Walkers are Welcome

I haven't seen the show, but apparently the zombies in "The Walking Dead" are referred to as Walkers. This provided wonderful mental images when we frequently saw signs around many villages saying "Walkers are Welcome!" Probably not what the chamber of commerce had in mind. But seriously, this was one of my favorite things about the area. Apparently in England there is a "right to wander". So as long as you aren't poking about in people's personal property, you can walk through any field and generally go wherever you wish. This has been encouraged by the establishment of innumerable public bridleways or walking paths. There are stiles and gates providing easy access, and lots of maps published of circular walks. One of the most famous and popular walks is the Cotswold Way, which goes 100 miles from Chipping Campden to Bath. Walkers stand out a bit in their sturdy clothes and boots, and we saw lots of them. It turns out that our B&B is right on the Cotswold Way, and our hosts said that a little over half of their guests are walkers. There are walking tours, and companies that will move your luggage for you, and there are people who do it all on their own. We didn't see anyone carrying camping gear, or the large packs we use for backpacking though. It's very convenient to have all these charming little towns and pubs every couple of miles.

We did a very short circular walk of 4 or 5 miles around Chipping Campden. There were woods, which felt a little like Robin Hood, fields that envisioned Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and some nice views over the town, like we were walking through a Jane Austen movie set. We also thought we were lost a lot, and encountered more mud than we expected. I thought the biggest difference from the movie sets was that most of the walkers we encountered appeared to be retired. I guess the Tess's, Mr. Darcy's, and Little John's of our era are employed in other activities than walking through the countryside. Dang.



If I were to plan another trip to England, I would love to come back to walk the entire Cotswold Way, with another couple days in London, without a baby, cute as he is.

Seven Years

Monday was our anniversary, and while it was tempting to remain holed up in the B&B, we decided it was time to venture forth. Over the weekend we had realized that while the full English breakfast was wonderfully filling, it didn’t quite last all the way until the next breakfast. Between our stomachs, the compulsion to do something to celebrate our anniversary, and the rumors of enchanting villages from a bygone era, we found the courage to “hire” a car, to use the local vernacular, and then drive it, ourselves. Well, Darren drove, but I helped by shrieking in terror regularly. I'm sure that made our anniversary extra special for him. After our limited experience of watching drivers in the English countryside, we were suitably terrified. The rental place had no difficulty convincing us to purchase the extra insurance, and Grant got buckled in extra carefully.

With the help of Google and a touring map from our B&B, I navigated us along the scenic route, Darren drove, Grant napped, and we made it to our destination of Chipping Campden with no major damage, other than fried nerves. We may not have fully appreciated the bucolic charm of the picturesque villages through which we passed, but it was certainly an adventure not to be forgotten!

According to the guide books, the Cotswolds grew quite wealthy around the 16th century by producing wool. There are still lots of sheep. They built beautiful and sturdy buildings out of the local limestone, including lots of fabulous churches. Even the tiniest villages sported large, elaborate churches, which are known as "wool" churches. The area eventually fell into a recession, which lasted a couple hundred years, during which virtually no development happened. Now it has some sort of protected status, and it feels like stepping back in time hundreds of years...  if you can pretend the cars are horses.

In deference to the anxiety produced by those quaint country roads, we opted to continue our explorations by foot. But walking deserves a post of its own, so more on that later. The highlight of the day for me was probably our afternoon tea. I’d been looking for a good place for this everywhere we went, but the timing was tricky. Afternoon tea is served between 3 and 6, and Grant was napping from 3 until 5 typically. Also, Darren wasn’t spending the afternoon sampling every local delicacy, and for some reason he wanted dinner when he was done with work. So unreasonable. Anyway, this ended up being the only day I got to experience afternoon tea. Because Grant had been in the backpack or carseat all day up to this point, he really wanted to get down and move around. The thought of putting him in one of the dainty little tea shops I had been seeing sounded much more expensive, and much less relaxing than I had been hoping for. Some aspects of travel are truly not improved by experiencing them with a baby. I know, shocking. But we found a little hotel with an empty looking restaurant. Not really a good sign when looking for tasty treats, but it worked for us. They so very kindly put us in a sitting room all by ourselves, which Grant loved, and Darren and I got to pretend that we were English aristocracy being served tea in our own sitting room with a fireplace!

Rest for the Weary at Upper Hill Farm

After that whirlwind week of travel, we were really ready for some down time. I was so glad that Darren had arranged for a couple days off. As soon as he was done with work on Friday, we were headed for Paddington Station to catch a train out of the city. And yes, it is chock full of Paddington Bear paraphernalia. I was a bit shocked by the train fare. This train cost almost as much as the one from Paris to London, and it's a commuter train!

Our destination was a 18th century stone farmhouse outside of Cheltenham in the Cotswolds. It actually took a ton of work to find a bed and breakfast that would allow Grant. Much easier to find accommodations for say, a Great Dane. Oh well, we were delighted with Beechfield House at Upper Hill Farm. Paul and Helen had a sweet room for us, fixed us fabulous full English breakfasts, introduced us to Percy, the friendly neighborhood pheasant, drove us down to the local pub for dinner, and even washed some laundry. Ahhhhhh. It was so nice to rest.

By some sweet miracle, our room had a little closed off hallway between us and the bathroom. Perfect for sticking our baby at night! Hurrah! I hadn't quite anticipated how difficult it would be to always share just one room with a baby who sleeps 12 hours at night. You can't really do anything but hide your laptop under the covers and try not to make any noise. It's been especially difficult when Darren needs to get to work, and Grant wants to sleep until 9 or 10. I'm still not sure how to improve this, other than spending way more money on the hotels.

While I had wanted to stay in a smaller town, I think it was good that we ended up where we did, close enough to the train station for our hosts to pick us up. You pretty much have to drive in such a rural area. I had been envisioning peaceful, pleasant drives along meandering country roads, with hedgerows and pastoral views. The scenery was right, but the drivers are crazy! We expected the challenge of adjusting to driving on the left side of the road. But we didn't anticipate one-lane roads with two-way traffic, curves and hedges blocking the view (no one considered sight distance in designing these roads!), and crazy speeds! When our host first picked us up from the station, I thought it was just her driving. But she turns out to be a conservative driver! The method is to drive really fast, then slam on the brakes and swerve into the brush when another car needs to pass. Wow.

We couldn't rent a car on Saturday or Sunday because I hadn't made arrangements in advance, and while I pretended to be regretful to our hosts, I was so relieved! We really didn't need the stress of trying to drive those first couple of days. We got a little hungry, but it was worth it. The countryside right around the house was beautiful, with lots of trails. And that was all the sightseeing we were up for.

I wish I had taken a picture of our "full English breakfast". It includes thick bacon, sausage, fried egg, black pudding, baked beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, hashbrowns and toast. It was awesome, and yes, enormous. Most breakfast sausages don't sit well with me, but this was great. Good thing we planned to do a lot of walking!

Paul gave us a ride to church, which was only four miles away, and we really enjoyed the ward. There are quite a few American ex-pats, apparently there is a software company and something government related in the area. It was a nice, big, friendly congregation with a lot of variety of people.

A Peek at London

One reason I opted to travel with Darren to Paris was that we would take the train to London, through the Chunnel. I've always thought that sounded so cool, and I get the shivers thinking about a tunnel under something as deep and wide as the English Channel. So I was a bit disappointed by how underwhelming it was from the train. Just half an hour of nothing to see out the windows. Bummer. Maybe I'll get another chance sometime to see more of it.

London is huge! Huge, busy, fast. Yikes. My family did a big road trip when I was 16, and I think we spent one day in New York. I know I barely saw it, but London seemed even bigger. Biggest city in Europe, I think. With my travel-weary baby, I had no illusions of seeing much, so I was actually really please with all we did, squeezed in between naps.

Telephone booth, because it's bright red, and really good hot chocolate, not very sweet

It helped that our hotel was right next to Buckingham Palace! Pretty amazing. That put Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the Parliament Building all within a 5 minute walk or so.

Just around the corner from our hotel, you can see Westminster, Big Ben, the London Eye, and a double decker bus!

Our first day we walked around Buckingham Palace. I think we got to the front gates right after the changing of the guard, because tourists were swarming like flies on roadkill. Crowds of people kind of give me the heebie-jeebies, so we didn't stay too long. We walked past St. James Park, and then through Hyde Park. It's startling to have so much green space in the middle of such a crowded city. Very refreshing.

Speaker's Corner, at Hyde Park

The Serpentine, at Hyde Park

Herrod's was adjacent to Hyde Park, and I thought we'd stop in for a peek. It was terrifying! The ground floor has a grim army of men and women in black, prepared to attack with perfume and cosmetics. The women's fashion floor looked like it was prepared for a really expensive Halloween, and the children's floor was the worst. Big screens showing child models on the runway, dressed up like adult models. You know, dramatic make-up and hair, clothes from the Capitol in the Hunger Games, pouty, icy expressions. So, maybe haute couture isn't really my thing. I was also a little tired by this point, so we took one of those double decker red buses back to the hotel.

Our second day, I toured Westminster Abbey in the morning. What an amazing structure! So much history! It was really beautiful. Grant was napping in his stroller, which made it difficult for me to get into many of the little chapels along the side. But everything I could see was so beautiful. And they had a really nice audio tour included with admission. I thought they did a really nice, friendly, yet tactful job of sharing their faith as well as the beautiful building. That was probably the highlight of our visit to me.

After Westminster, I attempted to take a bus to St. Paul's Cathedral. I did manage to get on the bus, however, I quickly discovered that mine was not the only stroller. There were 3 other strollers, not collapsed, and at least a dozen large suitcases. Apparently that bus was heading for an airport. We really didn't fit, I was getting car sick, and Grant was fussing. So we got off, and resorted to our feet.

Steps of St. Paul's

St. Paul's is the cathedral from Mary Poppins! That was cool. We sat on the steps with a bunch of other people, ate our lunch, and attempted to feed the birds. There actually were pigeons there when we sat down, but Grant made a bunch of noise and scared them away. Oh well. Hopefully the "saints and apostles" weren't terribly disappointed as they looked down.

St. Paul's, looking up from the Millennium Bridge

From St. Paul's, we crossed the London Millennium Footbridge to see Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Then London Bridge,

Chasing a pigeon, with London Bridge, and a funky modern building, in the background

And the Tower of London, at which point we got caught in a thunderstorm. We found a nice covered courtyard outside an office building, and I tried to play catch with Grant by rolling a mandarin orange to him. He had other ideas.

I was ready to try a bus again, but Grant fell asleep, and I ended up walking along the Thames all the way back to our hotel. It was a really nice walk, pretty path and all that, but I ended up walking nearly ten miles that day!




22 Hours in Paris

One of the biggest challenges for me about this trip is the limitations on planning ahead. We're following Darren around, so we're really dependent on his schedule. I might have chosen to travel separately from him if I had known the visit to Paris would be so short. Because, let's face it, the one-year-old contingent is kind of attached to his routines and nap schedule. But we had a really good time, and I ended up being glad that we came.

Baby Grant tearing up newspaper with a 3-year-old Japanese boy on the train to Paris.

Visiting Paris with an 11-month-old in September is quite different from visiting Paris with a 8-week-old embryo in February. No surprises there! Our hotel was once again close to the Gare du Nord, but I opted not to experience the Metro with a stroller. Instead I chose the Marais neighborhood as our destination, and we walked. Long walks allowed Grant to nap a little, and I got to see more of the city.

Grant eating the best falafel I've ever had, on the Rue de Rosiers (Jewish quarter)

 

The absolute best thing about traveling with a baby is the opportunity to mingle with people just living their lives. If I sat down in a park like this without the baby, it would be kind of creepy. Instead, I really wished that I knew more than hello, good-bye, and thank you in French. The lucky kids had no problem with a language barrier, and it wasn't too hard to understand when another mom pointed out to me that my kid was eating sand.

My chosen Parisian moments were enjoying dinner in a brasserie (while our last trip included several brasserie's, I can't say I enjoyed them, which was so sad!) and buying scarves. I hardly ever wear scarves, but it seemed the thing to do!

Grant's first baguette

Utrecht

While Nijmegen is a nice town, and the countryside where our hotel is located is pretty, Darren thought I should get a chance to see an older Dutch city, or at least a city with old Dutch architecture. Nijmegen is actually the oldest city in the Netherlands, but it was almost completely destroyed in WWII. We picked Utrecht for the canals and the architecture. It was also en route to Rotterdam, where we would be taking a train to Paris the next day.

We stayed in a hobbit hole! Well, a hobbit hole made of stone on the bank of the Old Canal. I didn't take pictures, so these are from the hotel's website.

 

Isn't it fun?! It used to be storage when the canals were used for transporting goods. Now it is relatively cheap housing. Although Tolkien may protest, I'm pretty sure hobbit tunnels are similarly damp and smell slightly of mildew. Some rather bohemian college students lived next door, which added to the atmosphere.

We enjoyed walking through town, but Baby Grant's brains may be slightly scrambled after bumping along the cobblestones in his "buggy". Even the shock-absorbing powers of B.O.B. weren't quite enough to combat these old roads!

Arrived in Nijmegen

When Darren's company decided that they needed him in Europe for a month, Baby Grant and I decided that we needed to tag along! We couldn't leave while my sister Katie and her kids were visiting. That time was already too short and too precious. So we let Darren go on his own, but a week later, we have caught up with him!

We are in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, where Darren's company is headquartered. Grant and I arrived on Thursday evening. There are no pictures of this. You don't actually want pictures of this. My most determined attempts at packing light were completely foiled by the absolute necessity of a stroller and a car seat. The baby, the suitcase and the carry-on, no problem. But add the stroller and the car seat, and the narrow stairs up the train, and we were providing people with an opportunity for, um,  service! People really were quite nice, and it wasn't too bad getting on the train. I thought something similar would happen when we got off, but at the stop before ours, almost everyone left our train car. Everyone except a wizened, little old man who looked like he weighed about as much as my suitcase. Yep. Fortunately, it was the last stop, and I had time to make several trips onto the train to get everything off. It wasn't just because I had missed Darren's company that I was so very, very glad to see him at the train station! His co-worker, Volmar, picked us up and took us to our hotel.

The goal for Friday was to get enough sleep, so all we did was walk to Darren's office and meet more of his coworkers. They were very nice, but busy, so we kept our visit short, and went back to the hotel to sleep more.

Jet lag wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined it might be! I had packed a bag with toys and snacks in case we had to go out in the hall so that Darren could sleep, but Grant slept as well as he has been at home. Granted, that isn't saying much, but he went back to sleep quickly each time he woke up. I had hoped that I would sleep on the flight, since it was a night flight, but Grant needed a lot of help to stay asleep, in spite of having two seats all to himself!!! I doubt I was the only one on the plane green with jealousy! But Grant took the short night, and short day without skipping a beat. The first evening was the only really uncomfortable part for me too. So I may try a night flight again, should the opportunity present itself.

Darren had Saturday off, so we decided to check out the neighboring city of Arnhem and the Open Air Museum. It seems that there are several of these here, and we really enjoyed it. They have moved historic buildings, like farmhouses and windmills to a large plot of land. A section is even arranged like a small old-fashioned town. There were blacksmiths, wagon-makers, dairies, millers, and anything you could think of. There was also an amazing area for kids to play with a zip line and a fantastic climbing structure. We wished we had more time, but we all slept late, and it closed fairly early. We had a delightful dinner in Arnhem in a square with lots of restaurants, flowers, trees, and a man playing an accordion. I couldn't take a picture that captured the atmosphere.

And today we enjoyed going to church in Nijmegen. It's a fairly small branch, with mostly older people, but they were so welcoming. Darren met a very friendly couple, Nancy and Marcel, who offered to give us a ride. They helped us find a quiet, dark room where Grant took a nice long nap, and invited us to stay for the potluck. It is such a treat to sample traditional foods made by families instead of restaurant food, although that has been very good. We had a delicious leek soup, casseroles made with sausage, sauerkraut, potatoes, and cheese, and several little sausage roll things. We also talked to a lovely little Polish lady, who said my last name sounded like it might be Tyminski (with a little mark over the n). It would be nice to have a lead on my dad's family history in Poland.

Grant really likes Dutch pancakes. So do I! They are mostly savory, with leeks, mushrooms, ham, cheese, and all sorts of tasty things mixed into the batter. And the pancake shops are open for lunch and dinner, but not breakfast.