TravelStream™ news feed for member sasaharty on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sasaharty en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:47:21 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248910901/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248910901/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248910901/tpod.html Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:47:21 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

We left SLC in the am and arrived in Houston, no major problems, except Sandy lost her jacket and the airport staff were most unhelpful.

The plane to Amsterdam was fabulous, smooth and a huge choice of movies and video games to keep us entertained the entire way, no time for sleeping.

We arrive in Amsterdam to no frills and no problems customs and are on our way, YEAH!!!

The adventure begins.

Please click on entries in the table of contents below to see how our trip went.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248832904/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248832904/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248832904/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:04:33 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

On our last full day in Europe we walked all over town to several street markets. The Cuyp market is a huge four block long market that happens every day. I bought flip-flops but we saw everything from shoes and clothes to bikes and flowers to fish and donuts. It was too early to be crazy busy, but you could tell it would be later. Next, we traveled all across town to the Noord antique market. It was a tightly packed maze of booths selling souvenirs, clothes, and a variety of antiques A lot of unique stuff but way too crowded for us and we left after asking for instructions to a windmill that we heard was nearby. Along with confusing instructions, we got the “sad” story of the windmill. It had been a nice mill along the river ages ago, but slowly it broke down and the city built up around it cutting it off from wind and room to move. It was still a pretty windmill, but also a lost relic of the past.
After our European lunch in a park for one more time, we went to the Anne Frank House. It was a long wait, but well worth the experience to visit. The house is completely unfurnished, per Otto Frank’s request, and small but not as small as one would think. They had the actual bookcase that hid the rooms, decorations from the walls, and the original diary. On the walls were quotes from the book and movie screens showing the friends of the Franks point of view. It was a museum in some respects but really more of a unique travel back into the book. It had been a long day so we headed back to the hotel tired from traveling all over town.
For dinner we walked a few blocks from our hotel to an intersection teeming with outdoor cafes. We decided on a pizza place and enjoyed cheesy pastas and a ham pizza. The restaurant had a mouse hunter cat named Tobi who was so friendly he jumped into my lap a few times making me anxious to get home to our own cats, though they aren’t quite as friendly.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248831193/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248831193/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248831193/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:55:51 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Rain hasn’t hampered our travels so far and that goes for this raining day too. After a good breakfast at an organic bagel and coffee shop (they made the very rich hot chocolate by giving you very hot milk and a cube of ganache on a swizzle stick) we waited in line for about 1 hour to tour the Van Gogh museum in a line of umbrella covered tourists. The museum was well worth the wait. It is quite an impressive collection of Van Gogh’s and friends paintings, with all the biggies, self portraits, starry nights, sunflowers, potato pickers and landscapes. The girls got way into it, enjoying getting the close up view and the stories behind the art.

Shopping is ubiquitous in Amsterdam so we couldn’t pass it up. We ventured into the bulb market with about a dozen flower/plant and souvenir sellers, along with cheeses too. Then we went to Dam Square to the best souvenir shop in Amsterdam and picked up some final gifts of our trip. We didn’t venture into the "coffeeshops" or red light district, but nonetheless ran into XXX type souvenirs at most stores. Audrey, being the innocent that she is, would often pick up some inappropriate item, such as phallic salt and pepper shakers, and say look at these. We’d have to let her know they weren’t really what we were looking for and move on. By the end of day 2 in Amsterdam she was no longer picking up questionable items. And we did learn that XXX has other meanings in Amsterdam. It is part of the coat of arms and is also a design on one of the churches in town.

For dinner we stopped at an outdoor café and watched the tourists and locals go by while enjoying Heineken beer, the local favorite and dinner along the canal.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248110463/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248110463/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248110463/tpod.html Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:22:32 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

As our European tour winds down we are winding down too. Our morning is an easy one with a German Breakfast to fill us up and a trip to the botanical gardens in Hamburg. They are as beautiful as they are relaxing and it is a beautiful day for a roadie to The Netherlands. We are glad once again to be getting out of the German road construction and to the less traveled roads of Holland. It is flat and straight and sunlit as we cruise to our Holiday Inn between the main city and the airport.

We will be turning in the Opel rental mini suv tomorrow morning after 28 days and 7257 kilometers!! We have taken it up tiny mountain roads and on the beach, raced the cars in the autobahn, through the six lane(?) roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe and the mazes of the old cities of Europe. We have eaten, slept, stressed, laughed, read, watched movies, seen more beauty than we can describe and fortunately never had to spend the night in our Opel. It has treated us well and deserves an oil change, good wash and vacuum, and probably new tires.

But tonight we will take it into the busy/party section of Amsterdam. Here is another city where the bicycles outnumber, and rule the road over, cars. Cars are third class vehicles to bikes and mass transit. We went into town to get a feel for the city and to get some dinner. It was Saturday night and this party town was in full form. The streets were full, but the real parties were on the small overloaded boats cruising the canals with boat drinks and party tunes. It looked like fun, or at least the boats that looked like they didn’t need constant bailing looked like fun.

We ended up in Rembrandt Square, a little off the main area, but full of open-air cafes serving an international variety of cuisine. Our Choice? Italian, and they were used to a diverse clientele. Our waiter/host/promoter spoke Dutch, English, French, and I think Portuguese all with an Italian accent. Our habit of eating earlier than the euros continued, but we were glad. By the time we left the place was full, the staff was scrambling and the two cooks were in the weeds.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248110062/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248110062/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1248110062/tpod.html Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:15:56 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Hamburg, Germany


We knew we wanted to make it to Germany today, but not quite sure exactly where in Germany. After loading up on cheap, but very good baked goods, they were surprised we wanted sweet rolls for breakfast; we did a small bit of Internet research and debated between Hamburg and Lubeck. Hamburg won, because it was closer and it’s the greenest city in Germany with its many parks. However, before embarking on to Germany we had one last place to visit in Denmark and that was Romo Island. Romo Island was on the way and not too far from Ribe. We took a causeway out to the very low island and quickly made it to the kilometer wide beach that you drive right onto. It was chilly and extremely windy so there were plenty of kites, kite boarders and even a few crazy people surfing. Without swimsuits, we just walked a bit on the beach, admired the kite boarders, and left for Germany.

We took the quick drive to Hamburg but got stuck in crazy traffic, more road construction, all the way to the Tourist information booth at the “Grand Central Station” of Hamburg. They were very helpful and very busy, but found us a hotel room (we got separate rooms for the first time on this trip!) and gave us some great advice about touring the Old City. We wandered around town for a little while getting wet, checking out the impressive architecture of the City building and the Clock tower as well as all the modern shops of a metropolitan area (with great sales everywhere, if we were shoes or clothes shopping we would have made out like bandits). Off to find our hotel and even Garmin had us going down one ways the wrong way in the nightmare that is Hamburg driving.

We had seen plenty of interesting places to eat in a center square with a huge sea of tents that we assumed were always there. We were wrong! It was a wine festival!! Our friend Karen had told us that the Germans have an excuse for a Festival every week. Each tent was a winery’s restaurant with live music, good food and even better wine. We picked one with spatzel and crepes and open seats away from the rain. Even with the bad weather the dinner crowd slowly replaced the happy hour crowd. The open kitchen was fun to watch a (wine) happy crew doing a full menu from a tent. The food was good and the wine was cheap and the service friendly and we even got the chance to listen to the accordion. It is a joy of the road to fall into these kinds of experiences.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247881956/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247881956/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247881956/tpod.html Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:55:06 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Ribe, Jutland, Denmark

After arriving in Hirshtals we didn’t really have any plans, all we knew was that we needed to be in Amsterdam on the 11th. So what to do for 2 days and nights without any reservations. Well, we were starving so we found a small hotel by the port that had a breakfast buffet and free internet, yeah connected again. Chatting with the front desk manager, who likes the US a lot, we got the suggestion to go to Silkeborg, since it had the highest point in Denmark,(not very high) also Annalisa wanted to go there to see the bog people. Denmark is very flat to the point of we have to find out if the Netherlands or Denmark is flatter.

Well, we got to Silkeborg and figured the front desk manager was just tired of the wind and sea, because this was about as inland as you can get in Denmark. We visited the town museum and the bog people, which were actually quite fascinating. Apparently in the 1950’s a peat farmer had dug up some human remains that had been well preserved in the bog type conditions. A man called the Tollund Man and a woman called the Elling woman were found. They were thought to be human sacrifices from around the time of 350 B.C. The elderly staff was very helpful and well informed.

Even though we liked the museum we were ready to move on to the town of Ribe, which is the oldest town in Denmark and also had a hostel and an island near it which appealed to us. The hostel had room for us and we learned it’s been voted one of the top 10 hostels in the world. We could see why. It was very clean, had a nice shared kitchen, had a laundry (that took about 2.5 hrs for a load of wash), had ping-pong and badminton, and was a short walk to the best bakery in town and the center of town.

We actually really liked the town of Ribe. It had the best shopping of the entire trip. There was a pedestrian street with many stores that weren’t touristy at all, but had unique and inexpensive items on a cute cobblestone street with buildings which weren’t quite level. At 10 pm we joined a group of tourists on a walk about town with the local night watchman, who with his long gray braided beard, long seaman’s coat and lantern led us down the street in song and told stories about the history of the town. A pub we passed was calling to Steve and Sandy, but the hostel locked up at 11:00 pm so off to check the laundry and the pillows.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247881539/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247881539/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247881539/tpod.html Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:47:56 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Øystese, Hordaland, Norway

Norway has been a beautiful country. It was so special because of the time with friends old and new and also the ancestral connection. We are glad we made the effort to travel so far north and have one last town to visit which is the 2nd largest city in Norway, the western port town of Bergen. Bergen is an old charming town along the ocean. There are some beautiful ships in the harbor along with cute shops lined up like a Christmas village. We also visited the fish market that sold whale meat, (It was as dark as corned beef with the texture of carpaccio, Steve and Audrey had samples), alongside many other types of fish and souvenirs. We didn’t have much time to spend in Bergen since we needed to board another ship heading back south to Denmark. But what we did see made us want to come back.

This ship was with the Fjord Line and was much less impressive than the previous Stena line ship. It was more utilitarian, carrying a large amount of vehicles and more sleeping quarters. Also the Internet didn’t work, to our disappointment, since that was one of our major goals while on the ship. Instead we played cards and caught up with reading and sleep. The first four hours or so were like a sight seeing trip in and around the islands and coastline. More sailboats for Steve to drool over and scenery to ogle at. Once we got past the fjords we were in the wide North Sea and the boat started rocking. Audrey learned what a bit of seasickness felt like, but also learned that if you go out into the fresh air that makes you feel much better. The rocking helped us all get a good night's sleep for our arrival at small port town of Hirshtals the next morning at 8:30 am.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247702046/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247702046/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247702046/tpod.html Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:01:12 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Øystese, Hordaland, Norway

A day to sleep in! Waken late by the birds and sunlight streaming in! A leisurely hearty breakfast to start another day of vacation.
Utah doesn’t have the market on petroglyphs, even though we think they’re the best we’ve ever seen. Well, we visited some local petroglyphs carved into the side of the black rock surrounding the water. The petroglyphs were of boats and elk or moose. The elk/moose were quite detailed and the boats were apropos for the area. Plus, they were 3000-5000 years old.

After petroglyphs, we toured a local ceramic shop with wonderful pottery/ceramic art that we would love to bring home, but alas, left empty handed.

Plans were undetermined for the day based on the weather. We were either to tour museums if it was rainy or take a “children’s hike” if the weather was nice. Well, the weather was beautiful, if not a bit cloudy. We started off on our hike with Karen’s cousin Lisa, her mom Turid, and her 2 young sons, including one in a stroller. The hike began easier than the hike the day before, but was nonetheless up hill. Well, what we all thought would be a short hike seemed to never end. We weren’t really prepared for the hike and had not brought enough water, well, that problem was solved when the clouds opened and it rained for the rest of the hike. Not all was lost when we reached our destination we were rewarded with a very cute setting that the Norwegians had set up that included, rock chairs, tables, a cook site with tools, a guestbook, decorations of wooden trolls, flowers, skulls and rocks. It was a special little enclave. We toasted hot dogs and marshmallows and made smores. The Norwegians had never had them before and just loved the new camping treat. We also caught rain in our cups to drink. The hike back was soggggggy. We were soaked to the bone and ready to dry off. With the heat and defrost on in the car we headed back into town.

Steve and Annalisa were in charge of dinner for the evening. Dinner was at Turid’s cute mountainside home built in the 1930’s overlooking the fjords. Turid is Esther’s first cousin. They cooked pasta with local shrimp and veggies. Turid, Lisa and Esther were in charge of dessert. Esther brought a locally made applekuchen and Turid and Lisa made traditional waffelen or heart shaped waffles. Traditionally, you eat them New York pizza, stuffed with sour cream and marmalade, but we sweetened it up and put ice cream in instead, yumm. She even brought out some Southern Comfort “to take the chill off” for the Americans. We said our goodbyes to the Kozens and all the relatives knowing that this these last three days in Oystese were very special.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247700992/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247700992/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247700992/tpod.html Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:00:08 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Øystese, Hordaland, Norway

Norwegians love to be active outdoors, even in the cool rain threatening weather. So Karen’s cousin, Lisa who is 38 and a mother of 2 young boys wanted to take us on a hike in the hills overlooking the fjords. We were all up for it. Due to her time constraints, she was on a 4-week holiday, but still had some work to do, she’s in marketing, and we decided to take the shorter of the 2 proposed hikes. Well, a short walk for Norwegians turned out to be a major 7-8 mile hike one way for us, all up hill, uggghhh! While we were certainly hiking up beautiful farm land, past crosscountry ski huts, and up past the tree line, going up hill is the least favorite direction and was very tiring. We stopped many times. Our goal was the top of a local mountain, but because there was too much cloud cover we stopped a bit earlier, yeah! and had lunch perched on top of a rock overlooking the scenic valley. Going down was of course much quicker, but jarring on the legs. We were glad to have reached the end.

Even though the hike tired us out we made one more stop for the day at the large waterfall in town. Once again, busses of Japanese picture taking tourists surrounded us. It was a beautiful waterfall with the best souvenir shopping in the area with the best prices, so we took advantage and picked up a few treasures.

Karen’s mom planned a salmon dinner for us at the farm where they were staying and we made crepes for dessert filled with sautéed bananas, or fresh strawberries made into a sauce, or Nutella. The salmon was fresh from the area and absolutely tender and delicious. They also served famous Norwegian potatoes, creamy and buttery. We ate well that night (late again) after being starving from our hike. Our dinning room was outdoors in a small quaint hytte with a mist in the air. The crepes were a nice finish to dinner along with everyone’s’ favorite, ice cream.

We got back to our cabin exhausted from the day but had to sit out on the deck overlooking the fjord. The peaceful beauty in the alpenglow was the prefect nightcap.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247161545/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247161545/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sasaharty/1/1247161545/tpod.html Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:06:46 -0400 Harty's European Adventure

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Flåm, Western Fjords, Norway

7/4
We were happy to be leaving Oslo, all the heat and noise and expense! Our destination today is the small town of Flam at the tip of a fjord in the heart of Norway. We had planned to take the “scenic” route not knowing that the whole country is spectacular! The lakes, rivers, fjords and mountains carve the roads of Norway. We drove on small curving roads, past shear rock cliffs and towering waterfalls, alpine lakes and deep gorged fjords (huge salt water inlets surrounded by granite and rocks) and any land that can be farmed. In many places the road is less than two lanes wide, and these are the main roads! You are either stopped by a light or expected to carefully proceed and graciously make way for oncoming traffic. They don’t always build around the rocks; many times they go right through them. We traveled in and out of at least 4 doz. tunnels many over a Km long with our longest one being 11 kilometers, They were cool, literally and figural, just blasted out of the stone, dark and damp and curvy. Our necks were sore and camera batteries expended from checking out all the beautiful vistas, snow covered domes and countless waterfalls.

In Flam we had plans to meet up with our friends and fellow European tour travelers, Karen, Rachel, and Tanner Kozen. We have known the Kozen’s , from Minnesota, for many years. (Steve met Tim Kozen, who had to stay home and feed the pets, in highschool). Karen is very Norwegian, with lots of close relatives here, and brings her family to Norway often. When we found out both our families were going to be in Europe this summer we made plans to meet up in her home land. And we are very glad we did, because of the beauty of the area and the fun we had with her and her relatives. But more on that later, tonight we hook up for a Fourth of July picnic of pesto chicken pasta, Norwegian beer and cookies. We told tales from the road, caught up on the kids lives (Rachel is 14, Tanner is 8), and smiled and laughed til our cheeks hurt. We also took a hike through sheep land and soft grassland to view a waterfall up close.

We celebrated Independence day with flag waving, glow sticks and singing the national anthem under the stares of the other hostelers and the land of the northern sun. We were finally glad to be in bed after the “quiet time” of 11pm, from many windows around the picnic table.


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