Ahhh, home sweet home. Was great to get away but oh-how-fantastic it feels to be home. And with a sweet welcome from the girls too!
Our last two weeks in Denmark and Greece flew by. In Denmark we filled our time with some castle-hopping,
and canal cruising.
Check out how low the clearance was on some of the bridges. Never would have passed safety regulations in the US…
Every time we travel somewhere new I inevitably find myself asking, “Would I live here?” I have to say, I’m on the fence with Denmark. I loved all the cute bikes, none of which were secured (that shocked me). The architecture and canals of Copenhagen were also beautiful. And there are about a zillion things to do there.
The downsides for me were the weather, the ridiculous prices and the lack of color (I get that modernist design is their thing, but there’s only so many white walls that one can take). Oh, and let’s not forget the bizarre 19 hours of daylight that totally threw off my internal clock. So yeah – definitely on the fence. Fun to visit, but not sure if I’d adapt well to living there.
I already knew I loved Greece, which holds a special place in my heart as the first place outside the US that I visited.
This was my first time back to Greece since studying abroad there in fall of 2000. It was fascinating to see what memories held true vs what I had idealized. I’ve seen so much more of the world now, so my perspective has definitely broadened.
Here are some things that were just as amazing as I remembered them:
- Greek food
- The ridiculously blue water
- The killer sunsets
- Europeans’ comfort with their bodies
Here are some things that I hadn’t missed in 17 years:
- Excessive displays of flesh
- The inability to queue properly
- Loud music til all hours of the night
- Dinner at 8 or later (I hate going to bed with a full tummy)
- Loud public fighting with passionate emotional displays and copious arm gestures (makes MN nice Sarah feel very uncomfortable)
We were a bit worn down by week 3, but we still managed to see a good deal of sights. Nia’s behavior was deteriorating rapidly at this point. She was quite temperamental and made a point of hissing at us and sticking out her tongue as much as possible. This did not go over well with Mom & Dad. At one point we tried to set her adrift, but we couldn’t get the rope cut (j/k).
Stinkers will be stinkers though, so we just pressed on. :) Because there was some ridiculously cool stuff to see in Rhodes. Like all this incredible Medieval architecture in Old Town.
And this amazing castle from the 1400’s that was still fairly intact.
Nia was fortunate to get to Captain boats in both Denmark and Greece. In Denmark, she got to drive The Frederiksborg Ferry around Frederiksborg Castle.
And in Greece she got to drive a sailboat that we took out for the day. Â :)
Nick is really into the water and he insisted that we go out sailing. We had so much fun on a little Hobie Sailboat that we decided to try it again on a much bigger boat. We found a reasonable deal through our hotel and got to take out this beautiful 46 foot sailing yacht for 6 hours. Here’s a picture of us with the lovely German couple we sailed with.
This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. In addition to sailing, we stopped to have lunch, did some snorkeling and anchored at a remote beach bar that’s a fave for locals. A lovely day all around. I told Nick that I could handle living on a boat for an extended period of time (which is one of his dreams), but sailing is way too much work. I’m all for the motorized yacht though. Â :) We’ll see, maybe that’s in our future!
Hope you’ve enjoyed the photos and stories from the trip. We are grateful for these opportunities to travel and love sharing the world with you through this blog. I’ll leave you with a video of some neat Greek dancing we saw. Hope all of you are having a wonderful start to your summer!
