Fenton an opportunity to strangle the language.

The next day we had lunch with them at a pleasant Greek restaurant after which we departed for Prague with Joshua throwing up immediately before departure. We arrived in Prague late that night where we stayed at a hostel we had previously booked. Clean and basic.

The next morning got a few things organised (e.g. food) and caught a tram to Prague Castle arriving just in time to catch the change of guards. There is a cathedral inside the castle walls which was quite interesting and Fenton and the older four children climbed to the top of the tower (297 steps, though Mara counted 298!) giving them a fantastic view over Prague. This castle was the home of Good King Wenceslas (though he never was king, but he has been sainted) and is the patron saint of the Czech Republic. Another impressive sight inside the castle was the Great (or Horse) Hall, so named because they used to hold indoor jousting tournaments as well as the usual balls and receptions. As you can see in the photo it has beautiful late Gothic vaulted ceilings and the open doorway on the left leads to the Riders’ Staircase — a staircase designed to admit a knight mounted on a horse into the hall. A doorway at the end of the hall (opposite end to the one the photo shows) is the room in which the Second Defenestration of Prague (1618) took place sparking off the Thirty Year’s War between Catholics and Protesants. You should try to use defenestration in a sentence at least once this week.

Shortly after this, being about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we decided lunch was in order. As the prices inside the castle were exorbitant we proceeded to a restaurant, recommended by our ‘Lonely Planet’ guide, where we enjoyed and Indonesian meal. We then planned on catching the funicular railway for which we marched the children to the top of the hill only to find that it was shut that day for maintenance. We then enjoyed a pleasant stroll down the hill (denied by Joshua, ‘We are lost again in a strange city’) with great views of the castle lit at dusk. We then caught a tram from the bottom of the hill back to our hostel.

Our last day in Prague included a visit to one of the four St. Nicholas churches which was full of chubby Baroque cherubs and gold-plated saints. Mozart had played there once which had most impressed Joshua. We then walked slowly across Charles Bridge (see the tourist-posed photo) with the children enjoying souvenir shopping and then onto the old city centre. We saw buildings which had played parts in the First Defenestration of Prague, the declaration of Communism in Czechoslovakia, the declaration of the end of Communism, the declaration of the end of the Second World War and the end of Czechoslovakia and the beginning of the Czech Republic. As well as this the city centre has many different architectural periods and styles interestingly juxtaposed. A personal favourite was the art nouveau buildings and the one nicknamed the ‘dancing building’ (post-modern, see the photo). A stroll back across the river and a quick play in the playground before we returned to the hostel for some dinner and to prepare for the return trip the next morning.

Gaynor’s Linguistic Note: It’s surprising how well you can get around without knowing any of the Czech language.

10 August
Daytrip to Venezia (Venice). I was very excited to be visiting Venice. We drove to a parking lot on the mainland (less expensive than the few on the islands) and caught a bus over the bridge. From here we caught a water bus (vaporetto) close to San Marco — the main square in Venice which you’ve all seen pictures of in books or on postcards. We alighted from the vaporetto a stop too soon. Half the stops were ‘San’ something and when in unfamiliar territory all look the same. This gave us the opportunity to wander through a couple of quieter campos (like a common courtyard or a small square), cross the Grand Canal and see a couple of gondeliers at work. (Joshua seemed convinced we would be lost in Venice forever). Eventually making it to the main square, it looked just like the postcards but with more people and pigeons.

We queued to see inside the Basilica San Marco (Basilica of St. Mark) which was very beautiful though we generally agreed a little overdone. Mosaics every where with lots of gold. In the basilica we viewed the Pala d’Oro (translates as ‘golden altar screen’) which is decorated with icons and 2000 uncut, but polished, gems. I also saw the Treasury, containing a number of relics, which I found rather bizarre and grizzly despite their gold cases. Both the screen and the items from the Treasury were looted from Constantinopole in 1264, Fourth Crusade.

Another vaporetto ride to the island of Murano to watch a glass blower in action, browse the shops and make a small purchase. On the way back to San Marco the low-sitting vaporetto was hit by a wave completely drenching Ariana who loved every minute of it. From thence we caught another vaporetto down the Grand Canal and then to the Campo San Sebastian — to find the setting for one of my favourite novels ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’. We found the church and the statue featured in the novel and took a number of photos (to the amusement of some locals as this church is not on the normal tourist itinerary).

So our general impressions of Venice are that it is very beautiful but in parts quite showy and touristy. At that time of the year also very full of tourists. I am still amazed at how American accents carry. Also, we don’t recommend bringing a stroller. Plenty of foot bridges with stairs and no ramps.

Unfotunately Fenton became sick late in the day (coming down with Joshua’s bug), but still managed to get us back to the camp ground.

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11 August
Fenton remains sick as a dog (or at least a very ill one).

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12 August
We packed up camp in the morning and travelled on to Firenze (Florence). We had booked a room in a hotel since we were only planning to stay one night. The Hotel Dalí is right in the centre of the city and navigating the inner streets were very difficult — even with a GPS system (it had the direction of some of the one-way streets incorrect). Parking was hell but the hotel was very convenient being in walking distance of everything we wanted to see.

There was a museum dedicated to working models of Leonardo’s designs. This was very popular with the children and Elijah managed to injure himself. The Duomo (cathedral) was less showy than the basilica in Venice and in my opinion, more tasteful.

While strolling the streets I ducked into menswear shop to buy Fenton a 6€ tie. We ended up with an Italian-designer wool suit, a shirt and two ties — they gave us a great sell including a ‘large family’ discount! Fenton looks great in a well cut suit that fits. Finally we queued for Del Academia which is a famous gallery with the main attraction being Michelangelo’s ‘David’. It also contains many Catholic-themed paintings. ‘David’ was magnificent, of course.

Overall Florence was more to our taste, we think, than Venice. Fenton thinks it is because it is a comparison of academia to business (and which one does he prefer hmmm?). You’ll have to come and see it for yourselves.

Originally our plan had been to continue on to Rome but as were all tired we decided to spend a little longer in Florence before returning home. We’ll Catch It Next Time™.

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13 August
Departed from Florence for home late in the day and stopped overnight once we were a few hours out of town.

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14 August
We completed the journey home — stopping for a picnic lunch in Switzerland — with all the children travelling very well.

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