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We went to Europe – The Short Version

We went to Europe – The Short Version

Since we were gone for two weeks and went to 3 different countries, the blog posts are long. Add pics in and they get longer. If you don’t feel like reading through the posts and just want to skim the pics, this is your post!

Kelly’s Trip Summary:

JFK was a nightmare coming and going! But the flight to Zurich turned out to not be so bad. Zurich wasn’t my fave. There were tons of fancy cars but they were also loud, and we heard revving engines well into the night. I worried 24 hours in Zurich wouldn’t be enough but I thought it was more than enough.

Lucerne was amazing! It was such a pretty city. I like that it was situated right on the river. Lucerne in the sun was a totally different city than Lucerne with clouds. The mountain views were all around and I loved that! I’m really glad we went to Mt Pilatus! It was a really cool experience and probably the only mountain I will ever climb.

Paris was okay! I really thought I would like it more. I guess my expectations were a little high. I don’t think it helped the park was blocked off. I had visions of drinking champagne in the park under a twinkly Eiffel Tower but that was hard since it didn’t get dark till so late. We only saw the Eiffel Tower lit up once and that was from a cab at 1am. The city itself was pretty and the food was amazing. I think 4 days in Paris was a day too long though.

London was short and sweet! It was great seeing E&T and just hanging out.

Devon was amazing! I would put it at the top of my favorite places (Lucerne was probably 1st). It was just beautiful! And relaxing. It was also great to see the fam.

Reigate was good! We went there for family and we spent tons of time with everyone so that was nice.

All in all, the trip was amazing! I kind of worried that we weren’t spending enough time in places but honestly, I think the time we spent in each place was just right. Since we were gone for two weeks, it was nice to be on the move. It was also a lot though. I was glad to be home!

Also, I read 5 books on the trip and I took over 1500 pictures!  I’ve tried to narrow that down quite a bit!  They also have not been edited at all so… yeah.

Matt’s Trip Summary:

Considering that we’d planned this trip for so long it really seemed to sneak up on us. We got the flights, hotels, and travel booked so far ahead of time we kind of “forgot” about the trip. Wasn’t really until about a week out that it really hit me that it was time to go!

Trip started of very smoothly and got derailed rather quickly once we got to JFK. I didn’t really mind the delay so much, as the plane was broken, but just not being told anything was rather quite annoying. I was thinking to myself that it was a good thing we decided to spend the night in Zurich and didn’t have other travel arrangements that we’d have to change. Once we got underway the flight over was uneventful.

Zurich was a nice way to ease into the trip. I’m glad we got to check it out but I wouldn’t spend anymore than a day there. It would probably be a good home base to do a few day trips to some other places in Switzerland.

Lucerne was beautiful! Glad that we got some nice weather so that Kelly could see just how magical Switzerland is. I kept telling her that it just doesn’t look real and I’m glad that she got to see that. Really do wish that we had better weather when we went up Mt Pilatus so that we could see the mountains. Next time we go I think we’ll head more into the Alps.

I really enjoy the way of life in Paris. Good food. Good wine. Enjoying life. Hard to beat sitting outside at a brasserie and enjoying a nice meal as the world goes by. Was nice to see some of the sights again and to see some new once. Was disappointed that the Champ de Mars was closed for the Euro Fan Zone as it’s one of my favorite places in Paris.

England was really nice. Seeing lots of family and getting to explore some new places was great. I still cannot believe the house Devon. The pictures that we took there really don’t do it justice. Hard to believe that we were in England! It always feels nice and familiar to be in England and it was a nice way to end the trip.

I enjoyed the pace of the trip. Spending a few days somewhere and then moving on to the next place. One little adventure after another. I think we spent just about the right amount of time in each place. Never felt like we didn’t get a chance to do something and never felt bored.

Of course we got to bookend the trip with another travel disaster in JFK. In all of my travels I’ve never had issues like this before. Hopefully we’ve paid our dues and won’t have to experience anything like this again any time soon.
Quick links to each location:

We’re going to Europe!

Zurich

Lucerne 

Paris

London

Devon

Road to Reigate

Reigate

Reigate

Reigate

Thursday July 7 – We woke up and headed to Matt’s grandmother, Beryl’s,  house to hang out with the fam.  Several of his cousins were stopping by with their kids and then we were going to take Beryl out to lunch for her birthday.  She turned 90 on the 16th.

While we were there, I got a message from my mom saying my grandmother had passed away.  We were prepared for this and I figured it would probably happen while we were on our trip.  Matt and I took a little walk around the neighborhood so I could chat with mom and get a few more details and collect myself.  While I wasn’t close to my grandmother, not in recent years, I was still sad.

Once we got back to the house, it was about time to head to lunch so we took Beryl to one of her favorite restaurants, the Black Horse.

While we were in Reigate, I asked if we could check out a few antique stores.  I figured I could find something much cooler than your average tourist souvenir.  So after lunch we drove over to Dorking to check out the antiques.  While I didn’t see anything crazy, I did find some old glass picture slides so I bought a few of those.  I figured they were small and would be easy to carry on.

Friday July 8 – We went to Heaver Castle for the day.  This was the childhood home of Ann Boleyn.  The grounds were beautiful, it was a nice place to spend the day.  While I spent most of my time with my eye in my camera, Matt spent most of his day looking up.  Situated near Heathrow and Gatwick, tons of planes were flying over.

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Taking pics of Malcolm and Steve taking pics.

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Flowers for the wedding that was in the afternoon.

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Beryl and Jill
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Beryl and Matt
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Beryl and Vala

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Scared kitty!
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Matt, Beryl, and Me (photo courtesy of Steve Edwards)
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Michael, Steve, Jill, Beryl, Matt (photo bombing 😉 ) Me, Vala, Malcolm (photo courtesy of Steve Edwards)

The castle itself was interesting but you couldn’t take pics of the inside!  Finally it was time to head back.  As we were pulling out of our parking spot, we backed into another car.  Haha, whoops.  No real damage and everyone was fine.

That night we had dinner at the Black Horse again, to celebrate Beryl’s birthday.  It was also our last night to see everyone.  We had an early flight out of Heathrow and needed to be up around 5:00 am.

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Matt helping Beryl and Jill take a selfie.