Scotland: New Year's 2017

For New Year's, we traveled to Glasgow, Scotland to see our friends; Jamie and Ross.  

View from their apartment:

Our first full day started with a cruise through the Scottish Highlands:

When evening hit, we stopped to explore a town called Oban:

Once back to Glasgow, we had a drink at the Oran Mor.  This is a church turned into a bar. The last time I was in Scotland back in 2013, I went to "A Pie, A Pint, and A Play" event here. We saw "Three Sisters"and were give a pie and a pint.

Edinburgh is about an hour away from Glasgow by train, so we checked out the Hogmanay festivities.

Buying a torch, lighting it, and parading through Edinburg is part of the Hogmanay tradition.  The line was too long to get a torch, so we simply watched.

On New Year's Eve we took a tour of Glengoyne; a Scotch distillery.

The Kelpies:

We spent the last day of 2016 touring around Edinburgh again:

 Edinburgh castle:

 On our last day of the visit we roamed around Glasgow:

I believe this was the oldest building in Glasgow:

Greg and I had a great time visiting with our friends.  On our way home, our flight was delayed out of Glasgow. We had a layover in Paris, and naturally missed that flight with the delay.  They re-booked us for a flight later that evening, however, the pilot never showed up and we ended up staying the night in Paris, and catching a flight the next day. We made it home eventually....#travelerproblems

-Gina

France: November 2016

      We spent Thanksgiving break traveling all around France with our friends; The Jelles. After work on a Wednesday, I headed to the train station, and we took a 3 hour train from Stuttgart to Paris

 Our first morning in France, we rented a car, and drove about 4ish hours away to Normandy.

Here are photos from the cemetery:

Afterwards we headed to  the VERY windy Pointe Du Hoc:

 Check out these huge craters from bombs and such..


In the evening, we drove an hour or so to St. Malo, France.  Once we settled in, we searched for a place to have our Thanksgiving dinner. We found a crepe/galette shop. A galette is a savory crepe.  I love meat, so I ordered the one called "Paysanne", which featured bacon and "andouille sausage". I didn't think to ask what was andouille sausage...I figured it was just another type of sausage! When my meal came out of the kitchen, I could smell it immediately, and it smelled like a goat pen. I was praying it wasn't mine...but with my luck, yes, it was. I tried it, hoping it was like cheese and tasted better than the smell.  Well, it didn't. Then I hoped that someone else in my party would like it, and trade me meals. not a chance. By the way, andouille sausage is intestines...my guess is that mine weren't cleaned well enough. That was my Thanksgiving meal 2016. Moral of the story: never order sausage in France.

At least the creme brule was good...

In the morning, we woke up early so we walk about the town of St. Malo:

Greg with his alcohol infused breakfast treat:

We left St. Malo around noon, and drove a bit to Mont St. Michel.

Our friend, Lauren, did most of the planning. She surprised us by booking us to stay the night in this castle!

This is not the castle we stayed in, but it was one closely! 

    

 Here is part of the inside of the castle we stayed in. I say it looks like Gaston's lodge.

 This is the view from my castle room window.

Here are some photos of the castle we stayed in:

Here is a photo from the town nearby:

On our final full day, we toured 3 castles. This first one was the residence of DaVinci in his later years:

He had a secret tunnel, photographed above, which led him to the King's residence!

The following photos are from the second castle of the day:

The last castle that we went to for the day was Chateaux Chambourd, which apparently was the inspiration for the castle in Beauty and the Beast.

After all the castle explorations, we drove back to Paris for one more night:

 -Gina

 This magazine was on the train. I'm not going to spout out my political opinions, but here is what they thought in Germany in November 2016. (It says "The End of the World" in German).