Our last week in Europe

Last week we took our final trip, this time to a week-long Christian conference ("New Wine") in Shepton Mallet, England. We camped with several other people from our church (and a few thousand people from other churches) and attended daily worship and seminars. It was a great way to end our time in Europe.

Here are some of our church group hanging out at the campsite:And since we camped in the "International Village" on the campsite, Josh and Henry put up an international flagpole.

Now that we're back in the Netherlands, we're saying goodbye to lots of good friends we've made over the past 15 months. Several of our friends took us out to lunch on Sunday. We've made many friends here, and that's the hardest part about leaving.This will be a busy week. The movers come Wednesday, we'll leave for Amsterdam on Thursday, and then we'll fly back to Iowa on Friday the 14th. We've been so caught up in life here in Holland that we haven't been able to update our blog as much as we'd like. It's been a great 15 months. But it will also be good to be back home in Iowa, and we're looking forward to seeing the family and friends that we left behind there.

Scandinavia in a week

We’re planning to move back to Iowa in mid-August, so our days in Europe are numbered. Although we’ve seen a lot of Europe, we still hadn’t gotten to Scandinavia yet, so we took last week to see as much of it as we could. Although it rained every day we were there, it was beautiful. There is more natural beauty there than in most of the rest of Europe that we’ve seen.

We started by flying to Sandefjord and renting a car to drive through fjords in the western part of Norway. We spent our first two days seeing fjord after fjord. Behind the fjords, the terrain was mountainous and rocky. There was snow even in July.
We took ferries to get across the fjords where there were no bridges.
And we took a sightseeing boat that sailed through some of the most beautiful fjords.
This area of Norway has several stave churches that date from the middle ages.
On one day, we took a hike on a huge glacier in the mountains. The glacier had blue ice, caves and crevices, and a beautiful view of the lake and mountains. We went with a group of four other people and a guide, all of us hooked together on a rope so no one would fall off. This was probably the most fun day of our trip, even though we hiked in the rain.
Then we saw more fjords…
After we were all fjorded out, we visited Bergen, Norway. A funicular takes tourists up to a good view of the town.
Then we dropped off our car and took an overnight train to Oslo, the capital of Norway.

There is a neat park with a bridge full of interesting sculptures.

And we visited the city hall. After a day in Oslo, we took an overnight boat to Copenhagen, Denmark.

Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, and so there is a royal palace (actually, there are a couple palaces). This is one of them, used as a museum about Danish royalty; the other palace is where the current royalty actually lives.
Hans Christian Andersen was from Copenhagen, so there are several statues of him. One part of Copenhagen is an old military base that was taken over by squatters in the 1970s and turned into an “alternative lifestyle community” called Christiania. There was more pot there than in Amsterdam. It was impressive.
We climbed up a spiral-shaped spire on a church for a good view of the city.
After two days in Copenhagen, it was time to head back for home. We took an overnight train to Dusseldorf, Germany. We had expected to have two seats next to each other, like in an airplane. Instead, we had two seats facing each other in a little six-seat “box” that we shared with four Norwegian teenage boys. That was an experience…

We returned home Saturday morning, and Josh is back at work this week. We have plans for one final fling before we head back to Iowa next month…

Travels through Italy and southern France

Last week we returned from 12 fun days in Italy and France. We drove the entire trip in our car, like typical Americans. Europeans would never drive so far.

Our first stop was Venice, a beautiful (but decaying) city that contains more canals than streets. All supplies have to be brought in by boat, trash is taken out of the city on special trash-boats, and ferry boats called vaporettos move people around like city buses. Plus, there were hundreds of gondolas.

The center of action in Venice is St. Mark’s Basilica. The architecture of this building is an unusual blend of several styles, and each column is made of a different color of marble.

A large Doge’s Palace is adjacent to the basilica, and looks like a pink birthday cake.

We only spent a couple days in Venice before heading to Rome. Rome has more sights and excitement than we could possibly see, but we stuffed as much of it as we could into three days of sightseeing. Our favorite sights included the huge Roman Colliseum, where gladiator games were held.

The Pantheon was originally a temple dedicated to all gods. Its balanced architecture, especially the round dome, has inspired many modern buildings, such as the US capitol.

Vatican City is the home of the Pope and St. Peter’s Cathedral, the epicenter of the Catholic church. St. Peter’s Cathedral is the largest church in the world. This view from the top of its dome shows the curving front terrace, which is designed to show how the church welcomes and embraces Christians and non-Christians alike.

St. Peter’s contains a beautiful Pieta by Michelangelo. I remember studying about this sculpture in high school and college humanities classes.

We also got to see the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s grandest masterpiece. It has been recently restored and is the most beautiful piece of artwork we have ever seen. Unfortunately, photos were not permitted.

After three days in Rome we headed to Florence. Florence is where the Renaissance began, and it contains some of the best Renaissance art. We gorged ourselves on art, including a statue of Mary Magdalene by Donatello:

And another masterpiece Pieta by Michelangelo:

Perhaps the most enjoyable art in Florence (and throughout Italy) was the gelato (Italian ice cream). I think my life would be significantly improved if I could eat a gelato cone every afternoon.

By this time in our trip we were fairly well museumed-out, so we drove to the Cinque Terre, five small towns on the Italian Riviera. We spent a day hiking on trails that connect the towns, and the scenery was beautiful.

Next we left Italy and headed to the French Riviera. On the way, we stopped in Monaco, a tiny micronation known for its tax haven status and its huge casino. This is the casino, Monte Carlo.

Monaco has the highest per capita income of any country, and everywhere we looked there were flashy, expensive cars. We spent quite a while standing on the porch of the casino watching the BMWs, Rolls Royces, and Lamborghinis driving by. I’m not much of a car person, but even I can appreciate the beauty (lust?) of a bright red Ferrari. I’ll take the one on the right, please.

Next we travelled through several towns in the Provence region of France. There were some well-preserved Roman ruins, including an amphitheater in Arles

and an aqueduct at Pont du Gard.

A fun feature was the markets in the small towns, where we could find all sorts of fruits, meats, and huge merengues to eat.

The scenery included vineyards, olive groves, hills, and beautiful views.

One morning we drove through Carmague Park, a wetland area that has a large population of wild flamingos. Watching flamingos flying overhead like fighter jets coming in to land was a highlight of our trip.

We feel blessed to be able to travel so much while we are here in Europe. We are grateful that God has given us this unique, once-in-a-lifetime gift.

Adventures with Mother and Dad Baker

My (Christine’s) parents made their first-ever trip to Europe April 22 to May 5. While they were here, we took several day trips around Holland, and an overnight trip to Germany. These are some of the things we enjoyed:

Near Den Haag is the Madurodam, a rather extensive “Holland in miniature,” with many of the country’s famous sights all together at 1/25 scale.
Madurodam was complete with canals, ports, and shipping boats.
We took a day to visit a sluice and sea gate near Rotterdam. These feats of engineering are part of the Delta project, which helps keep the low-lying Netherlands from being flooded.
All visitors to the Netherlands should see Kinderdijk, the best collection of old windmills.
We spent one day visiting our distant cousin Adri and her husband Hans, who live in Boskoop. We all went together to Keukenhoff Gardens, famous for its tulips (which were in bloom).

April 30 was Queen’s Day, a national holiday. We walked around our town (Deurne) and saw flea marketsAs well as Deurne’s 13th-century castle.We took an overnight trip into Germany. Our first stop was the huge gothic cathedral in Cologne.We stopped by the small town of Breidenbach, where some of our ancestors came from.We enjoyed driving along the Rhine River, where there are many castles and lots of beautiful scenery.We stayed overnight in Kirchheimbolanden, another town where our ancestors lived.
We visited Berg Eltz, a large, intact castle on the Mosel, before heading home via Aachen.The rapeseed fields in Germany were in bloom, creating large swaths of bright yellow on the landscape.It was great fun to have my parents here and to see a bit of Europe with them. They headed home on Tuesday to recover. I hope we did not wear them out too much.