A Tour of Nuremberg

The next stop on the itinerary for my friends' visit was to Nuremberg. I booked a walking tour through Airbnb that was one of my favorite tours in Europe so far. It was billed as a four-hour tour with a break for lunch, but ended up being around six hours. During the first half of the tour, we walked around the interior of Nuremberg and visited St. Lorenz. 

We huffed up the hill to see castle for some fantastic views of the city.

A little plug for something unrelated to Europe... I recently made my first purchase from ThredUp and was so impressed. The top I wore in Nuremberg (pictured here) was part of that purchase. 

After our lunch in the Altstadt (we all enjoyed Nuremberg sausages...yum!), our group hopped on the train and rode out to the rally grounds. We walked along the lake with stops to hear our guide share history and his perspective about Nazi Germany. It was very insightful and thought provoking. 

Colmar, France

One of the fun things about living in Europe is being able to take weekend trips to other countries very easily. For Mother's Day weekend, some of my gal pals and I headed to Colmar, France! It was an easy 2ish hour drive from here. We stayed in a very girly Airbnb that was in the perfect spot to see all the popular sights in town. It was across the street from a park with a carousel (we did not take a spin) and a large parking garage. 

Colmar has a Little Venice section and we took advantage of a beautiful evening with a boat ride on one of the canals. Our boat captain gave us a little bit of history and some cheesy jokes that had us laughing. 

We thought about purchasing a lock to add to the bridge to celebrate our friendship, but ran out of time to find one in a local gift shop. 

This is one of the oldest streets in Colmar. Colmar and the surrounding towns are chock full of half timbered homes just like these. 

We had fun walking around town searching for the giant Colmar sign for our photo opportunity.

Albufeira, Portugal

Portugal was not really on my radar until last year when I saw someone's pictures from the Algarve region, Portugal's southern coast. It was rocky with tons of caves to explore. It looked beautiful and I wanted to go! 

For President's Day weekend, we found a direct flight from Karlsruhe to Faro, Portugal and decided it would be a great time to go! The weather would be warmer than Germany, but not yet too hot to be enjoyable. 

We booked an Airbnb in Albufeira, just about 40 minutes drive from Faro. It was very convenient to the center of town with lots of restaurants and shops, but far enough outside the center to still be peaceful. And it was a close walk to the beach.

One of the best things about our Airbnb is that it was nearby to a bakery with amazing pastel de nata. I should have brought a whole box of them home!

Walking along the beach and snapping photos from above was part of the fun of the trip!

The weekend coincided with the Carnival celebrations. We are not big partiers, so we did not seek out the Carnival events. But we did happen upon one of the parades after getting some gelato. Carnival is the pre-Lent celebration where they get dressed up in costume and have a lot of fun! I have seen a lot of my German friend posts about Fasching which is their equivalent to Carnival. It sounds like a wild and crazy experience!

Being the crazy cat lady that I am, my husband knew I would be interested to visit Albufeira's cat park. It was basically just a pier where a bunch of cats live. But it did give us some great views!

Like much of the rest of Europe, Portugal has a thriving wine making industry. We booked a wine and tapas tour where we were picked up from our Airbnb in a tuk tuk and driven through town to one of the local wineries. We saw carob trees and learned a bit about caring for vines in the fields. We saw inside the winery where all the tanks are and then tasted four wines while nibbling on meats and cheeses. It was a delightfully sunny day which made it even better!

Faroe Islands

Have you ever heard of the Faroe Islands? Until about a year ago, I had never heard of this small country situated between Scotland and Iceland. My husband revealed that it had been on his travel wish list from before we even met. It struck me as funny that it took about 17 years before he let me in on this long held desire. 

We visited in September which is at the end of the ideal travel season. I was anticipating dreary, rainy days. Upon arrival, it was a little misty and grey. But we lucked out with some amazingly beautiful days, too!

Fishing accounts for about 97% of exports for the Faroe Islands. Needless to say, boats are plentiful around the islands. 

The Nix, represented here as a horse, is a fascinating tale from Faroese legend. It lives in the lakes of the Faroe Islands lures people to him and then drags them into the water to meet their end. But if you shout his name, he loses his power and you will live. 

If you know me at all, you probably know that I love church pictures. Charles and I jokingly said that we should create a book of all the churches on the Faroe Islands. We tried to capture as many as we could, but we definitely missed several. 

I also love ruins. These were beautiful!

One of our days was spent with a guide hiking up to a tiny little light house. The area around the light house was used in the filming of the most recent James Bond movie. Charles and I are not James Bond fans, so that part didn't really matter to us. But it was beautiful! 

The seal woman statue represents another legend from the Faroe Islands. I cannot do the story justice, so please go read it for yourself. The more I travel around Europe and hear local folklore, the more I wonder why Hollywood keeps making the same movies over and over. These legends would make really great films.

This church was in the town where our Airbnb was located. It was sunny in this part most of the time we stayed.

Our Airbnb! This place was fantastic! The views alone were worth staying here and the house was cozy and well stocked with everything we needed for our stay. 

The Airbnb was located on a sheep farm and we were allowed to wander around the fields. We made friends with several sheep. 

Hanging out with the sheep was one of my favorite parts of the trip!

The art museum in the capital was really neat! 

And because I can, a couple more churches to end our trip! 

The Faroe Islands were beautiful and peaceful. I am so glad that Charles made it a priority to visit. If you have a chance, please go! You will not regret it. 

Bergen, Norway

Our next big trip was a two-part one. The first part being Bergen, Norway. If I am being technical, it was really three parts. One night in Bergen, several nights in the Faroe Islands and then back to Bergen for a few more nights before heading home. But for the purpose of this blog, I am going to lump all of our Norway information together. 

Bergen is famously rainy. I went in with low expectations in regards to the weather. We were pleasantly surprised with decent weather while we were in town! Sure we had some rain and chilly wind, but we also lucked out with some sunshine!

On our first day in Bergen we took a walking tour which led us down cute alleys. We learned some of the history of Bergen.

Bergen was rife with street art! 

Another outing while in Bergen was a "fjord" cruise. It was pretty much just the fjords closest to Bergen, so it was more populated and less scenic than I would have liked. But it was a relaxing boat trip. 

We rode the funicular up to the top of the mountain for some panoramic views of the city. 

We did not eat nearly enough pastries while in Bergen. This was like a cheese Danish. Charles was happy to see mochas on most of the café menus. Surprisingly, we haven't seen that a lot in Germany.

We mostly avoid Mexican food in Germany. It's just not good. I saw a taco place with good ratings and thought we'd give it a try. It was actually pretty tasty!

We also enjoyed some Thai food while in Bergen. Yum, yum, yum!

This was the view from our Airbnb which was located outside of Bergen. Downstairs is an Italian pizzeria with some of the best pizza we have had in a while. The owner was so friendly and brought us fresh croissants every morning of our stay. His story about living in Italy and how he came to relocate to Norway was fascinating!