Brugge

On our latest adventure Ben and I headed to Belgium. We took the Sunday afternoon train from St. Pancras and were eating mussels and fries for dinner. We stayed in an awesome airbnb right in the heart of Brussels. For our first whole day in Belgium we caught a train to Brugge. It is one of the most charming towns we have ever ben to. 

Strawberry Hill House

Strawberry Hill house is splendid example of Georgian Gothic revival architecture (it said so in the brochure). It also inspired the first gothic novel The Castle of Otranto. The house itself if full of wonders and oddities but when we went there was a special exhibit of sculptures by Laura Ford. I think the pictures really speak for themselves...

Jerash

For my birthday Ben and I went to Jerash. An ancient city with a history that goes back to 7000 B.C. It was conquered by the Romans 63 B.C. and inhabited until a strong earthquake destroyed a large portion of the city in the 8th century A.D.  This is one of the best preserved Roman cities in the Near East and the size of the site as well as the preservation of the standing structures was epic. 

Hadrian's Arch. This is the entrance to the ancient site. 

Mount Nebo

Last minute trips are the best. You get all the excitement of going on vacation but without having to wait to actually leave. Ben had an unexpected three day weekend in Jordan and I was able to fly out to join him for his long weekend. It was especially fortuitous because this three day weekend just happened to be over my 27th birthday! Party all around. My first full day there we decided to take it easy and drive to Mt. Nebo, which is only a 30 minute drive from the hotel we were staying at.  Even though it is called a mountain it is not like the mountains in Utah. We were able to drive right to the top and have a great view of the Holy Land.

The view towards The Holy Land. 

Longleat House

When Ben is home we like to alternate between little vacations and big vacations. As he travels so much it is not always a break for him to travel even more when he is home. For one of our little vacations we took a overnight trip to Somerset. The sites we wanted to hit were Stonehenge and Longleat house, both an easy drive from London. So we rented a fiat500 and hit the road. 

Frogmore House

Frogmore house is basically a guest house on the Windsor estate. It is only open to the public a handful of days every year because it is mostly used for guest of the queen. I went with my friend Rachael to visit it because it also happens to be where Victoria and Albert are buried. 

Highclere Castle

The final season of Downton Abbey has begun. I have been a Downton fan from the beginning but I am not sad that it is ending. Although I love the show I think the characters are becoming more and more one dimensional and taking on either 'pro change' or 'against change' sides on all topics. I highly doubt that in the 1920's there was this much talk of 'change' in a normal house hold. Hindsight is 20/20, and I think the writing of the show reflects the knowledge we have looking back on that time period. Nevertheless, I was super excited to go and visit Highclere Castle. The castle and grounds were beautiful. It is so fun that they use the castle as is for the filming of Downton. No pictures were allowed inside so all the pictures are of the castle and grounds. 

Norway

Last week Ben and I went to Bergen Norway for a few days. I have wanted to go to Bergen since I found out one of my favorite bands, Kings of Convenience call it home. Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, but as with most cities is minuscule compared to London. We picked Bergen as our launching ground as there are lots of beautiful fjords and mountains nearby. We stayed in a quaint little airbnb flat about 10 minuets north of the city and had a wonderful view of the fjords surrounding us. On our first day we were a bit tired from travel so we just wandered around Bergen. 

A lot of the buildings were quite colorful. Ben joked that they must only have five colors of paint in Norway as most houses are red, blue, green, white or yellow. It was cheerful to see the colorful houses spotted throughout the beautiful fjords and valleys. 

London with Friends

A few weeks back my friend Lydia and her husband Hank came to London town for a visit. I hadn't seem them in a year and it was so fun to show them all around London- and I enjoyed being a tourist. We did a lot of things that I had not seen and I had a wonderful time exploring London with these two.

Sainte-Chapelle, Musée de l'Orangerie, Musée Rodin

Honestly I had never heard of Sainte-Chapelle until my brother said that he wanted to visit. It was built in the 13th century by King Louis the IX to house his relics, including the crown of thorns, which was carried from Rome to France by two monks. Although the relics are no longer housed there (and I am not entirely sure where they are now housed) this church still maintains it original 13th century stained glass windows, and let me just say they are epic. If you have a chance to go this is definitely a place to visit.  

Château de Versailles with Adam

Outside the palace gate. 

I had wanted to go to Versailles for a while, and Adam and I made it priority for our Paris trip. The day we went was so very crowded. There was not a good time to go for the days that we were in Paris so we just sucked it up and waited in line for almost two hours to get into the Palace. Note- if you just want to do the gardens there is no line. The line is really just for the palace. And honestly it was so crowded that it was hard to see everything and you couldn't really stop and look at to much as people would just push past you. None the less it worth seeing. 

The main courtyard in front of the palace. It was very gilded. 

There was attention to every detail in this palace. Here is the door adjoining two rooms, and on either side there are painted ceilings, marble work, plus gilding on the door. No expense was spared.

Every color marble can be seen. And it seems their motto was not 'less is more'.

The hall of mirrors. It was here where the Treaty of Versailles was signed.  This hall has mirrors on one side of the room and windows on the other that look out onto the garden. The effect is pretty stunning. Also this hall was built when mirrors were not a common thing and no one had ever seen this many mirrors together. It was definitely a show room used to impress the guests.

Marie Antoinette bedroom. The wallpaper and fabric were changed seasonally.

We finally made it to the gardens! I recently watched the movie 'A Little Chaos' about the building of this outdoor ballroom in Versailles and although it was strongly fictionalized the movie made me very excited to see it in real life.

Looking at the map. 

The gardens are absolutely massive.  We did not see all of them. Each garden is self-contained but there are large paths that lead to each of them. Most gardens only have two entrances so you have to walk around the around them  to get in.

Sadly this fountain wan't going when we were by it. Still cool to see horses coming out of the water.

There are several smaller palaces at Versailles, that were used when monarchs wanted get away from court life. There is a Grand Palace and a Petit Palace. Here we are walking though the Grand Palace.

These smaller palaces were equipped with their own formal gardens as well.

We eventually made it to Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. It was absolutely charming. 

Because everything was so far away in the garden area Adam and I rented bikes so that we could see everything (our feet were tired from hours of standing and walking though the palace).

Here we are at the end of a mile long man made lake that goes to the back of the palace. The palace is the very small building at the other end of the water.

And that was our trip to Versailles. My advice would be to go off season for sure. It was a bit to crowded in the palace, but still so awesome to see. Also I would plan on taking a day to spend there. You could do it in a few hours, but there is simply so much that is worth seeing.  I defiantly want to go back and spend some more time in the lovely gardens.