Greetings! Scroll down to read about our travels this summer.
Scotland
August 6, 2017. Sunday. Scotland. It’s really not fair to speed date countries like we’ve been doing this summer. Still: Scotland impressed us all. The charm of Edinburgh; the beauty of the coast and beaches; castles (active and ruins) seemingly every few miles; the vast and gorgeous highlands with sweeping vistas and lochs (lakes) lined…
Wales!
July 23, 2017. Sunday. Wales. So much to love: lush green landscape; sprawling hills crisscrossed with farms and hedgerows; the high cliffs overlooking endless expanses of water; huge, wide, and seemingly endless beaches; tiny little coastal hiking trails that hug the sides of long hills and cliffs close to the water; the lovely purple and…
Paris — London
July 7, 2017. Friday. London.After 21 days, 12 countries, driving over 7,500 kilometers (~4,500 miles), 13 different flats/hotels, 100 baguettes, 10 pounds of gelato, and approximately 50 pain au chocolates per person (rough estimates!), we finally arrived back at our London flat this afternoon. It’s funny how what feels like “home” changes depending on where…
Luxembourg, Belgium, Longwy, Paris
July 6, 2017. Thursday. Paris. Today was the last driving leg of our trip. It was one of the longest days, approximately 7.5 hours from Heidelberg to Paris, with short stops in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Longwy — another four country day (Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France). I think we are all glad the rental company…
Grindelwald (Switzerland), Heidelberg (Germany)
July 5, 2017. Wednesday. Heidelberg, Germany. The 4th of July is pretty interesting to experience while overseas. And by interesting, I mean we pretty much forgot about it yesterday. Next year we will return to the usual celebrations of our democratic experiment, but in the meantime it was sort of refreshing to remember, as Eden…
Zurich, Interlaken, Grindelwald (Switzerland)
July 4, 2017. Tuesday. Grindelwald, Switzerland. It’s 10:45 pm, and I’m sitting on a deck at our hotel. Towering high above me in 180 degree panorama in the moonlight are approximately five 13,000 foot peaks, most of which are snowcapped. The sun has gone down, the moon us up right over the snowiest peaks, but…
Austria, Neuschwanstein, and the Alps
July 3, 2017. Monday. Zurich, Switzerland. I’m currently sitting in the lobby of the first hotel we’ve used on this trip: a Hotel Ibis, a cheap European hotel chain. We were in four different countries today: Austria, Germany, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland — many beautiful miles logged in the Alps. I love water and the ocean,…
Rome, Venice
June 30, 2017. Thursday. Venice. We’ve noticed an absence of something from the highways of Europe: billboards. In the US, they are so ubiquitous that you really don’t get a sense of just how obnoxious they are until you drive through endless miles without a single one. It’s not that Europeans don’t do the advertising…
Rome!
June 28, 2017. Rome. [Eden] CIAO from Rome!!! When in Rome, speak as the Romans do?! Except we barely know any Italian. It’s not really necessary though because most people speak at least some English. I’m still hoping for an experience where we have to resort to charades, but that hasn’t happened yet. This is Eden,…
Italy: Riomaggiori (Cinqe Terre), Piza, Rome
June 27, 2017. Rome, Italy. (Harrison: blog content; Eden: stenographer.) Today was our first morning in Italy. We had a very nice house for our Air BNB [in Savona]. There was a balcony and on the balcony, Elliot found a cat on the railing. He told me and Helena to come outside so we did. The…
Aix-en-Provence, Cannes, Antibes, Nice (all France), and Savona (Italy)
June 26, 2017. Monday. Italy. Today was some of the most unique and beautiful scenic driving we’ve had on this trip, and easily in the top 5 for me personally. The route from Nice to Monaco to Savona, Italy, is breathtaking, and a little nerve-wracking at times. Hairpin turns, sweeping vistas from hundreds of feet…
Nimes, Avignon, and Aix-en-Provence
June 26, 2017. Monday. France (again!). Can I just say how impossible it is to get where you want to go with a van in cute little downtowns of European cities? Pedestrian zones, one way streets, corners that require a 50 point turn, etc. Tonight in Aix-en-Provence we finally gave up and parked outside of…
Barcelona, Day 2
June 24, 2017. Saturday. Barcelona. There is so much to do in Barcelona, but the heat and kid fatigue make it hard to really even scratch the surface. We slept in a bit and hopped on the metro to the northern part of the city to Park Güell. It sits perched up on a hill and…
Toulouse, the Pyrenees, and Barcelona
June 23, 2017. Friday. Spain. For the first time in our entire time away from Rhode Island, we are sleeping with AC. Well, most of us, at least! I’m sitting in the hallway just outside the living room of our Air BnB flat in Barcelona in hopes of catching a few wafts of cool air.…
Mont Saint-Michel; long drive to Toulouse (France)
June 22, 2017. Thursday. France. Hi. This is Helena and Harrison. Last night we heard music in our flat until really late at night! Today we got up and went with Dad to the local supermarket right outside our front door [in Saint-Lo] where we got some fruit for breakfast and for later today. Then…
Versailles, Normandy American Cemetery, Point du Hoc, and Saint-Lo (France)
June 21, 2017. Saint Lo, France. It’s 11:49 pm on the longest day of the year, and live music is blasting outside my window. We’re in the cute little city of Saint-Lo, France, tonight, in a really nice 3rd floor flat overlooking the main town square — all of which would be great if it…
Paris, Day 3: Bastille, Vosges, Lafayette’s grave, Tuileries
June 20, 2017. Tuesday. Paris. Hot. The heat-stroke inducing weather continues here, slowing us all down. We lug around tons of extra water (no public water fountains anywhere) and still end up buying more. But: onward! Just a little more slowly. Today we started by heading to the Place de la Bastille, the site of…
Paris, Day 2: Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, Arc de Triomphe, and Champs-Élysées
June 19, 2017. Monday. Paris. It’s been great to re-visit so many sites with kids. Somehow they just see things differently. Like today when, at the top of the Eiffel Tower, while the rest of us were taking in the view of the city, Elliot heard the cry of a peregrine falcon, and soon we…
Paris, Day 1: Montmartre, Notre Dame, Pantheon, Jardin du Luxembourg
June 18, 2017. Sunday. It’s 11 pm here in Paris and I can still see the soft glow of the sunset outside our 6th floor window. The sun goes down so late here! Today was warm — mid ’80s or so, but not humid, and the nice breeze made it really pleasant in the shade.…
Three week driving tour of Europe in 3, 2, 1…
June 17, 2017. Saturday. We are zipping across the French countryside at 200 miles per hour. After 20 minutes in the Chunnel, the vast expanse and beauty of northern France with its rolling fields, small towns, and cathedrals in the distance was breathtaking. We are taking a little hiatus from the archives and parks of…
London, Stonehenge, Salisbury
June 11, 2017. Sunday. Somehow two week have slipped by since we first arrived. It’s been a really nice two weeks of finding routines, exploring the local neighborhood, visiting some familiar sites in Central London, and taking a day trip to the countryside. I’m sitting here this evening sorting through pictures and listening to London…
Summer-ing in the UK
Monday, May 29, 2017. London. I’m currently sitting here in the absolute stillness of a holiday morning in north London, sipping my take-away Americano and eyeing up the toasted baguette I brought back for the kids. It’s almost 10 am, and everyone else in our little flat (and neighborhood, it would seem!) is zonked out, trying…
Fisher Family Travels 