European Travels

(Joe wrote this post a few months ago, but for some reason never posted it. Enjoy!)

Lyon

Nate Hook in Lyon, France

In June Betsy had a conference in Lyon, France.  And I came by train half way though the conference.  It was a chance to meet up with some friends from Boulder.

Rhône and Saône rivers converge in Lyon, and that was a reason why the Romans made it the capital of Gaul.  Therefore Lyon has a lot of Roman ruins to see.  And there are also a lot of Catholic churches we visited.

Barcelona

Sailing in the Mediterranean

Betsy & I bought “blind booking” tickets from the discount airline German Wings.  These cheap tickets are ideal for weekend get-a-ways, because you can choose a few options of what type of place to visit (beach, culture, party, etc.), but the actual destination is not known until you pay for the ticket.  We ended up going to Barcelona, which turned out to be very fun.  Everyday we went swimming in either the Mediterranean or in the outdoor pool used in the 1992 Summer Olympics.  We toured the city by bicycle and public transport.  We also sailed into the Mediterranean for 2 hours.  The food was very good too, and we learned a lot about the Catalan and Spanish culture.

Oktoberfest & Bavaria

Paulaner tent at Oktoberfest

Andy (Betsy’s brother) & his new wife Amanda came to Europe for their honeymoon.  We took them to Munich’s Oktoberfest, known locally as "die Wiesn".  Wow!  Oktoberfest was good to experience, but I don’t have any desire to go back.  It is just like a US state fair, but all about beer – high alcohol content (~6%) - and served by the liter.  We had to go in the morning because we didn’t have a table reservation, which is required for an afternoon or evening.  Oktoberfest has well over 6 million visitors during 2 weeks, and on average each person drinks well more than a Liter of beer.

Venus Grotto at Linderhof Palace

After Oktoberfest we visited Schloss Linderhof which is one of the castles commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria (Herrenchiemsee and the famous Schloß Neuschwanstein are the others). It was very luxurious.  I think the room of mirrors was one of the more spectacular things to see.  Betsy really enjoyed seeing the Venus Grotto, which is an artificial cave/grotto and stage for a Richard Wagnerian opera.

Stuttgart

Last weekend we spent a day in Stuttgart. Because we had not visited anything in Stuttgart (besides the airport and train station), we figured we should spend some time investigating Stuttgart.  We went to the Stuttgart Volksfest, which is the world's second largest beer festival (Munich’s is the largest).