Weekend fun: Bath, Stratford upon Avon, Oxford & Brighton

With only a few weeks left in England, we decided to make the most of our weekends in April. First, we went to Bath. There was a beautiful church near the Roman Baths.

We just stayed one night in Bath, and we had to move on the next day, driving through the Cotswold area. The scenery was beautiful.

In Stratford upon Avon. we explored where Shakespeare was born and where he was buried. After a dinner overlooking the River Avon, we took in a play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Although they were not performing Shakespeare that evening, we enjoyed a play called the "Jew of Malta" in the Swan Theatre.

On the way back to our flat, we stopped in Oxford. The streets around the university remind me of Harry Potter, and the part of the campus we saw was beautiful.

The next weekend, we stopped by Brighton to see the Royal Pavilion and the Beach. They didn't let us take pictures inside the Royal Pavilion, but I enjoyed the Chinese theme. The dining room was amazing with a dragon chandelier, and the music room was beautiful. I would love to hear a concert there.

LONDON

We decided to try our public transportation options to go to London, so it was the bus going and the train returning to Portsmouth. When we arrived, we had fun walking around the city and seeing sites such as Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and Buckingham Palace.

Last fall in France, some French friends of ours traveled to Greece. When they came back, they told us that we should go to the British Museum to see the antiquities from Greece! After going to the museum, Eric & I could see what they meant: the British Museum has a lot of wonderful items from Greece.

We found discount tickets for a play called "The 39 Steps." It was a very entertaining show with just four actors playing all of the parts.

We also went on the "London Eye," and although it was a little cold that day, we enjoyed the city views.

GERMANY

In February, Eric HAD to go to Munich for a meeting, so I jumped at the chance to join him. As part of the trip, I was trying to find a way to ski in the Alps -- a lifelong dream.

We started in Munich. Our friends who are living in France (Eric's American colleague and his family) were there too, so it was fun to spend time with them. First, we saw the Rathaus-Glockenspiel, a tourist attraction in the heart of Munich (Marienplatz). It was hard to take a picture of the moving figures that danced above our heads, so I took pictures of the main building and plaza.

Munich also had a great science museum with a large children's exploration area.

I found a ski area that was an hour outside Munich, and on Friday, we left by train from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I am fond of the store "Lidl" that I discovered in France, England, and now Germany, so I couldn't resist a picture of both the town and store names together.

Our hotel was charming.

Then, on Saturday, we went skiing in the Alps! 

We skiied on the 2nd highest peak in Germany, and we looked over to the nearby peak, called Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. I walked out on a structure near the peak which looked down on a drop of 1,000 feet or so. I was a little nervous, and Eric chose not to go out to the "very safe" edge of the structure!

We found out that Garmisch-Partenkirchen is also famous for hosting the winter Olympics, so we had lunch overlooking some of the big ski jumps.

We were thrilled with Germany: the food was wonderful, the trains were very efficient, with reasonably priced tickets, and of course, skiing the Alps was a once in a lifetime event. Actually, the snow was a little icy and everyone seemed to ski too fast for the crowded conditions, so we understood why most of the skiiers wore helmets! However, the view could not be better, and we loved the experience.