I may have said it before, but I will say it again - Prague was amazing. One of my favorite things about Europe (and Turkey) is all the history, and Prague did not leave you disappointed.  Also, while the city did get some damage in WWII, for the most part, it remain unscathed with lots of historic places remaining in great condition (especially the bridge).

I'm sorry I haven't finished writing about my love affair with Prague.

But, important things have been happening here in London, in case you haven't read the news.

The royal baby has been born! I was so excited to be in London for this event, not just living here, but actually in town. I know it may seem silly to some (perhaps especially the Brits), but it's an important moment in history when you think about the fact that this is the future king.

Either way, I let myself get swept up into the drama of it.

We had bets at work - boy or girl (I lost with girl); then the name (and this one I won with George).

I went by the major sites too, braving the crowds to take in the experience of welcoming in the newest member of the royal family.

Part I after birth: The announcement of the birth is placed outside Buckingham Palace. In past times, the baby was often born at their palace or home, making this more symbolic. In fact, Kate is only the second to have gone through birth at the hospital. Anyways, the announcement of the birth lets you know that the baby was a boy, was 8 lb 6 oz and is healthy, signed by the appropriate doctor folks.  This sits outside Buckingham for 24 hours, but of course, I went as soon as it was announced to take part in the chaos. On Tuesday, I hear things were much more organised, with lines and everything.

45 minutes to get close enough to see it

The crowds at 10 pm on a Monday night

Some (not me)  say the full moon helped speed up the birth.

Part II:: The homecoming. Kate gave birth at St. Mary's Hospital, which is less than a 5 minute walk from my office. On Tuesday, on the way home, I decided to pop by and see the fuss. These camera men & reporters had been staking out their spots for TWO WEEKS to ensure they got the best shot. This meant I couldn't see much of anything, just a little glimpse of the door. This glimpse afforded me a look at Prince Charles & Camilla as they left from their visit to their son & daughter-in-law. I decided with impending rain to give up on the Kate & William live watch, and instead watch from home.

Most watched door of all time?

Its hard to decide if you envy their shot or pity their lives for the last two weeks

I suppose the excitement is all over now that the name has been announced, but who knows. Perhaps there's a parade forthcoming? Either way, welcome to the world George Alexander Louis.

With our trip last weekend to Prague, I am happy to say I have a new love.

I am smitten with Prague, all it's little streets, filled with cobblestones and beautiful buildings. It is the quintessential European town.

With every block I walked, I stumbled upon a new jewel to fall even further in love with the city.

More to come on our adventures, but a sneak preview of our walks among the streets of Prague.

Beautiful red roof and blue skies

Back streets of the Old Town

Lovely houses next to the Astronomical Clock, including the Tourist Information Centre

If I had to sum up our trip to Greece in two words, they would be sun and ruins.

As I look back through our pictures from 2 summers ago, there are so many pictures of the two. Other than that, there's also a lot of food pictures and landscapes.

This was my first big ruins exposure, so I was excited to see them all, although after a year in Turkey, I've seen more than my fair share now.

Back to Greece - in June 2011, we took a trip with Paul's brother and wife to Italy and Greece. The focus was Greece, as it was a cruise where we would be stopping in 4 of the Greek Isles. While I was a cruising veteran, it was Paul's first cruise so I was excited to see what he thought about our floating hotel with overpriced drinks, night time entertainment and funny towel arrangements.

Corfu

This was the point in the trip when I realised I should have done some research. The night before we landed, it dawned on me I had no idea what to do once we got off the shop. Luckily, the ship gives some ideas and you can also steal some from their tours, putting us in a better place to explore.

We wandered the streets of Corfu a bit to start, giving us an idea of the lay-out of the city and feel of it all. We decided to try out the old Citadel for the best views of the city. They were breathtaking. The water was blue and clear, with sailboats sprinkled along the shore.


 Of course, we then had to check out the beaches and enjoyed the water before we headed back to the ship. Because we hadn't planned, we decided to go impromptu and follow the roads downhill until we ended up somewhere with access to the water. While definitely not our best or biggest beach of the trip, it may have been the most authentic, as we sat there with the locals & kids running around.

Santorini

This was what I was most excited about, as the iconic Greek Isle and it did not disappoint.  After we docked, we faced a huge cliff face with a few options to get up. We could walk (yuck), take a funicular (better), or for the same price as the funicular, take a donkey. We went for the traditional donkey route, although I felt so bad for the donkeys that I probably wouldn't do it again. Once we were up top, we took a bus out to Oia to wander among the blue roofed houses, have some wine and food, and of course take some photos.



We wanted to try the beach here as well, and although there were lots of interesting options, we decided to try the Black Beach on the other side of the island. It's called so because of the unique pebbles that are found there.


Instead of burdening the donkeys on the way back down, we decided to walk it. At that time of the day, most everyone was going down, so we avoided the donkey rush and got some good views in along the way, including one back out to the island from the tender boat.


Mykonos

When we got to Mykonos, we followed our usual plan first of wandering the streets. Here, we walked past the local mascot, Petros the pelican (the second), Little Venice and lots of bars. We then found out that Mykonos is somewhat of a party city, which we missed out due to ship curfew.

One of the odd landmarks of the city are the windmills, which you can find on a lot of islands in the area. There are 16 windmills on the island, but these on the hill give you the best views. They were used in the 16th century to mill wheat, but now are just for attraction (one is a museum).


Nearby to Mykonos is the island of Delos. It is an important historical and archaeological site, as it is said to be the birthplace of Apollo. Due to it's age, it's mostly in literal ruins now, in many instances it's hard to decipher what each group of ruins was originally. The icons of the island, however, are from the Terraces of Lions. These lions were originally installed in dedication to Apollo in 600 BC, but due to wear from the weather, are not in the best of condition. They've recreated some to give you an idea of what it used to be like.


After getting back to Mykonos, we squeezed in lunch and some sun at Psaru Beach.

Olympia

I think everyone can guess the importance of this island and what we did here. Olympia is home to the original Olympic games. We decided to avoid the tour buses and crowds and rent a car to drive out to the site.  Just outside the ruins, you can see the eternal flame where the torch for each Olympic games is lit from.

Within the Olympic complex (because in addition to the stadium were homes, markets, monumets and more), it follows a similar story to Delos - lots and lots of ruins. Some things are still standing, some have been re-created but for the most part it's hard to get an idea of the buildings use without a guide showing you around. The complex is also enormous, making it difficult to know what's the best things to look at.


We did manage to find the original stadium though. You can see the ground where the races were held and were spectators sat. We even tried our own version of the games to decide the strongest in the group.


After we had worn ourselves out, we headed back to relax on the beach in Katakalon. Since it was our last day on the beaches of Greece, we swam and soaked up every last ray of sunshine that we could from our vacation.


We haven't made it back to Greece in our time overseas, but there's so much more to explore!

When anyone asked me my favorite thing about Istanbul, my answer was always, emphatically, the Bosphorus. I loved looking over the water each and every day, and could probably go on and on (and on) about it.

Sunset over Parliament

I have not often ventured over into East London, with the exception of tourist sites like St. Pauls and Tower of London. There's so much to see in and around my little neighborhood, I haven't felt the need.

But when I read about another blogger's trip to London and the Columbia Road Flower Market, it got added on to my bucket list of things to try in town.

Yet, months later, I still hadn't found myself out there. Nearly an hour trip via tube or bus, and open on Sundays, meant that I was always finding excuses to sleep in and eat pancakes instead.

A few weekends ago, I finally made it out of my Sunday rut and over to the market, after much prodding from Paul.

In order to get to the flower market, we had some spontaneous wanderings through London where I stumbled across things I had heard about but not yet thought of visiting.

First off was Spitalfields Market - another version of Portobello Road, although better organised, cleaner, and definitely less crowded on this Sunday. I found a dress which I am looking forward to trying out on my next beach vacation.


Next was Brick Lane. As first, all I saw were tons and tons of people sitting on the curbs, eating of all things. Once I got past how unhygenic that seemed, I realised they were enjoying take-out from all the ethnic restaurants on the famous Brick Lane.


In addition to storefronts, there are also lots and lots of street vendors for the day. I got a hallumi wrap, perfect for wandering & eating, while Paul tried some empanadas. It was a perfect spot for people watching, all the food, vendors and people enjoying the outdoors.

Our last spot was the real reason for our visit - the Columbia Road Flower Market. It's a short stretch of road jam packed with flower stalls, and because of our late start to the day, people. I was looking for some peonies to have inside for a party, so we pushed through the crowds on a mission.







While we didn't do tons of browsing because of the hoards of people being herded like cattle through the narrow streets, I saw enough to make me want to go back for more again. There were lots of beautiful outdoor plants, which I will need when I kill those we just planted. There were also plenty of little shops stuck behind the stalls, boasting planters and other house goods. But on this day, with the sun out and 25 degrees, we found our peonies and headed on our way.


Next time? I'll set the alarm a tad bit earlier!

When people come into town, in addition to showing them around London (or Istanbul in times past), they usually have a desire to visit somewhere else in Europe.  Last year, we visited places around Turkey, Russia, Italy and Romania with people who came to visit.

This year, with Paul's parents & grandmother in town, we made a visit to Norway. Paul's parents lived there for a couple years and Paul has made a couple of visits, making me the only first time visitor.

We stayed in Bergen with some of family friends of the Tarts, and hit the ground running for sightseeing once we landed.

View of the beautiful buildings from the harbor

Our first stop was food, where all the seafood eaters enjoyed salmon open sandwiches (a bit like Copenhagen's). Immediately after lunch, we visited Rosenkrantz Tower where I probably walked off a good portion of my lunch, climbing up the 5 flights of stairs to the top. The tower was originally built in the late 13th century, but modified in the 16th century to be what we see today. The rooms leading up to the top weren't much of a sight to see, but there is a portion at the top with information on the tower & area, but the real attraction are the views. From the roof, you can see clear across the port, and probably even further on a sunny day.

Top of the tower with the harbor behind us

In the same complex as Rosenkrantz is Haakon Hall. This was the largest royal palace in the 13th century when Bergen was Norway's capital. During WWII, a German ship docked near the hall accidentally exploded, destroying the hall as well. It has since been re-built and visitors can take in the beautiful and simple hall during a visit.


The next day was our first true view of the fjords. We took a 3 hour boat ride out to Kinn to see a play in which some friends children & grandchildren were participating in. The play is called Kinnaspelet and while it was all in Norweigan, our friends were kind enough to give us an overview of what was going on. Basically, it is about the Protestant Reformation by the Danish king, with the locals trying to convince the king they can stay a part of Norway and their current faith. There was singing, fighting, even some smoke, and I was able to get the gist of it.

Kinn - the weather ended up beautiful

Some of the actors from the Kinnaspelet, with the split mountain (Kinnaklova) in the background

 On Sunday, we went out to the fjords again. I have come to find that it is basically impossible to avoid the fjords in Norway. There are so many fjords diving up the land, with bridges and tunnels being build over the last few decades to help ease commuting around the country. Our boat took a similar path as Kinn to start, but as we got north, we turned into the Sogne Fjord. This is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway, and at the end, near Flåm, parts of the fjord are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Us and Turid on the Sogne Fjord Cruise

Our journey started off a bit rainy, unfortunately, but as we neard Flåm, the skies cleared up and we were able to take in the breathtaking scenery. From the tall cliffs on either side, with greenery dotting them on the way up, to the water, to the waterfalls which sprouted out from the top and were still carrying plenty of water from the melting snow.


When we finally got to Flåm, we had a picnic lunch with bread, cheeses, chicken and my new favorite raspberry jam, before we grabbed a train to Myrdal and more scenery.

The train to Myrdal was fashioned after old trains, and while it wasn't particularly fast, you got great views of the valleys and rivers below you. As it was the summer, the train makes a stop at Kjosfossen waterfall for the chance to take a picture and perhaps glimpse the siren running around the ruins nearby.


Monday was our last day in Bergen, we checked out a few sites, including Edvard Grieg's house, the funicular to views over the city and a church where Paul's ancestors were buried. Paul's great great grandparents came from Norway in the 1800's from Bergen, so it was very special to go back to his family's roots.



With so many people to visit in Norway, and so many things to see, I'm sure we will find ourselves back again soon!