Punting on the Cam: Oxford or Cambridge?

 England 2015 Travel Journal
Monday, April 6

     After Easter Kid's Club we went to Cambridge! We used the Park and Ride bus service here, as we did in Oxford. It kept us from going to tea at the Orchard Tea Gardens, since they're in Grantchester (and this bus doesn't stop there), but then we had more time for other things we wanted to do – the first of which was King's College Chapel!


     On our way to the Chapel from the shopping mall where our bus dropped us we were - ah - detained by a punting tour guide, and were quite easily persuaded into booking a couple of spots for ourselves – fortunately we were already inclined. (And maybe because he was really nice and had just been to California. And he gave me the student price because I had "recently been a student.") :) It was £20 for Mom and £15 for me, but now we can say we've done it and never need to do it again – although it was so lovely that I wouldn't mind doing it again if I had the chance!

     Then we dropped £16 on tickets for the Chapel in the ticket office across the street from King's College, and grabbed a mocha at Caffé Nero (that we had to drink rather quickly by taking continuous alternating sips before we could go inside).


     The Chapel was magnificent! It's patrons were equally magnificent, seeing how it was begun by Henry VI, added to by Richard III and finished by Henry VIII. The elaborate fan-vaulted ceiling soars above you, before you pass through the elaborate wooden "quire" built by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn, and finally to the east end that was built in a simpler style by Henry VI.

     And we could take pictures!

The entrance to King's College Chapel.
(With a very convenient rubbish bin just outside for people with recently emptied Caffe Nero cups...)

A look at the east end. The walls were added by Richard III, except for the lower bit which was part of the original building by Henry VI.

The fan-vaulted ceiling soaring over the 'quire' built by Henry VIII.

     The "quire" has Henry's and Anne's initials carved all over it. But in only one place are they carved together, as one of the volunteers pointed out to us. So I got photo documentation of that. :)

Henry VIII's and Anne Boleyn's initials.
(I apologize for the slightly blurry quality of this picture.)

We tried getting a selfie, but a nice lady took pity on us and offered to snap a photo in the usual way. :)

     Then it was time for our punting! We met our tour company guide and fellow punters in front of King's College, then walked and walked over the river to a little dock where our group of thirteen was divided into two boats. We were awfully low in the water, maybe six inches above the river in the middle of the boat. But there is something exciting about being able to dip your fingers in the water if you felt so inclined.

     We had a student-aged tour guide, who had some very definite opinions against the modern architecture added to the colleges. :) (We appreciated that, being inclined to more traditional styles ourselves.) We also ran into a friendly swan who took a moment to swim over to the other boat and greet the passengers. He did not, however, deign to grace our boat with his notice...

     The sun came out and gave us an even lovelier ride! We passed a number of other boats being punted all-too-clearly (that is to say, waywardly) by novices who had decided to punt themselves, as evidenced by our getting couple of knocks from them along the way.

     It was a most relaxing experience floating along under a blue sky and surrounded by historic buildings that have lined that river for centuries. It would be the ideal spot for a picnic, and I could just imagine how many people over the years (in the 1920s, specifically) had taken out a basket for a nice, leisurely trip down the Cam. :)

Spanning both sides of the river is Trinity College built by Henry VIII

Trinity College is supposedly perfectly symmetrical (from the front, of course).

A sunny King's College Chapel.

Cambridge's Bridge of Sighs

The beautiful part of the river Cam where our boat was docked.

     By the time we returned from our jaunt on the river everything was closed, so we walked up through the colleges to the top of the town, before looking for a place to eat. After walking all the way down and around and back to King's, we tried being decisive by eating at a pub we liked the look of – The Green Man, a quiet place just off the road and around the corner from King's.

King's Parade/Trumpington Road, the main drag in Cambridge.

Looking down the road toward King's.

St. John's College

The chapel of St. John's College

      The only problem with our day's plans is that it was a bank holiday and everything closed early – including the Park and Ride bus service. So after finding a normal bus and getting some directions from an eccentric bus driver, we walked for 40 minutes back to the car park... in the dark. Not an ideal scenario, but it was one of those memorable adventures where you learn something that seems to befall us on every trip. Thankfully, two ladies pulled up to ask us for directions, who were also happy to drive us to the creepily empty car park just as Mom was acknowledging that God would take care of us. :) It's funny how often that happens...
     

The Round Church, built in about 1100 AD

      So what is my opinion of Cambridge? Being built around a river definitely adds a pleasant atmosphere – the sort that Oxford doesn't have – although the streets and buildings have the same eclectic, charming look of a bookshelf. There is less of a deep scholarly feel in it than in Oxford, and it instead feels as if it's more a part of the relaxed countryside that surrounds it. It's all really a matter of preference whether a person enjoys Oxford or Cambridge more. I loved them both, and I'm afraid that I must be lamely non-committal by saying that my preference depends solely on my mood. :)

© Anna Morton 2016

I'm Back! The Ten Booms in the Original Haarlem

| Our first journey into Haarlem, The Netherlands' smaller, but still unforgettable city. |

Note: One last entry from memory! Which is one reason why this post has been so delayed, for which I apologize. But I hope you enjoy hearing of our jaunt into Haarlem, one of the pleasantest cities I've yet to visit!

Never have I been so pleasantly surprised by any city on our travels as I was with Haarlem. To be honest, I was a little nervous about visiting a country where we knew absolutely nothing of the language, nor had done hours of research to understand the culture. But all of our fears were needless, for The Netherlands seems to be home to the nicest people, who all want to practice their English on you. :)

We left the Gare du Nord on a Thalys train quite early in the morning. It was quite pleasant to arrive at the station in time and without rushing like maniacs on our way there, huffing and puffing with all of our baggage. We got to walk down the platform in a leisurely fashion and take our seats like normal people. We had breakfast from the dining car while watching the French countryside go by. We went through Brussells, Antwerp and Rotterdam, craning our necks to see what we could of those unfamiliar places, before arriving in Amsterdam to take the train into Haarlem.

We had a little trouble finding our way around the station. One would think that finding a ticket window would be simple. Oh, and finding a working ATM was even worse! I think we asked about three people before locating one that worked.

Our train had two levels, and we took seats on the top to have a better view of this fascinating and unknown country, lying under a dreary grey sky, though it was. Now, if you ever visit a completely unknown city, always get directions to you accommodations, or you will wander around said city for ages trying to figure out where in the world you are even going.

As you might guess, we did not follow the aforementioned advice. A very helpful security man in the train station tried to direct us to our AirBNB based on its address, as did a bus driver and a nice lady on the street. But to no avail. The street was nowhere to be found. Finally an older lady who had once lived on that street was able to give us definite directions – thank the Lord! However, we were running out of time to visit the Ten Boom museum, so we decided to find it before we walked across town to our AirBNB.

Any excuse for some Dutch coffee and cake!

We needed wifi in order to contact our host, since we were already rather later that we had told him we would be, so we found a sort of cafe in a clothing shop to rest our feet and have an energizing cup of coffee while we got online. We couldn't resist the idea of some apple cake, too...

Our host was very kind, getting back to us right away to tell us we could arrive whenever we were done touring the museum. So we popped into the Ten Boom house to inquire after tour times, and happily there was an English tour coming up. We bought our tickets, then, with an hour to spare we decided to check out the local shops. There was a sort of miniature Ikea/Tuesday Morning sort of shop with all sorts of fun knick knacks and home stuff that we enjoyed perusing, and we bought a a few little odd things like a Union Jack luggage tag (of all things), chocolate and a tea bag holder with pretty little blue wooden shoes painted on it. We found something practical, too: plastic rain ponchos to cover our luggage. It sort of worked... They did keep our luggage from being soaked by the rain, at least.

The Ten Boom family museum.

What an amazing experience – absolutely unforgettable. Our tour guide around the Ten Boom museum was a little elderly Dutch lady who had lived in Haarlem during the Nazi occupation of WWII. What a woman she was! Not only did she have a strong spirit and great compassion as she shared Christ and the gospel more than once, but she was such a character, often making us laugh with her humorous little comments. On the tour with us there were a couple other Americans, an English couple, a family from Romania (I think) and a couple of German ladies. We all sat in the parlor where the Ten Boom family would have gathered to conduct church services or play games with the Jews they were hiding. It was small, but cozy, and had a clock or two that were actually made by Mr. Ten Boom himself.

The door to the Ten Boom museum.

The upstairs bedroom, which was Corrie's, was the most chilling and at the same time the most thrilling. It was where the Jews who were waiting to be smuggled out of the country were hidden whenever the Nazi soldiers came to search the house. They would all climb in through the linen closet...



... And then hide out in the narrow space behind the wall. The wall itself was fascinating because it was specially constructed out of brick – and this was because if someone knocks on the wall it doesn't sound hollow like wood does. And the Nazi soldiers would go around knocking on peoples' walls to check for hiding places.

Mom behind the Ten Boom wall.

And me... It felt a little small. I couldn't imagine
being stuck in there for days! And sometimes
they were.

From the rooftop of the Ten Boom museum.

The next stop was the rooftop. It was an important place during the war years because it was where the hiding Jews would come to get some much-needed fresh air once in a while. There are walls up there, which hides them while allowing them an opportunity to get outside.

It was an inspiring and humbling experience to see this house in person, to be in the places where there had been so much fear and yet so much kindness and bravery – the Ten Booms had faith in God's promises to Israel, that those who blessed Israel would be blessed by God, and hundreds of people escaped through that families ministry as a result.

After our tour we took some time to walk around the city. It seems like a sort of northern European version of Venice, with it's unique architecture and lovely canals. Even on such a gloomy day the red brick and pointed rooftops gave this city so much charm!

The canals of Haarlem.

St. Bavo Square, Haarlem

We finished our day in St. Bavo Square, dominated by the gargantuan, yet somehow not overpowering, Cathedral of St. Bavo.

Cathedral of St. Bavo

We chose to eat dinner at a restaurant in the square, because we couldn't resist having a view like this! The restaurant was Brinkmann and got good ratings on TripAdvisor. But we had a bit to learn about ordering in Dutch restaurants, and about Dutch servers in particular, which I will now share for everyone's future reference. It's quite simple, once you know. But if you don't know then you will have to learn the slow way like we did, and I literally mean slow. We had been sitting at our table for maybe fifteen minutes without even a glance from a server, when a couple at the table next to us took pity on our confused looks and asked us if they could help. It was then that we told them our dilemma and they explained that in the Netherlands diners must always physically wave down their server before they will come to your table.

The fact that we Americans don't usually do this in our restaurants gave this couple a mild moment of panic since they, being Dutch and having visited America, were waiving down their servers during their time in the States. But we reassured them that American servers wouldn't mind – we do have a reputation for being friendly and informal, after all. :)

Our food came after we flagged down our server, and we had a fun time chatting with our helpful neighbors while we ate. They were as friendly as every other Dutch person we'd met, and enjoyed telling us about their travels in the US and the UK, which we were happy to hear. They were also the ones who informed us that Dutch children learn English from an elementary school age, and that whenever a Dutch person meets an native English speaker they want to practice their English with you. :) So it's hard for English speakers to practice their Dutch!



I have not yet mentioned our accommodations and the pleasant surprise we discovered there, which I shall now do. We did eventually find the place, and it was down a quiet street across a canal, with vines growing up over it's front. The rooms were not large, but clean and cheerful, and our host welcomed us by making us a nice warm cup of homemade cocoa, which the chilly weather outside made even more lovely. After talking to him a bit about our adventures of the day and what it was like for him growing up and living in the Netherlands, we discovered that his entire family was Christian! And not only that, but we shared the common struggle of finding a church committed to preaching Biblical truth.

There is nothing like meeting a fellow brother or sister in Christ who lives halfway around the world... They are family, and you can tell that bond is there just by talking with them for a few minutes. It's amazing!

He carried our suitcases up the narrowest, steepest little staircase I have ever climbed, and to our room. It was pink! The bedding, decor, chair cushions, and even a bit of wall paper and paint (which of course I loved, as it is my favorite color). It was as warm and cheerful as the Dutch people themselves.

Our pink room in Haarlem.

We returned from our dinner well after dark, and dragged ourselves out of bed at six the next morning so we could get to the airport on the city bus. Our host had promised us breakfast, which in itself was an exciting prospect, but we were not prepared for the bounty that appeared on those trays!

Our breakfast in Haarlem.

Yes, we each got our own. We had coffee, tea, cocoa, milk, orange juice, an egg, a huge slice of homemade bread, yogurt, a tangerine, a banana, ham, cheese and cereal. We knew a minor catastrophe had occurred when we heard quite a crash on the stairs, which turned out to be one of our trays on its way up. But another one was quick to appear. :) It was delicious! The bread was especially a treat, and it was sad to have to leave any of it. But no matter how much I wanted to finish it, there was no way that I could.

We made it out in good time, and happily we had a crisp sunny morning while we walked to the bus stop. It went straight to the airport from the center of the city and dropped us off right in front of the Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport about 45 minutes later.

That is one nice airport! I loved it. It's new, clean and pleasant; although these aspects were certainly enhanced by the fact that we were there in plenty of time and didn't have to rush around.

Our destination was the Leeds-Bradford airport in Yorkshire on a Jet2 flight, but I shall defer my account of our arrival there to my next post.

Thanks for reading! It's good to be back. :)


© 2016 Anna Morton

The Most Important Thing Every Traveler Should Know

Selfies with our delicious donuts in Herne Hill.

Traveling is always an exciting, enriching and unforgettable adventure! Every place I have traveled has given me memories I will treasure for the rest of my life. But that is not to say that traveling is always easy - in fact, most of the time it is quite a challenge. What makes all of the effort worth it is when I take with me the attitude of enjoying the moment.

That is the most important thing to know if you are going to travel, especially to another country. Having an attitude that is ready to relax and enjoy the moment has made such a difference in my travel experience! I have finally learned to see that even the difficulties are a part of the whole adventure.

Life is like that, really - when I remember everything happens for a reason, in the timing of Providence, then I know that the circumstances I can't control are never a waste of time - I can even learn from them, which really makes it all much more exciting!

One of my favorite quotes on our most recent trip to England was this one by Margaret Lee Runbeck:

"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling."

Dutch apple pie in Haarlem.

Happiness and trust combined is the best manner of traveling, if I may paraphrase. It is easy to focus on the day's destination as the time when you will actually begin enjoying yourself, rather than enjoying every experience from the moment you get up to the moment your head hits the pillow.

If you travel with the former attitude (which I often have), then any little difficulty, such as just missing the bus, or worrying that you will arrive at your destination with not enough time to see everything you had planned to see, or wishing you had left earlier because a particular restaurant might close before you get there, or basically anything that changes your plans, will distract you from the sights and sounds around you. (Worrying also makes me rather grumpy, too, and that not the most effective way to make good memories.)

But if you travel to enjoy and learn from every moment you will make many, many more good memories - I know I have!


 Things will go wrong; that is inevitable. But those are so often the most memorable moments! (They also make great stories.) For instance, we had to spend most of a day trying to track down a package that our family sent to us while we were in London. It was in a completely different part of town that we were not ever planning to visit, which meant we couldn't even combine our errand with other sightseeing. However, we made some happy discoveries along the way. My favorite discovery was popping into a little pastry shop for coffee where we found some delicious jelly donuts for only 60 pence a piece! I was happily taking selfies of our spoils while we waited for our train at the station. :)

The Hotel des Invalides... closed.

We made one of the most frustrating of blunders while in Paris when we forgot that there is a one-hour time difference between London and Paris, which meant that we arrived at the Hotel des Invalides right as they closed. I was ready to kick those doors that had literally just closed in my face! But... we got to walk all around Paris that day in the rain as we made our way over to the Hotel - and it was not simply Paris, but the famous Latin Quarter and the Left Bank. It was magnifique! :) Plus, we saw the back of Rodin's 'The Thinker' in the Rodin Museum garden just across the street from the Hotel des Invalides! I would say it definitely turned out to be a win, despite our inability to remember where time zones change.

Happening upon Rodin's 'The Thinker'!

Our difficulties tend to lead us to delicious pastries, because we were privileged to some delicious Dutch apple pie in Haarlem when we couldn't find our B&B and had to take shelter inside a place with wifi. So, you never know what happy (and delicious) memories you'll make while you're making mistakes!

Remember: Traveling is not not only when you're in the museums or out to tea - when you're traveling, you're always traveling!


© 2015 Anna Morton

Traveling Savvy in London - Part One

London is a spectacular city, absolutely stuffed to the gills with history and culture, and when you go, you will want to get as much out of your time and energy as possible! So, in no particular order, here are the most useful tips I have picked up while traveling in England's capital.

 Always, always carry a Tube map.

One of our Tube maps, our Oyster cards and some spare cash.

The Tube is London's efficient and easy-to-use transportation system, which, combined with the famous red London buses, can get a person practically anywhere they want to be within the London and greater London area. But there is no way anyone, especially on their first trip to London, will remember which Tube lines go where and where they stop! This means it is imperative to have a Tube map handy, ready to pull out at a moment's notice when you are deciding how to get anywhere.

Tube maps are of course available in every Tube station for free, which is an excellent option for any traveler. Small pop-out maps are available for sale online and in bookstores, and some travel books include a copy of the Tube map. In this day and age it would also be possible to find an image online and print it out, or to download an image onto your smartphone or tablet.

However you choose to do it, just have one! It is a time- and sanity-saver.

Travel using an Oyster Card.
 Using an Oyster Card is a fabulously easy way to travel around London. The Oyster Card is simply a card that you load with money at any Tube station, then scan whenever you get on the Tube or a bus. It is also a money-saver because it caps the fare amount that you can spend during any one day.

The only catch is that you must order it before you leave on your trip because it is not available to purchase once you arrive in England. It can be ordered online here: Visitor Oyster Card - Transport for London. We have simply kept our cards from our first trip to London, reusing them each time we have gone back, with no difficulties at all.

Look up closing times before you go anywhere.

I have found out the hard way that many museums and attractions close at 5:00 PM, so I highly recommend looking up closing times before going out to your chosen destination. If you have wifi where you are staying then simply go on TripAdvisor to obtain the hours of the place you would like to visit. Many guidebooks also have opening and closing times, but those are liable to change, so I would still advise looking them up online.


If you can go the extra mile and write the times down, that is also very helpful, since it can be difficult to remember what closes when.