Final Babymoon: Swiss Alps and Some of France

I suppose every trip for the past nine months has been a sort of "babymoon" for Colin and me, but our trip to Switzerland was our last big trip before we started "nesting" so I guess that makes it our official Babymoon.  It was the perfect last trip - it was so easy to enjoy the beauty of the Alps and delicious Swiss fondue and rosti's.  We had gorgeous weather and perfect clear skies for Colin to go to the top of Jungfrau, and we also enjoyed driving back home while making a few stops in France - Annecy, Beaune and Nancy.

On our arrival day to Lauterbrunnen, we took a short hike to the nearby Trummelbach waterfalls.  These falls were pretty cool as you actually had to enter the mountainside to see them.

The next day was our highlight.  We took the train from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, bought  a picnic lunch and took a gondola up the mountain to Lauberhorn.  From there, we took a quick steep hike to get a view opposite from the Jungfrau, and then hiked to Kleine Scheidegg for magnificent views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.

Map of Alps in the Berner Oberland

We loved the cows just hanging out on the mountainside.

Showing off my 31 week bump.  At the top of this mini peak, we were approached by an Ob-gyn from San Diego who confirmed my suspicion that I probably shouldn't go to the top of the Jungfrau, but he was impressed that we made it up the steep hill with the bump.

Colin snapped a bunch of pics from the top of Jungfrau. 

When Colin came back down from Jungfrau we hiked a bit more before training back to Lauterbrunnen.

Our couple of days in the Swiss Alps were awesome and probably one of Colin's favorite trips so far.  On our way home, we drove through France so we could hit up a few more destinations.  Our first stop was Annecy, a quaint French vacation town.  

 

We rented paddle boats and paddled around the lake for a bit.

We also enjoyed a final dinner of fondue before strolling the town in the evening. 

After Annecy, we drove north through the Burgundy region to Beaune, which we loved.  Its a cute little town in wine country with a fun market and a very interesting old hospice, which dates back to 1443.

We were actually so impressed to learn that this old hospice was still used until 1971.

We decided Colin should do some wine tasting in some of the old caves in town. 

We liked the D-I-Y style tasting.

We continued wandering some of the old sites in the town before heading out to do some tasting in the countryside.

Several wine bottle purchases later (we always justify this for our collection to bring back to CA), we continued our drive home and stopped in Nancy.  The only thing we knew about Nancy before stopping there was that it was on our way home.  We were shocked to find its old town absolutely gorgeous.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner in this old town square and then watched a laser light show with a bunch of other townspeople until we all got rained out.  We had kind of scoffed at the idea of a laser light show when our hotel concierge told us about it, but were actually quite impressed with the whole thing.  We'd definitely stay in Nancy again if we head down that direction in France in the future.

Pretty great babymoon!  Its been easier to slow down on the travel than I thought.  We had hoped for one final trip - possibly to Berlin- after this one, but we have ended up just staying home and getting ready for the baby instead.  Its been a different sort of fun for us, but we are definitely enjoying our final weeks with our little family of three (Lola included).

Kristina and Lucy Visit!

Colin and I were lucky enough to have some visitors this summer!  Some of my dearest college girlfriends Kristina and Lucy came to visit us.  They spent the night in Heinsberg, and then we made our way to the Flower Carpet in Brussels, spent a couple days tasting Belgian beer and chocolates in Bruges and a made final stop in Amsterdam.

Back in junior year at UCLA, Kristina, Lucy and I all traveled abroad together.  The three of us spent time in Ireland, England and Paris and even met up at Oktoberfest in Munich.  Kristina and I lived together while we "studied" in Florence while Lucy lived in Sevilla. So being back together in Europe for more travel time was awesome - and led to lots of reminiscing about our fun times 9 years ago!!  (9 years... REALLY?  It still feels like yesterday...)

The flower carpet is put together in the Grand Place in Brussels once every two years for a few days... We were lucky to overlap with the timing, but by the time we got there (2 days after it was first designed), the flowers had faded quite a bit!

29 Week Bump at Flower Carpet

We had to take the traditional "post card pic" in Bruges

Colin and I have a pic here from every year since we've moved to Germany. Fun that we have one with Mini Cav in it too!

We spent most of our time in Bruges touring beers and enjoying walking around the town.

And getting waffles.  They are so delicious!!

In Amsterdam we went to a great Indonesian restaurant and enjoyed a stroll through the Jordaan and Vondelpark. 

Thank you so much to Kristina and Lucy for coming to visit us and travel with us!

Heritage Trip to Norway

Colin and I weren't sure after last summer's Scandinavian cruise whether we'd make it to Norway.  After all, it is a pretty darn expensive country and it lacks one of my favorite vacation qualities: warm weather.  BUT, one evening I was at an "International Women of Geilenkirchen" meeting on base that was hosted by the Norwegians, and they flashed a slide show of all these gorgeous photos of the Norwegian countryside.  They dressed up in their traditional dresses ("bunads") and it reminded me that being Norwegian is a big part of my heritage, even if distant.  I've seen my great Aunt Kay in similar dresses, and heard about my mom's visit to our distant relatives "Olga and Olga" back when she traveled after college.  And of course, my Grandma Marjorie has introduced our family to Norwegian treats that we are all fond of... kringla, lefsa and krumkake.  So that was it - we decided we would do the famous "Norway in a Nutshell" tour.  It was a great trip.

We started in Oslo, walking the town and taking the ferry to the Viking Ship Museum. 

Oslo's town hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony takes place every December

Riding the ferry to the Viking Ship Museum

Viking with Viking Ship

The Oseberg ship dates back to 800 A.D.

Then we started our Nutshell tour, beginning with a train to the Sognefjord.

We ate some lefse on the way...

And enjoyed this beautiful landscape.

We hopped out of the Flam Railway to see the Kjosfossen Waterfall.

 Then we arrived in the tiny town of Flam, where we spent the night.  It was a very relaxing night as there is not a whole lot to do there but enjoy the beautiful scenery.  So Colin had a few beers and the next day we took a great bike ride. 

We liked this bar with lots of Norwegian wood... although the beers were a bit steep at about $12/piece.

Flam is situated right at the end of the Sognefjord and is in a valley that is surrounded by steep waterfalls.

Mini Cav also got to enjoy our heritage trip!

I would not want to test this rickety bridge... can't even imagine how cold that water must be!

This cute little timber church dated back to 1667.

The next day, we hopped on the ferry with all the other Nutshellers and made our way through the gorgeous Sognefjord.

You can't really tell based on our photos, but Colin and I were easily some of the youngest people to be doing this tour... apparently it really attracts an older audience!

We then took a bus to Voss and another train ride and finally ended up in Bergen.  We didn't know anything about Bergen before we arrived there, but we loved it.  It had a great fish market and was just a charming town. 

On the way to Bergen Colin checked out this memorial to Knute Rockne, a Notre Dame coach who was born in Voss.

The market sold these massive reindeer pelts.

Lots of crazy fish for sale too... Colin even gave a try to this black whale meat, which looked more like a steak.

28 Week Bump meets Bergen

We loved it here.  We were also spoken to in Norwegian on several occasions, which was somehow very satisfying to me.  Maybe because one of the shopowners told me he meant it as a compliment!  haha.

 From Bergen, we made our way back to Oslo on a night train.  While I swore off night trains after several not so comfortable experiences during my college study abroad, we decided a Norwegian night train was different.  And it was!  Had just enough room for two and was very nice and clean... but still not my favorite experience.  All in all though, our Norway trip really was phenomenal... just relaxing and outdoorsy - we were so glad we did it!