Cambridge

Last month during my mom's visit we spent a day in Cambridge. This town was originally a Roman fort, then a Saxon settlement before becoming a university town in 1209. The university was founded in Cambridge after a series of riots in Oxford between townspeople and students forced a group of scholars to leave for a more peaceful atmosphere. 

Construction of King's College Chapel began in 1446 as an act of piety by Henry VI and was finished by Henry VIII around 1516. It is the most impressive building in Cambridge and one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in England.

The inside of King's College Chapel is even more impressive than the outside. The 260 ft long ceiling is the largest example of fan vaulting in the world. Most churches in England had their stained glass broken out during the Civil War but it is said that Cromwell himself spared these windows because he knew of their beauty from his time studying at Cambridge. 

The bat wing organ was originally constructed in 1686 but has been updated several times since, most recently in 2010.

Cambridge University is made up of 31 colleges organized into six schools. It has produced 90 Nobel laureates, more than any other university in the world. Sadly, only male students were allowed to receive degrees until the 1960s and originally women were only allowed to work at Cambridge if they were ugly and married. 

Many myths surround the building of the Mathematical Bridge but none are true. One of the most popular stories is that it was designed by Sir Isaac Newton without the use of nuts or bolts. But Newton died 22 years before the bridge was built. 

Mom and I went on a punting tour on the river Cam. A punt is a flat-bottomed boat designed for use in shallow water. The river was full of tourists trying their hand at punting and we even saw someone fall in the river. The bridge shown below was used in the filming of The Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking.

On the gateway entering Trinity College is a statue of Henry VIII holding a golden orb and sceptre. However, he is holding a table leg instead of the original sceptre. The table leg was put there by student pranksters and never replaced. Some say it is a reminder of who really rules the roost in Cambridge. 

Cambridge was a great day trip from London. We went on a free walking tour and had a great time learning more about this university town. 

Iceland

Last weekend we met up with my sister and brother-in-law in Iceland. We rented a car and explored a small part of the southwest part of this beautiful country. We went to Seljalandsfoss waterfall which drops 200 ft over the cliffs of the former coastline. Warren and Zach walked the path behind the waterfall but it was so windy they got drenched. 

Reykjavik was much smaller than I was expecting. There were loads of shops but everything was really expensive. Needless to say, I only bought a pair of socks as my souvenir this trip. 

We had hot dogs "ein með öllu" (with everything) for dinner. I'm not sure exactly what was on it but there were raw and crunchy onions at the bottom of the bun and the sauces were mustard and something that tasted kind of like apple butter. 

We were always entertained by how the Garmin pronounced the street names as we were driving. 

The Skogafoss waterfall is one of the biggest waterfalls in Iceland. It consistently produces a single or double rainbow on sunny days due to the amount of spray from the waterfall. We hiked to the top to see the view and the double rainbow. 

According to legend, the first Viking settler in the area buried a treasure in the cave behind the waterfall. The legend continues that locals found the chest years later, but were only able to get the ring of the chest before it disappeared. The ring was given to a local church and the old church door ring is now in a museum. 

The host of our bed and breakfast in Hella told us that Icelanders have such good English skills because they don't overdub movies there. So if a child can't read yet they have to learn English in order to understand the plot. 

The landscape of Iceland was fascinating and so different everywhere we went. No wonder so many post apocalyptic movies like Oblivion, Prometheus, and Interstellar are filmed here.

Approximately 11% of Iceland is covered by glaciers. We saw one of the smaller glaciers, Eyjafjalla Glacier, which is actually an ice cap over a volcano. It is the large white mass just under the sky in the photo below. The volcano most recently erupted in 2010 and caused loads of problems for the small village nearby.

We also went to Reynisfjara beach, which is a beautiful black sand beach under Reynisfjall mountain. We walked to the caves by the beach and also along the upper cliff edge. The views from the cliff were amazing and the black sand was looked so unique compared to beaches I've seen before. 

We spent a night on the island, Heimaey, and were excited to see some puffins. Heimaey is home to around eight million puffins every summer but we had a really difficult time finding them. We finally found some along this one cliff and it was so worth all the effort. 

We still didn't see as many puffins as we were expecting. The island typically has eight million puffins during the summer but we saw less than thirty total at two different locations. 

Strokkur is one of Iceland's most famous geysers. It erupts almost every five minutes and goes 50 feet high. We watched it at least three times and never got tired of it. The last time we watched it the wind blew the water toward us and a couple people near us got soaked. 

We went to the outdoor part of the Skogar Folk Museum, with different Icelandic homes and furniture from the past 70 years. The buildings are from all over the country but were moved to the museum to show different types of Icelandic housing.

They also had a school and church available to tour. All of the buildings were much smaller than I expected with very low ceilings.  

The Berenstein Bears books were some of my favourite books as a child so it was really fun to see them written in Icelandic. We were even able to recognise some of the titles since the covers were the same. 

The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa and is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland. Four of us didn't bring swimsuits so we didn't actually bathe in the Blue Lagoon (plus, I hate water) but we did still get to see it. 

It formed in 1976 from the waste water of the geothermal power plant that had just been built there. People started bathing in it in 1981 after reports of healing powers came out. It opened in 1992 to the public but it is quite expensive to bathe there now. 

The Gullfoss waterfall is one of the largest in Europe. A man called Tómas Tómasson owned the waterfall and considered selling it to foreign investors to build a hydroelectric powerplant, which would have changed and destroyed the waterfall. 

His daughter, Sigríður, lived at a nearby farm and loved Gullfoss. She threatened to kill herself by jumping into the river. To make her threat more believable she walked barefoot from Gullfoss to Reykjavik as a protest march. People believed her and the powerplant was never built.

The hardest thing to get used to in Iceland was the constant sunlight. The photo below was taken close to midnight. We woke up almost every day at 5am because the sun was so bright in our room, even with curtains. 

Iceland was beautiful and a big change from our typical city trips. All of the sites were incredible and like nothing I'd ever seen before. 

Porto

After Lisbon, we headed to Porto for a few days. As you can see, the train station is really impressive. Here are my mom, Zach, Jackie, and Warren with one of the tile murals that covered the train station walls. 

We headed straight for lunch at Cafeteria Pintainho inside the Mercado do Bolhão market. We all ordered fish and everything we had was delicious. The restaurant set up was a bit confusing and we kept getting passed over for tables. That is one of the hard parts of travelling in a group of five. 

There was a bakery close to the market so we stopped to get some dessert after lunch. We tried several things but the best were these chocolate mousse desserts. They tasted like an undercooked brownie with a crisp crust on top. 

Porto puts the "Portu" in "Portugal" as it was the original capital in AD 1000. The name actually dates back even farther to when the city was under Roman rule. 

Even though Porto felt a bit run down in some places, we kept stumbling across the most amazing buildings and squares that weren't even highlighted on our map. 

Featured in the photo below is the Clérigos Church, whose tower is now a symbol of Porto. One morning we climbed the 225-step spiral staircase to see the amazing views of the city. My legs were pretty sore after, but it was worth it.

The view from Clérigos Tower

It seems Porto has loads of well preserved old buildings that are still being used as shops. For instance, the bookstore Livraria Lello and Irmão has the most amazing staircase. It has been a bookstore ever since it opened in the late 1800s. 

We stopped for a break from the sun in Cafe Majestic, another example of the amazing architecture around Porto. 

Porto has so many beautiful churches, including the Igreja do Carmo, below. The front was all carved stone but the sides had a tile mural like what we saw in the train station and around the town. 

Every church we toured in Portugal (Lisbon included) used loads of gold on the interior which made for a very impressive sight. 

Here is Warren outside the Igreja de São Francisco church, built between 1383 and 1410. During renovations in the 17th and 18th centuries the eight altars were covered in 100kg of gold leaf.

I was able to get this photo inside the church (photography was frowned upon) that shows some of the detail of the carvings. 

Porto is known for the Francesinha (Little Frenchi) sandwich which is basically an amped up version of a croque monsier. It is made by smothering bread, ham, several kinds of pork sausage, and steak with a soft yolk egg, melted cheese, and a tomato sauce. It was amazing!

A friend of mine recommended we cross the Rio Douro river and watch the sun go down. We had a great view of the city from across the river at such an amazing part of the day. It was definitely worth it!

Porto was such a great city to visit and I really enjoyed our entire trip of Madrid, Lisbon, and Porto. I see why so many people love visiting southern Europe!

Lisbon

Last week I posted about our trip to Madrid in late May. After Madrid, Warren, my mom and I took a night train to Lisbon, Portugal and met up with my sister and her husband. The first thing I wanted to see in Lisbon was the Church of Sao Roque, built in 1755. It is very plain on the outside but inside it is one of the most beautiful and intricate churches I've ever seen. 

Inside the church are eight chapels. The one shown below is the Chapel of Our Lady of the Doctrine. It was built in the 17th century and features a wooden image of St. Anne with the Virgin Mary in her arms. The entire interior surface (including the ceiling) is made from gilt woodwork. 

The Chapel of Saint John the Baptist is said to be the most expensive chapel in the world. It was built in Rome, then moved to Lisbon in 1747 and reassembled inside the Church of Sao Roque. It features four mosaic panels depicting the baptism of Christ and Pentecost. Various marbles, bronze, ornamental stones, and gilt woodwork were all used in this ornate chapel. 

A lot of the buildings in Lisbon are covered in colorful tiles. I loved seeing all of the different designs and ended up bringing home a tile trivet as a souvenir.

While I was standing in the middle of the street to take the photo below, a car started coming down behind me. My sister told me to get out of the way but I thought I had plenty of time. The driver sped up (I'm really hoping it was to try to teach me a lesson for standing in the street) but didn't see that another car had their door open and got into a pretty significant accident. It sounds like she tried to blame the other driver so we gave him our information in case he needed a witness to the accident. I was not expecting anything like that to happen during our holiday!

I love different kinds of public transportation, so I was really excited to ride the funicular and trams in Lisbon. Below is one of the funiculars we rode with some interesting Pink Panther graffiti. 

In 1901 the first electric tram was used in Lisbon but horse drawn trams were used since 1873. It was amazing to ride through the narrow streets and see the city from another perspective than just walking. 

We spent our second day in a nearby town called Sintra. We tried this local specialty, queijadas, which have been made at the same place since 1756. It has a crisp pastry on the bottom and a marzipan-like filling made with cheese, sugar, flour, and cinnamon. We all agreed that the inside tasted similar to the inside of a brown sugar and cinnamon Pop Tart, only way better.

We toured the Sintra National Palace, a historic house which dates back to the 15th century. Many of the rooms are covered in beautiful tile patterns.  

This room with the different scenes in blue tile is my favorite. The room is massive and it is completely covered in different patterns. 

The dining room shown below had this incredible chandelier made of glass and a mirror to match. 

The Quinta da Regaleira was the summer residence of the Carvalho Monteiro family, a very wealthy family in the late 1800s. The home sits on four hectares of land, including a wooded area and a beautiful grotto. 

The room in the photo below is the hunting room. It has a massive fireplace with the statue of a woodsman, paintings of hunting scenes, and a mosaic floor of animals. 

The entire property is beautiful with amazing views over the city of Sintra. Here is a photo of my mom by the main gate to the property, right next to the house. 

We went straight to Belém, another town near Lisbon, with just enough time to tour the Monastery of the Hieronymites. Construction began on the monastery in 1501 and took 100 years to complete. 

It was designed in a manner that later became known as Manueline which is richly ornate with complex limestone carvings. 

The carvings have nautical elements, in addition to European, Moorish and Eastern motifs. 

Attached to the monastery is the Church of Santa Maria. We couldn't go to the main level because they were holding a service but we were allowed to go to this second level that looks out over the massive church.

Just a little ways out from the monastery is the Tower of Belem, which is often described as "the chess piece" because of its resemblance to a rook. The tower was originally built as a fortress in 1515 to defend Lisbon's harbour. 

Also in Belém is this restaurant that has the best egg tarts ever. There is typically a line out the door and around the block. When all the monasteries and convents were shut down during the liberal revolution of 1820, some people from the monastery started selling sweet pastries in order to survive. They have been making these same egg tarts ever since. 

Every night we bought enough to have them for breakfast the next day. They are especially delicious with cinnamon and powdered sugar. I went absolutely crazy for these gorgeous egg tarts!

I enjoyed everything in Lisbon: the pastries, the beautiful tiled buildings, and especially the weather. This city is definitely on my list of places to go back!