Dublin, Ireland

Ha'penny cast iron bridge was built in 1816 and cost a half a penny to cross.

Irish Presidents house. Looks kinda like the White house.

Molly Malone statue from the famous Irish song, "Cockles and Mussels".

Greenwich

The Royal Greenwich Observatory at Longitude 0 degrees. This point marks east from west and is used to calculate time worldwide.

 The kids standing on the "center of time and space", the prime meridian.

I had to include this photo in the blog, being an amateur astronomer myself. It is part of William Herschels telescope who is an astronomy hero.

Here is what it used to look like before a tree fell on it.

Touching a meteorite.

More Thames River Cruise

The disappointing London Bridge.

The small white palace in the middle is where several monarchs were born like King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I.

More London

We went to the British Museum which was free like many other museums in London. It was impressive that they had the Rosetta stone right at the entrance. Another educational moment for the kids to actually see one of the most important archaeological finds that allowed the translation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

They also had an impressive number of Egyptian artifacts and mummies.

I was impressed with this fragment of the Sphinxes beard. I had been to see the Sphinx and the pyramids last September.

We had been in Greece to the Parthenon a couple of months ago and got to hear about the disagreement between the British and the Greeks over the Elgin Marbles. Lord Elgin had stripped the Parthenon of many of it's carvings and brought them to England. This picture is of the statues that were under one side of the Parthenons roof.

We took a river boat cruise up the Thames river and got to see the reconstructed Shakespeare Theatre

Touring London

This is where the term clink started as a term for a jail. The Clink area had a few prisons.

We learned that the Tower of London is actually only a few stories tall.

We also learned that the London Bridge was shipped off to Arizona. What we think of as the London Bridge is really the Tower Bridge.

Big Ben with the Parliament buildings in the foreground.

London!

How British! London is so very different than any of the cities we have been to. A whole different vibe here is the best way for me to describe it. We kept commenting how nice it was to understand all the signs and the language. After 7 months of traveling throughout Europe, it was refreshing not to get lost in translation.

We couldn't help but do the tourist thing right away and take pictures in front of Buckingham Palace. Everything is so much more impressive when you are actually there.
We are staying with our nephew, Josh, who has been in London for several years now and absolutely loves it here. He is a fantastic host!

The Chunnel Experience

We boarded a bus in Calais by the ferry terminal thinking we were going to see the white cliffs of Dover on our way to London. Instead, our bus driver headed back on the highway for a couple of miles and boarded a special train that took us through the Chunnel! Even the people around us had no idea that we were going to cross this way.
This is a view out the back of the bus after we entered the train and before the compartments closed.

You can get off the bus while you go through the Chunnel, but there is nothing much to do but stand around for 35 minutes within a closed compartment and look out the windows at a black tunnel. Still was an interesting experience though. Having done it once though, I think we will take the ferries to get back to France.

An amazing feat of engineering!

Having reached Dover, England, this picture shows how the train slides apart so that the bus can drive off. We were the first on the train so this shows the engine in front of us. I wished I had time to get a shot out the back window when the compartments opened.

Calais, France

Well we made it to Calais, France which is the shortest point to Dover, England without much trouble taking the regional trains. Most of the travel backlog due to the Iceland volcano eruption was over with and the planes were starting to fly again.We really had not been affected much by the transit problems although we heard many horror stories from many travelers.

In the distance we could barely make out the white cliffs of Dover although it didn't show in the photo.

We only spent one night here, but enjoyed walking around. It seemed like a sleepy port but from the number of restaurants we could tell that it must be  bustling in the summer.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Our next stop was Amsterdam. The city has a network of concentric semicircles that form a network of canals. We took an interesting boat tour rather than a bus tour that we have taken in most cities.

This city wins the prize for being the most bike friendly. This shows a sea of bikes outside the train station.

The architecture is distinctly Dutch with the high gable roofs with their winches for hauling up goods and furniture through the windows rather than up very narrow staircases.

The tulip fields were starting to bloom already as seen from the train on our way to Antwerp.

Sweden

I thought it was somewhat ironic that one of the first sights we saw was an Ikea store when we entered Sweden.

Malmo, Sweden

We decided to go to Sweden today since it is a day trip from Copenhagen. The beautiful city of Malmo was wonderful to walk around for a couple of hours.

Sweden, like most northern countries are very into biking. Many cities have free bike programs.

....and yes they do have Ikea in Sweden!

Copenhagen, Denmark

We see a lot of trees covered with these growths while we are traveling on the trains. I think it is the parasitic plant mistletoe.

The train was very crowded on our way from Berlin to Copenhagen due to the volcano eruption in Iceland. All the flights throughout Europe had been canceled. For once we had booked ahead 5 days so we had a seat. Everyone made the best of it though.

Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen is like a knockoff  Disneyland and just as spendy.

Guy is in the plane somewhere, screaming like a little girl. Ok that was the 28year old guy beside him screaming. Guy was the only brave enough Beaudoin to go on the ride.

Audrey and her toothless grin.

Apparently baby seal skin coats are still popular. Yeeech!

A replica of the Mermaid of Copenhagen. Apparently, the original is being shown in Asia somewhere.

Berlin, Germany

Berlin's bombed out church that was made into a memorial and an old photo showing how it looked before the war.

Brandenburg Gate

$300 gets the family in to see Blueman, a very interesting and interactive performance.

Checkpoint Charlie on the old Iron Curtain. This is a replica as the original hut was sold. The black and white picture was taken during the tank confrontation in the 1960's.

Parts of the original wall.

Almost all of the wall has been taken by souvenir hunters.

The kids are kneeling on the cobblestone line that shows where parts of the Iron Curtain used to be.

Berlins Jewish Cemetery.

The kids decided to make fun of the pedestrian stop light.

Cute little ice-cream truck.