An overdue post on some of my recent travels. It mostly consists of photos!


Copenhagen had a nice feel: wide streets, outdoor cafes (with blankets on the chairs for when it got cold), bicycle lanes and lots of green (copper) roofs on churches and official buildings. I was a bit disappointed with our Copenhagen pictures, I didn't think they captured the feeling of the city very well. But here is one that has canal buildings and bicycles, two very Copenhagenish things.



Everyone who had been to Copenhagen said not to bother with the Little Mermaid statue. It's tiny! they said. Not worth the effort of walking there! But, perhaps due to my low expectations, I liked the statue. I think she looks suitably pensive and the surrounding area is very interesting and definitely worth a walk!



Bruges was the first destination of the next trip. It's a lovely town, easy to get to by train from the UK and, perhaps as a consequence, very busy with tourists! And although I can't knock the preponderence of chocolate shops, the lace shops were overwhelming, especially as there seemed to be a surplus of lace in the city which led to weird applications such as lace aprons for wine bottles. The canals were great to walk along and eat by:



I hadn't heard of a Begijnhof (also known as Béguinage in French) before this holiday. It was a religious community of women who took less binding vows than those of nuns (eg the one in Bruges did not have a vow of poverty). It was a chance for widowed and single women to live together communally. This photo is from inside the Begijnhof in Bruges, which was founded in the 13th century. Silence is requested inside its walls as some Benedictine nuns now live within the Begijnhof, which made it a very peaceful place to walk around.



Keukenhof in the Netherlands is supposedly one of the world's largest spring gardens, with over 7 million bulbs planted each year. The flowers sure made for the most colourful photos of the trip:



It was a beautiful day so wandering amongst places like this was a great pleasure:



Vianden was a lovely little town in Luxembourg, which itself was a lovely little country with rolling green hills and villages with colourful houses. Vianden benefited from a chateau on a hill overlooking the town, which, combined with narrow cobbled streets gave the town a very dracula-like feel.



Here is a picture looking back down on the town - it's from a chairlift which is why there's black lines through it!

Tags: travel