Göteborg, Sweden

On Monday night, Andrew and I left for Göteborg, Sweden with two of his colleagues at the university. We took a late ferry from Frederikshavn and were happy to find our hotel just after midnight. Andrew had to be up before seven on Tuesday for a workshop (the reason we were going), but I was able to sleep in a bit and have a leisurely day. I spent most of the late morning and afternoon meandering the streets of Göteborg, stopping in little shops and checking out the city.

 

After he finished his workshop, Andrew and I walked around the city some more and had a very nice dinner at Thörnströms Kök (one of the five Michelin-starred restaurants in Göteborg). Wednesday morning, we found a beautiful park and interesting greenhouse, which turned out to be a great little detour on our way into the city.

 

Then, we visited the Göteborg Museum of Art, which had a wonderful collection (including one of Degas' dancers - I can't believe how many versions of my favorite little dancer I'm getting to see!) and was a lovely way to spend an hour or so. After stopping for lunch, we wandered around some more, eventually making our way to the harbor to catch our ferry back to Denmark. More photos of our short trip are on flickr.

Eurotrip, city 4: Reims, France

On the last day of our whirlwind European vacation, we rented a car in Paris and headed northeast to the lovely town of Reims, right in the middle of Champagne country. It was a beautiful drive into the French countryside, and since Reims is located just about halfway between Paris and Luxembourg, it was the perfect place to meet up with our cousins in Luxembourg: Sara, Paul, and their darling daughter Julia. It's so nice to have family in Europe with us, and this short visit with them was probably the best thing we did on our entire trip.

fancy meeting you here...

Reims was extremely charming, but beyond that, it had a spectacular cathedral where the kings of France used to be crowned (it also houses some beautiful stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall, a personal favorite). We spent a while touring the cathedral and then wandered around town a bit before finding some delicious crepes for lunch.

 

As I said, this short visit with family was my favorite day of our trip, and certainly a wonderful way to spend our last day in France. We drove back to Paris and flew back to Aalborg that night. Mom and Dad are gone now, but we'll always remember this wonderful vacation with them.

(Next week, Andrew and I are headed to Gothenburg, Sweden for a few days!)

Eurotrip, city 3: Paris

Hands down, the train ride to Paris from Amsterdam was the nicest leg of our little trip, as I accidentally booked first-class tickets for us. Upon arrival in Paris, we headed right over to our apartment, settled in a bit, and got to know the neighborhood where we'd stay for the next few days (the 7th arrondissement).

On Sunday, we headed over to Notre Dame where we thought we could go to mass, but it was way too crowded, so we just checked out the outside. While in the neighborhood, we went to La Sainte-Chapelle and Shakespeare and Co. bookstore before heading over to Montmartre. In Montmartre, we stopped at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur and wandered the neighborhood where some of our favorite artists lived once upon a time, before finding a little cafe in our own neighborhood for dinner.

We hit the Louvre on Monday morning, but not before strolling through the Tuileries and stopping at Angelina's for some of the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted. (We also picked up some macarons to snack on later - yum!) After lunch, we went to L'Orangerie and saw Monet's famous water lilies - it was maybe the best museum we saw in Paris, or possibly tied for first with the Musée d'Orsay, where Andrew and I went on Tuesday while Wally and Marie went out to Versailles. Andrew and I also went to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs on Tuesday, where we saw two exhibits: one on Louis Vuitton & Marc Jacobs, and a second on my favorite French elephant, Babar. That night, we took a boat tour of the Seine and prepared to get up early and head to Reims on Wednesday. (More photos of Paris are on flickr.)

Eurotrip, city 2: Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam on Thursday, April 5 in the evening. We checked into our hotel, just a few blocks from the Rijksmuseum, and headed out in search of dinner.

We ended up at an Indonesian restaurant nearby, but not before strolling around our neighborhood. Indonesian rice tables are traditional in Amsterdam (as Indonesia was a former colony) and dinner was a feast of many different dishes served family-style.

Friday morning and afternoon we hit the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, respectively; both were crowded, but wonderful to see. Andrew, Wally, and Marie also spent some time at a floating flower market and the city's largest flea market before we had another wonderful dinner. We ate at de Culinaire Werkplaats, a unique restaurant and experimental kitchen that was all vegetarian, all locally-sourced, and delicious! We all had the current tasting menu, which featured five different courses based on different Dutch landscapes.

The next morning, we were off to catch our train to Paris! More photos from Amsterdam are on our flickr page.

Eurotrip, city 1: Hamburg

Our first train left Aalborg to Hamburg, Germany at 6:00 last Wednesday morning. We arrived in the early afternoon, and headed right out to explore the city. We stopped at the town hall first, and then moved on to the nearby St. Petri's, where we climbed over 500 steps to the top of the steeple (well, Andrew and I went all the way to the top - Marie and Wally put in a good effort by making it 3/4 of the way). The view from the top was spectacular, but climbing the old wooden steps was a bit nauseating.

 

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around town, stopping at a tea museum and attempting (unsuccessfully) to get into Minatur Wunderland. By the time dinner came around we were all starving and luckily found a pretty great little German restaurant, Thämers am Großneumarkt, to have dinner. Three orders of wiener schnitzel and one bowl of goulash were devoured.

The next morning we headed over to the Chilehaus and then found a small market going on nearby. Wally found a great leather belt with a little help from a friendly German:

At this point we had to head back to the train station for the next leg of our trip: Amsterdam! More pictures from Hamburg are on our flickr page.

The Hamiltons are here!

Two weeks ago (Friday, March 30), I picked up Mom & Dad Hamilton from the Aalborg airport. It's hard to put into words how nice it is to greet someone at the airport - every time we get a visitor, I'm so happy that I'm almost crying. It's a strange thing to live so far away from family and friends, knowing only a few people in Aalborg (or Denmark or Europe, even). This visit has been particularly wonderful, as we've gotten two full weeks with family!

On their first full day in Denmark, we rented a car and took Wally and Marie for a drive around Nordjylland (that's Northern Jutland, or the northern part of Denmark where we live), stopping at the viking graveyard nearby first (a favorite place to take visitors...) and then hitting the coast. We drove on the beach from Blokhus to Løkken and were almost washed out to sea when Andrew drove our miniscule car over a seemingly-tiny streamlet. (It was not actually that tiny.) If that wasn't exciting enough, a few minutes later we got stuck in the sand and had to push the car out. What a morning!

Continuing around the coast, we stopped at an old lighthouse which we climbed up to in the midst of a veritable sandstorm. After stopping for a hotdog and some ice cream (both are must-haves on a trip to Denmark), we stopped at an old windmill and a beautiful church on our route to Skagen, where we walked out on the beach at sunset.

The rest of the week was spent in Aalborg, exploring and shopping, and getting ready to leave on our great train-trip. More pictures on our flickr page!