We had a quiet morning this morning. The rain and grey skies of yesterday had disappeared, and we wandered the streets of Bruges while seeking out breakfast.
Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges
We then headed to Sint-Janshospitaal, one of the four early hospitals in Bruges where the poor and the sick would come to receive medical treatment and have the nuns who ran the hospital pray for them. Medical knowledge was limited prior to the sixteenth century, and barbers would often be brought in to help patch up people! Within the hospital museum were old records, books, religious paintings and relics, and medical implements that looked really painful to be on the receiving end of!
Afterwards, we made our way to the train station and caught the train to Ghent, which is only a half hour away from Bruges. I have to admit that our real reason for going to Ghent was because it was where the fictional character Rodmilla de Ghent, the evil stepmother to Drew Barrymore’s Cinderella in the movie Ever After, came from.
From the train station, Ghent looks bigger and a lot more modern than the picture perfect Bruges. It took us half an hour to walk from the train station to Ghent’s old quarter, but we slowly saw the tessellated façades of the older buildings.
We made a beeline for Gravensteen Castle, which was once owned by the Counts of Flanders. It was a large castle with rooms displaying enough suits of armor, weaponry and torture devices to keep Ryan entertained (one of the swords was taller than him!) and enough history and ambience to please me. The views over Ghent from the top of the keep and the castle walls were worth the entry itself (although restoration works were being carried out while we were there, to fix part of the fortress which had become dilapidated).
Gravensteen Castle in Ghent
Once Ryan had pulled me away from the castle, we had a cheap and cheerful lunch at Hema, before spending the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets of Ghent, taking in the gorgeous sights of the houses along the canal, and visiting the Belfry and Cloth Guild, and Saint Nicholas’s Church, Saint Jacob’s Church and Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, where the altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb is kept.
The weather was far nicer to us today, with mostly clear skies but chilly with a maximum of 12 degrees Celsius! At times during the day, I regretted leaving my gloves back at the hotel!
Ghent was easy to do as a day trip from Bruges. The Old Town was really pretty and it is off of the tourist path, away from the tour groups who frequent Brussels and Bruges.
We caught the train back to Bruges just as it was getting dark – at 5pm, and settled down for our last night in Belgium.
What you need to know:
Gravensteen Castle: Entrance to Gravensteen Castle costs 10 Euros per person for a self-guided tour that lasts between 1.5 and 2 hours
The train from Bruges to Gent-Sint-Pieter train station takes about thirty minutes. A round trip ticket can be purchased for around 16 Euros. If you’re not keen on walking to the old part of Ghent, there are frequent trams which run from the train station to the Grote Markt and Gravensteen Castle.
By the time this post is appears online, I’ll be at the airport, bags already checked in, waiting to board the plane for my next adventure: four weeks travelling through Belgium, France and the UK.
Travelling with my brother
It’s going to be interesting: over the past few years my travels have been solo (along with some group tours). This time will be different – I’ll be spending four weeks travelling with my brother, Ryan.
When we were young, our family took trips together every school holidays. We even spent three months of 1991 living in a caravan as we drove up through Coober Pedy, learned about Aboriginal culture, climbed Uluru, and watched crocodiles in Kakadu and the Daintree, before driving down the east coast through Brisbane and Sydney and heading home. Our parents have instilled in us a love of travel that we still as adults.
My brother and I climbing Ayer’s Rock (Uluru) – a pretty impressive feat for a five and a seven year old!
Ryan’s beyond excited about going to Europe. He’s even joining me in creating digital media and has set up his own YouTube channel (Subscribe to see what we get up to, and be prepared to listen to a lot of bad roadtrip sing-alongs!).
Meanwhile, I have mixed feelings about this trip.
My worries and concerns:
Turning in to the bossy, know-it-all older sister: I need to watch myself, and make sure I don’t kill my brother’s enthusiasm for being in Europe with my list of where-I-think-we-should-gos, what-I-think-we-should-dos, and when-I-think-we-should-do-thems. It would be very easy for me to slip into my Miss I-Am-Always-Right persona. I need to make sure I let him come to his own conclusions about independent overseas travel and not overwhelm him with my own opinions.
My brother’s tendency to be accident prone. My brother tends to attract trouble in the form of bodily injury (he’s nicknamed himself ‘Mr Bump’ after the Mr Men character). Back, shoulder, foot ligaments, he’s hurt them all (and that’s just in the last 300 days). When I’m at home, I’m fine, though while travelling I’ve managed to walk into a pole and split my head open in Salzburg, and have sustained a swollen knee in Moscow after falling down a flight of stairs wearing my 20kg backpack. Putting the two of us together could spell trouble.
Needing a break. I have never travelled for more than ten days with just one other person. Usually I alternate between solo travel and group travel. And as much as we get on with each other, we are going to need a break every now and then. We might need to go our separate ways for a few hours after we arrive in the UK and are back on English-speaking soil and I have put aside my role as the French interpreter.
Castle fatigue: My brother is excited about this trip. He’s been counting down the days. He’s signed on to what is inevitably a castle tour and has voluntarily come up with about fifty castles that are near where we are travelling. That’s fantastic for me (and for this blog), but how long will it last?
What I’m looking forward to:
Playing tour guide: I love Paris, feel like I could live in Scotland, and know my way around London. I have my favourite spots and places to recommend that he should see. Together with his own European bucket list, I’m looking forward to showing him around, sharing with him the history of these places and what they mean to me.
Travelling with one of the people who knows me best. My brother and I tend not to hold grudges. Even if we’re livid with each other, we know to give it a few hours and then everything will be back to normal. He even accepts my castle addiction!
Visiting places I’ve always wanted to go to: Although this trip will see me back in my favourite cities of Paris, Edinburgh, and London, I’ll also be going to some places that have been on my Travel List for a while. We’ll be going to Bruges to see the canals and buildings that everyone raves about. We’ll visit several film locations from the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and see where the legend started by exploring Sherwood Forest and Nottinghamshire. And for the first time on my travels I’ll have access to a car, and be able to get myself to those places that trains don’t get me close enough to (Chatsworth, I’m looking at you).
Getting to say ‘Remember when…?’ The worst thing about solo travel is that when you get home, you can’t sit back and reminisce about your travels with anyone else. If you try it with someone who hasn’t been to the locations you have, their eyes tend to glaze over. If you try reminiscing with someone who visited, you’ll more often than not get them trying to one-up you with their own experiences. What you need is someone who was there with you, who knows first hand how hilarious it was to get off at the wrong train station, or how angry you were that your suitcase broke on the third day of your holiday. Hopefully we’ll have a few stories from this trip that will stay in our shared memory for a long time.
Taking it easy on the Kuranda Railway
The November Weather Report
A change of plans saw our original holiday of four weeks in New Zealand switched for exploring Belgium, France and the UK. Though the location changed, our annual leave dates did not.
The result? We are heading in to Europe in November.
After several Google searches, it seems that people have mixed feelings about how bad the November weather in Europe is. It runs the gamut from the weather being cool with snatches of sunlight and the cities being free from summer’s bustling crowd of tourists, to all tourist attractions being shut down, the sky dumping a deluge on those people who stay there for November and everyone basically having a miserable time. One of the quotes I read on TripAdvisor recommended against travelling to Europe, since it wasn’t summer, and the charm of Christmas wouldn’t have made its appearance yet.
With so many mixed opinions, we’ve decided to go in November anyway. If we expect it to constantly rain, then we’ll be happily surprised when it doesn’t. We know what we’re getting into temperature-wise – we’ve been through snowy Januarys in Germany, so know that we can get out and explore even when it’s near freezing outside and the hours of daylight dwindle to six a day. We even had a cold winter in Adelaide to prepare us – we had a week’s worth of the maximum temperature hovering between ten and thirteen degrees.
And going in November has made it easier to narrow down our castle list – it’s true that quite a lot of them are closed to the public from November onwards. But we still have a pretty long list of castles, palaces and stately homes to choose from that keep their doors open year round.
Be prepared for lots of photos of us standing in front of castles – like this one from a miniature display village in Batchelor, except with us being twenty years older!
For the next twenty-eight days, I want to expose the European November weather and document it and how it affects our travel plans, so the next person who Googles What’s the weather like in Europe in November? can read through these posts to add to their confusion find out what it was like for us.
Looking over the cliffs towards Dyrhólaey lighthouse (Dyrhólaeyjarviti)
My mum asked for one souvenir from Iceland: a photo of a puffin.
I must admit that I didn’t want to leave Iceland without seeing one, either. My original plan for going on a puffin and whale-watching tour out of Reykjavik had been eclipsed by the opportunity to go inside of a volcano, and I wondered if I had missed out on being able to see a puffin altogether.
On my mum’s birthday, our tour guide took us along the southern coast of Iceland, stopping at cliffs that overlooked the rough sea. Rock formations jutted up out of the water in shapes that reminded me of London Bridge and the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road back home.
I’ve named this formation at Dyrhólaey lighthouse ‘London Bridge’, after the collapsed London Bridge rock formation along the Great Ocean Road
Each time a bird flew past I’d peer at it through my camera’s zoom, hoping to see that distinctive red beak and a flash of white underbelly, but all I saw were gulls. Our tour guide was not optimistic: the previous tour they had only seen three puffins. It was quite likely we wouldn’t see any.
The next stop was ostensibly to walk to another lookout for a view of some basalt columns, but it was also a well-known spot for puffins. And just a few steps away from the car park, there they were, sitting perfectly still, posing obediently while we scrambled to take photos of them.
The first sighting of puffins, perfectly positioned
Our guide marvelled at how many there were. I like to think he knew they were there all along, and wanted to build up the suspense and surprise us!
Puffins are such unique looking birds
We tore ourselves away from the puffins and carried on towards the next stop: a black sand beach with basalt columns (it was easy to see how the columns had influenced the design of Hallgrimskirkja back in Reykjavik).
The basalt columns of Reynisfjara Beach
Here, we were being truly spoiled: there were puffins galore floating on the water.
What an amazing sight! There were so many puffins floating in the ocean (and I was worried I wouldn’t see any)!
Later that day, still excited by having seen puffins, I sat in the lobby of the Puffin Hotel, wished Mum a happy birthday on Skype, and e-mailed her her present.
Seeing puffins on Mum’s birthday made these photos a birthday gift rather than souvenirs
Skogafoss is just one of the many waterfalls along Iceland’s Ring Road. Most people see this waterfall from below, standing next to the river that it crashes down into. However, there is more to Skogafoss if you’re feeling adventurous and want to explore.
Skogafoss, one of the many waterfalls along Iceland’s Ring Road
Next to the waterfall there is a set of stairs that snakes its way up the cliffs to the top of Skogafoss. Even though I was out of breath by the time I reached the top of the falls, it was completely worth it because the view was spectacular: you can look out over the rugged green hills and watch the river as it cuts through the plains below and winds out to the sea.
The lookout from the top of Skogafoss – from here you can see all the way to the sea
While this lookout has a fantastic view, you can venture further up the river. If you climb over the stile by the lookout (be careful – it had just been raining when we reached Skogafoss, and I slipped off of the stile and into the mud!) you will find yourself on the trail that heads through Laugavegurinn and Fimmvörðuháls Pass.
The top of Skogafoss, where the river plunges down the cliffs
While we didn’t venture too far up the trail (we had a guided tour of the Skogar museum that we needed to get to), the scenery above the waterfall was even prettier than the landscape below.
The waterfall just up the river from Skogafoss
There were more waterfalls and emerald green fields where sheep grazed. A collection of troll cairns surprised me – I had thought they were something that were only built in Norway, but obviously not!
Troll cairns along the river
Heading back down the stairs I took one last look at Skogafoss, feeling the thick mist hanging in the air, before returning to the carpark. I felt glad that I had made the effort to get to the top of Skogafoss – it gave me an appreciation of just how beautiful and green the Icelandic countryside is.
So if you’re driving along the Ring Road, stop in at Skogafoss and take on those stairs – you won’t regret it!
Me trying to keep out of the mist coming from the falls!
One of the things I love about travelling to Europe is that it doesn’t take you too long before you stumble across another castle or palace, which is what happened when a wrong turn took me to the south bank of the Thames and instead of finding myself standing in front of The Globe Theatre, I came across Lambeth Palace.
Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth Palace is home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was unfortunately closed to the public when I happened across it. It made me wonder – how many other palaces are tucked away among the streets of London?
Looking across the Thames towards Lambeth Palace
Have you ever stumbled upon something or lost your sense of direction? Share it in the comments!
Allow me to paraphrase the tale of the Devil’s Bridge:
Once upon a time, there was a woman who lived near Rheidol Gorge. She woke up one morning to discover that her only cow had managed to cross to the other side of the gorge and was stuck there, and she had no way of getting her back. As she sat, worried about her dilemma, the devil appeared.
“I can help you get your cow back,” he said. “I can build you a bridge so you can bring your cow home.”
Curious, the woman asked his price.
“The first living thing that crosses it.”
She agreed to the terms, but spent the night wondering what she was willing to lose – her cow as it came back over the bridge or her life as she went over to coax her cow home?
The next day, as promised, was a bridge spanning the gorge. The woman walked towards it, her faithful dog tailing her. Then, just before she stepped on to the bridge, her dog ran in front of her, and crossed the bridge. The devil was so angry that he had been tricked that he disappeared in a puff of smoke. The woman got her cow back and lived happily ever after.
And the Devil’s Bridge still stands today.
Over the years, rather than destroying the Devil’s Bridge (and perhaps incurring his fiery wrath?!), the locals have simply built over it. And when that bridge would no longer do, they built on top of it again. So now when you come to Rheidol Gorge, what you see is a history of bridges: three of them laid over one another!
The three bridges. Built on top of each other, the highest was built in 1901, the middle bridge was built in 1708, and the “Devil’s” bridge is from the eleventh century
Besides seeing the bridges, there are two walking trails you can take through the forested gorge (there is a fee for each, payable at the entrance). The shorter walk takes you to see the Devil’s Punchbowl and a view of the Three Bridges.
The Nature Walk is longer, and takes you through the gorge, past spectacular views of the Mynach Falls and out across the Rheidol Valley, down the extremely steep Jacob’s ladder (I was glad I wasn’t climbing up it – down was scary enough!) and then back up the other side of the gorge past the Robber’s Cave and back up to the road.
Looking out over the picturesque Rheidol ValleyThe Mynach FallsJacob’s Ladder – a steep staircase to take you down to the bottom of Rheidol Gorge
As someone who grew up with family walks to waterfalls, I liked the peaceful walk through Rheidol Gorge, and the glimpses of Mynach Falls through the trees as we circled our way around it, though the walk back up the other side of the gorge showed me how unfit I was, and left me catching my breath when we got back to the highest bridge!
Perhaps the woman was justified in bargaining with the devil for her bridge after all!
The sun had already disappeared below the horizon as we drove in to Caenarfon for an overnight stay. While arriving late and leaving early meant I had little time for exploring, I walked alongside the town walls and sought out Caenarfon Castle.
Caenarfon CastleThe walls of Caenarfon CastleThe Eagle Tower at Caenarfon Castle
Caenarfon Castle was built in the reign of the English king Edward I for his eldest son Edward of Caernarfon, the first Prince of Wales, to gain a strategic English foothold in Wales. It has since been used for the investiture of Prince Charles, the current Prince of Wales.
Looking out across the River Seiont from Caenarfon Castle
The walk back to the accommodation was peaceful, with a beautiful view over the River Seiont. While disappointed that we hadn’t timed our visit so we could go inside one of the most impressive castles in Wales, I consoled myself with the thought: you can always come back.
The Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch visitor’s centre
What do you do when you’re a sleepy Welsh town looking to increase your tourism numbers? Simple! Just add a few more words to your town’s name so you can become the town with the longest name in Europe.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch – a name so long it is difficult to get it all in one shot!
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (don’t ask me to pronounce it!) translates to The Church of Mary in the Hollow of the White Hazel near the Fierce Whirlpool and the Church of Tysilio by the Red Cave. While the original aim of the 1860s re-christening was to have the train station with the longest name in Britain, “Llanfair PG” also manages to be the third longest place name in the world.
The train station with the longest name in Britain
The marketing ploy is still bringing tourists to the town today – busloads of visitors pose for photos in front of the train station and the visitor’s information centre, where you can buy souvenirs, send postcards with the Llanfair PG postmark, or get a stamp to commemorate your visit!
The obligatory photo in front of the visitor’s centre
You might not get to see a church, a whirlpool, a hazel tree, or a red cave on your visit to the Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch train station, but as you stand in front of buildings with 58 character names on them, just think of how a simple idea and some community determination has turned Llanfair PG into an unlikely tourist destination (or make your own attempt to claim the longest place name crown by brainstorming a new name for your town!).
While driving through Snowdonia National Park, we stopped for a morning tea of coffee and Welsh cakes in the town of Betws-y-Coed. Although it feels small, it is one of the main towns in Snowdonia. Walking down the main road in order to stretch our legs, we passed many of the pretty stone and slate houses that make Betws-y-Coed a picture-perfect town.
The buildings in Betws-y-Coed are all made out of stone and slate, even the hotelsSt Mary’s Church holds regular Welsh Male Choir performancesBeing inside Snowdonia National Park, Betws-y-Coed is surrounded by forestsI fell in love with these row houses – so pretty!
We dropped in to the local bakery Cwmni Cacen Gri (The Welshcake Company) for coffee and one of their renowned traditional Welsh cakes, before heading on to Tŷ Hyll – the Ugly House.
The Ugly House is situated just outside of Betws-y-Coed. Home to the Pot Mêl Tearooms, it is a cosy cottage with a mysterious origin.
Tŷ Hyll (the Ugly House), home to the Pot Mêl Tearooms
To win ownership of the land, you needed to build a house with four walls, a roof and a smoking chimney
Legend has it that if you managed to build a house on common land between sunset and sunrise that consisted of four walls, a roof and a smoking chimney, then you could claim ownership of the land it stood on.
Can you imagine how they could have built the Ugly House in one night using those stones?!
The Ugly House is rumoured to be one of these houses, though how such a quaint cottage could have been christened ‘Ugly’ is debatable – rumours abound as to whether it was named after the ‘ugly’ type of people, such as thieves and outlaws, who may have lived there, a mispronounciation of the Llugwy River which flows nearby, or simply after the rough-hewn boulders that form the walls. One thing is for certain – by the look of those huge stones it’s hard to imagine how many people it took to construct the place within a night!
It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the first time I heard the name of Thomas Telford.
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the highest and longest aqueduct in Britain
Thomas Telford is a bit of a hero in the British civil engineering scene, and the further I travelled throughout Britain, the more it felt like he was responsible for most of the roads, canals and bridges that I saw.
Looking down: the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is one of Telford’s many creations. Standing thirty-eight metres above the River Dee and spanning a width of 300 metres, the aqueduct is the highest and longest aqueduct in Great Britain and has rather appropriately been dubbed the ‘stream in the sky’.
Just look at the views from the top of the aqueduct!
The view from the top of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
You can even walk across the aqueduct yourself – there is a footpath that runs alongside the canal that feels very safe (I was more worried about dropping my camera in to the canal than anything else!), and if you’ve got good timing, you might even see one of the canal boats pass by as they venture across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
Get to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct at the right time, and you can watch the canal boats cross it
