Perthshire, Scotland

Our next day was spent exploring more of Perthshire. Starting from our hotel, Loch Rannoch, we bussed to the Crannog Center. This Iron Age outdoor living history museum was filled with lots of interactive areas despite its current small size. I love museums like this so I was very excited for the visit. It was really interesting to learn about pottery, textiles, food and other things from the Iron Age. This museum is currently expanding to a larger site to include rebuilding a replica crannog. This will be high on my wish list for a return visit to Scotland!

We also visited a park with a beautiful waterfall! Unfortunately, this was a quick stop so we did not have a lot of time to explore the trails. It was a beautiful day for a walk in the woods, though!

For lunch, we stopped in Dunkeld. Charles and I enjoyed our sandwiches and soup at a little café with a charitable cause. The café also had a super cute shop where we picked up some postcards and a souvenir for ourselves.

After lunch, we had a walking tour that included the Dunkeld Cathedral and surrounding area.

Kotka, Finland

The next stop on our NCL cruise was Kotka, Finland. Never heard of it? Neither had I. For this stop, we booked an excursion through the cruise for a hike in Valkmusa National Park. The excursion was rated as a three, one of the highest difficulty ratings for excursions. We have been on cruises before, so we knew their rating of a three was probably a little dramatic and we were proven correct.

The hike was about a mile and a half round trip, if I remember correctly. It was mostly on the wooden boardwalk that you can see in the picture above. We had a guide, but because of the limited space he did not have a chance to offer much information on the park or the area. Charles and I hike (or walk in the woods) fairly often, so it was weird to hike with about 50 other people. It took a little of the peacefulness of being in nature away, but it was still nice to get out and spend some time among the trees.

This is the trail that we used for the excursion. It was an easy loop with a lookout tower at one point. 

Vielsalm, Belgium

We had a random long weekend and decided to drive up to Belgium. We have visited Belgium once before, but it was quite awhile ago. On our previous trip we stayed in Bruges which would be great to visit again, but we did not want to drive quite as far on this trip. 

Originally we were looking at visiting Liege, Belgium. Have you heard of liege waffles? Yup... same liege. After searching the map on Airbnb, though, I found this converted military bunker and thought it would be a neat place to stay. 

And now Suzie has visited six different countries!

We're not sure what the metal piece on the top means, but we joked that the place is owned by the Illuminati. 

The location of the Airbnb was so idyllic! We were surrounded by fields. It was exactly the peaceful and quiet location I was looking for. 

This general area of Belgium is significant in WWII history, specifically because of the Battle of the Bulge. There are museums dedicated to this history in the area, but we did not visit any. On our hike, though, I felt like I was in scenes from Band of Brothers. 

Adjacent to the town center was a lovely promenade around the lake. It was the perfect spot for an evening stroll!

Vielsalm is also known for its folklore, especially their witch history. The town has a museum and annual festival dedicated to it. We did not visit the museum since I could not tell from the website if the displays were in English, but we found this broom on our stroll. 

Vielsalm ended up being surprising. I was expecting a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, but the town had quite a lot going for it! You could tell that it is a popular place for hikers and the town had a variety of restaurants. It was perfect for a weekend getaway!

Andorra

On our most recent trip we were able to cross off two new countries--Spain and Andorra. We flew into Barcelona, rented a car and headed up to Andorra for one night. It was not the most convenient nor affordable of side trips, but it was a must to visit the small country that is nestled between Spain and France. 

Andorra is known for shopping (duty free, of course) and nature. We spent our first evening walking down the main shopping street. If you love perfume, this is the place to come. I think every other store was a perfume shop (a bit hyperbolic, but there were soooo many). 

Our hotel room had the best view! There was a rushing stream right outside. It was especially perfect for white noise at night. 

I keep forgetting to look it up, but this statue is based on Salvador Dali's work and it was in the main shopping area of Andorra la Vella. 

One benefit of our hotel was their spa! Andorra has a lot of spas (much like Germany) and we wanted to spend a least a bit of time there. Our reservation included time in the hot tub which we did not realize until check-in. We were fully prepared to pay extra for it, so that was a very pleasant surprise! 

The other nice thing about our hotel was the in-house restaurant. We chose a half-board reservation which means our time included dinner. We enjoyed our first taste of Cava at dinner. Cava is a sparkling wine, similar to Champagne, that is unique to this region. It is very popular in Barcelona, as well.

Breakfast was included and it was so darn good! They had an amazing selection including a full piece of dripping honeycomb. We were definitely fueled up for a little hike and journey back to Barcelona. 

As I said earlier, Andorra is known for nature. There are tons of hiking trails, skiing opportunities (in the season) and outdoor activities of all kinds. Throughout the country are wooden creatures called Tamarros. They are protectors of nature and the forests. There was one close to our hotel that we set out to find. It was a dreary morning, but we started on our trek, nonetheless. However, after thunder, lightening and hail started coming down and no Tamarro Andy in site, we turned around. We still do not know exactly how much farther we had to go to find him, but maybe we will return one day. 

Labor Day Weekend in Austria: Side trip to Liechtenstein

Another goal of our Labor Day weekend trip was to visit Liechtenstein. It's a small country that borders Austria and Switzerland and you can drive through the whole country in an hour (or less). We started in Vaduz, the capitol. It was filled with sculptures, like the one pictured above. 

We did not go inside the church since we had Suzie with us, but the outside gave us some good photo opportunities and they had a free bathroom that we took advantage of. 

We drove up the hill to see the Liechtenstein palace. The royal family lives there so visitors are not permitted inside, but there are hiking trails nearby that give different vantage points of the outside. On our way out of town back to Germany, we visited the Prince's winery and picked up a few bottles of wine. 

For our one night in Liechtenstein, we stayed in Malbun. It's a big ski resort town, but in September it was just beautiful and chill. We walked into the town from our hotel and snagged some pictures of this little church. 

We found a little free library with a Max & Mortiz book inside. I snapped a photo and sent to my sisters who I knew would appreciate it. There used to be a German restaurant in our home town that was named after these characters. I was tempted to take the book home with me, but thought it better to leave for a little kid to enjoy. 

For dinner in Malbun, we visited a pizza place. For some reason, the restaurant was decorated like a cave complete with cave paintings like the one pictured behind us. The pizza was pretty tasty and the ambiance was interesting. The place was pretty empty, but I imagine during ski season it is a happenin' place. 

This is what happens when you are an American living in Germany and visiting a country that uses the Swiss outlets. We did not realize that Liechtenstein did not use the same outlets as Germany, but luckily the hotel had an adapter that we could borrow. 

Our hotel had a great breakfast buffet! It had the typical sliced cheese and deli meats and breads, but also sausage, eggs and more. We also tried Ovomaltine for the first time. It's a chocolate and nut spread not unlike Nutella, but it was crunchy! I am going to have to look for it in the German grocery store next time I'm there. 

Labor Day Weekend in Austria: Braz and Burs

For our long Labor Day Weekend, we visited Austria. After a few weekends in cities seeing all the sites, I was ready for a relaxing, no pressure kind of getaway. After searching and searching for just the right spot, Charles found an inn in Braz, Austria that would fit the bill. It was right next to a beautiful Alpine church that came complete with church bells. 

The inn had their own in-house restaurant which included free breakfast in the morning with a selection of meats, cheeses, rolls, yogurt and more. The coffee was delicious and it filled us up for our hiking ventures. 

On the first night, we enjoyed dinner at the inn's restaurant. I had goulash with polenta and Charles had venison. Everything was delicious!

Right near the inn was a hiking path by the river. We brought Suzie down there and she enjoyed splashing around and drinking the fresh water. It wasn't quite like being at the beach, which is one of Suzie's happy places, but we could tell it made her happy nonetheless. 

For hiking, there were tons of options within the area. We chose a trail that started in Burs which was an adorable town in its own right. Can you imagine what it would be like to live here and have views of the Alps right out of your window??? 

Part of the trail we took was a Fairy Tale trail and had these gnome people at various stops. We somehow veered off the trail onto another one so we missed some of the tales, but we still had a nice walkabout.

Castle ruins in Nagold

For one of our first weekends out of quarantine, Charles found a hike to some castle ruins in a town called Nagold. He asked me in advance if I wanted something more leisurely or more rustic and I, of course, requested more leisurely. Upon starting the trail, I soon learned that getting to the ruins would require a walk up an incline. Not as leisurely as I would have liked, but once we arrived at the top the views were fantastic! 

As soon as we arrived at the top, Suzie found a nice shady spot in the grass and dandelions to take a breather. 

Historians are not sure if these castle ruins were used for fortifications or for a residence. 

At the bottom of the castle ruin hike there was a great area to walk along the river. There was a big playground for kids and a snack stand with ice cream and beverages. We didn't try anything, but it would make for a nice treat after walking around. 

Travel: Yosemite

One of Charles' big bucket list items for our time in California was to visit Yosemite. Of course, we waited until almost the last minute to take a trip there. We visited on October 1st which happened to be the anniversary of the park. We totally did not plan that.

I do have to preface this next part by saying I don't think it was the ideal time of year to visit Yosemite. I've heard it is better to go around April when the waterfalls are flowing. In October, the water was definitely not flowing. With that said, I did not love Yosemite as much as some of the other places we have visited on the west coast. I have several friends who love, love, love Yosemite and I just wasn't feeling it. But it was worth visiting, especially because we had free admission (thank you military discount)!

On the way back to our hotel in Jamestown, I was feeling carsick. The roads are quite curvy and after hiking I am especially susceptible to car sickness. We stopped for dinner at one of the towns outside of Yosemite. A BLT was just what I needed to cure my upset tummy. I just need to suck it up in the future and buy those special bracelets and anything else I can get my hands on to prevent motion sickness. I had forgotten my Tummy Rub essential oil blend. It would have been the perfect time to try it out.

Doesn't this look like a green screen background? We thought so, but it's totally a real life background.