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!

A Visitor (and a trip to Viborg)

Last weekend we entertained our third ever guest: our friend, Paul. He's in Germany for about a month for work and (since we're so close here in Aalborg...) decided to come for a visit while in Europe. He arrived late Friday night, and after we got home we treated him to some traditional pickled herring with all the fixings: rogbrod, pickled onions, a curry egg salad, and some Aalborg akvavit (Aalborg is famous for its potent shnapps - it's disgusting, but you need it to mask the taste of pickled herring!). Andrew and Paul partook in the herring feast - I've tried it once, and I'm not having any more!

We spent Saturday morning out at the nearby viking graveyard, and this time we went in the museum, which was pretty cool. Lots of old remnants of viking civilization from the area, as well as plenty of information on the time period. Also, we got to try on some viking helmets, which is always fun:

We went to a beer tasting on Saturday afternoon, which was very fun but took over four hours! I was glad I wasn't doing any of the tasting, as I'm sure I would've been under the table. On Sunday, we took Paul around Aalborg. The weather was absolutely amazing (mid 60s, which is a heatwave here) and it seemed like everyone in Aalborg was out eating ice cream and sitting by the Limfjord.

All in all, it was a really wonderful weekend, thanks in most part to our visitor. Yesterday, on Monday, I had to go to Viborg (a town about an hour and a half away) to see the doctor, so Andrew and I made a day of it. It's a very charming town, but the main feature is the cathedral, which is supposedly the largest granite cathedral of its kind in Scandinavia.

More pictures of our fantastic weekend and our daytrip to Viborg are on our flickr page. Our next visitors (Mom and Dad Hamilton) arrive this Friday (yay!) and then we're off on a train adventure through Europe next week (Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Paris)!

A Gent in Ghent (Belgium)

Andrew got to go to Ghent, Belgium last week for work (he gets to go all the nice places!), while I held down the fort here in Aalborg. Just a short trip - only one full day - it really wasn't worth me going, but it sure did look like a nice place to be, if only for a day:

Not to be left out of all of the fun, my sweet husband brought me back some delicious Belgian chocolate (most of which is already gone...):