Smurfy's European Vacation

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

This is a bit late, but back in August of last year, my wife and I went to Europe.

Specifically we flew into Paris, stayed there for a couple of nights, then took the train to London, took another train to a nearby town where we met with some friends. Then we stayed with them in a vacation house for a week in a little village called Robin Hood's Bay. After that we took another train back into London, stayed there a couple nights (and caught one of the early showings of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and flew back to the states.

It was a pretty amazing trip and I'd like to share a bit of it here. Alas, there were no roller coasters on this trip. We considered going to Disneyland Paris, but wanted to tour the city more. We also though about Alton Towers, but again, we wanted to experience the country this time. Maybe next time we'll hit some rides.

We took hundreds of pictures, but I'm just going to show a few.

So, first we went to Paris.

Part 1: Paris

Contrary to popular belief, the Eiffel Tower in Paris is slightly bigger than the one at Kings Island. 

Just a little bit.

It actually looked like the Kings Island tower would probably hit around that first level. This thing really is impressive in person.

Here's me with the Arc De Triomphe. 

 

The most impressive thing with these monuments are A.) they're everywhere and B.) they're so intricate. Like just above that arc, there's that rim of just hundreds of carved figures going all the way around it.

May favorite place in Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral.

Again, the detail here is mind blowing. Look at this just above one of the giant doorways.

And inside is just as amazing.

Next we went to the Louvre.

Sooooo many statues all over this place. The outside of it was almost better than what's inside.

Speaking of what's inside, some of the famous stuff.

And we end this part with a night shot of the Tower. It was pretty nice at night.

In the next part we'll see some Harry Potter stuff and British seals!

 

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Part 2: Robin Hood's Bay

So, after saying au revoir to Paris, we got on the Euro Star train under the English Channel and into London. We were not going to be staying in London long because had to hop on another train to go to our friends' house.

BUT, the station we arrived at was just across the street from King's Cross, so we HAD to look for platform 9 3/4. And we found it!

Right next to it was a Harry Potter shop where we got our official Hogwarts Express tickets for the platform, but instead of going to school, we went on more vacation.

One of the people we were staying with was a foreign exchange student at my wife's school back in the day and they've always kept in touch. In fact, a few years ago, they came out here and fell in love with Kings Island. During that trip we decided we should go out and hang with them on their turf, and so that's what we were doing.

They knew of an amazing little fishing village called Robin Hood's Bay so after staying over at their place, we packed up our stuff, their stuff, and their 2 kids in a little crossover and we were off!

Little did I know that the place that we were staying at was going to be one of the most beautiful places that I had ever seen.

 

The village is on the right there. This is what it looked like at high tide every morning and evening. during the day the water would retreat and the crazy British people would go swimming. Now, the temps usually stayed in the 60's while we were there, which is way too chilly for me to swim, but for them it was summer!

Here are some more shots of the place...

Way out at the end of that cliff is a colony of seals. It's about a 3 mile walk when the tide is out, so the first day we were there while the others were swimming like psychos, we took a hike to see them and it was amazing.

They were super curious about us. Since it was kind of far out and you had to climb some treacherous rocks to get there, not a lot of people seem to go see them.

So, we just got there, sat on a rock and pretty soon they were congregating around us in the water. We never tried to touch or feed them, just took pictures and watched them and they just swam around and watched us in return.

Eventually we had to go back and fearing that we would get cut off by the rising tide, we headed up a nearby path and took a 5 mile trail up the cliffs and back to the village.

Though it was long and tiring, it was a fun walk back. We came across some sheep, some horses, a geocache and a basket of peacock feathers that someone left for hikers.

We took one feather, and a lot of pictures.

And my wife caught a crab.

Of course, we released it. 

In the next part we'll go to the town that Dracula terrorized....

 

 

[TombRaiderFTW]

Wow, this is so cool. A trip to Europe like yours is totally on my bucket list. Great pictures! Can't wait to read the rest!

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Part 3: Whitby

Next we all went on a trip to Whitby. This is a very old town on the coast which is where Dracula lands in England in Bram Stoker's Dracula and harasses poor Lucy and Mina.

But first, we came across an old church just outside of Robin Hood's bay that had some nice picture opportunities.

The pic above I had blown up on canvas and put on our wall in the living room. I love it.

When we arrive in Whitby we first went to the Abbey, which is an old ruin.

It was very windy.

Then we went into the town. The town was pretty cool, but also had a section that reminded me of Gatlinburg. Very touristy. 

The next day we hung around the Bay again and went to see our friend's the seals.

In the next part we'll be going to York, the walled city.

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Part 4: York

Next we went to York. All I knew of this place before going was the scene in Braveheart where Wallace sacks it.

But it's an old walled city, which was pretty cool. Lots of very old buildings and you can still walk along the walls.

Here's the wife and I in front of one of the old gates.

There's also an area called the Shambles which was an old meat market. I've heard it was an inspiration for how Diagon Alley looked in Harry Potter. I'm sure you can see the inspiration.

Clifford's Tower.

Lots of spiral staircases out there.

Next, we take a train ride to the REAL Hogsmeade station...

 

[IndyGuy4KI]

Great PTR Smurf! I really enjoyed looking and reading about your adventures. Great pictures!

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

16 hours ago, TombRaiderFTW said:

Wow, this is so cool. A trip to Europe like yours is totally on my bucket list. Great pictures! Can't wait to read the rest!

Thanks! It was really cool. We knew we were going to England, but had to decide between Paris, Rome, Venice or Ireland as our 2nd destination.

We ultimately decided on Paris since I had always wanted to go after taking some French in high school. Let me tell you, that was a long time ago, and I hardly remembered any of it. So I'm glad Parisians are pretty multilingual. 

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Part 5: Train to Hogsmeade and Goodbye Robin Hood's Bay

One day, we took an old fashioned steam train ride from Whitby out to a town called Goathland. What's cool about Goathland is that they used their train station as the location where the students arrive at Hogsmeade station in the Harry Potter films.

It was a very relaxing ride through the moors of Yorkshire. 

Eventually we arrived at Goathland.

Here's how it looked in the film.

Up the hill from the station is the village which is very sheep friendly. They're all over, just wandering around the roads and shop areas. I was very surprised to see that they didn't sell any Harry Potter merchandise there. I wonder if they had some kind of clause where they weren't allowed to capitalize on the location filming. There was a show that was apparently popular that was filmed in the village called Heartbeat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbeat_(UK_TV_series)) and the shops were covered in merch for it, but nothing from HP. Was a little disappointed.

View from the bridge over the tracks.

With that, it was the end of our stay in Robin Hood's Bay. But we still had London to look forward to.

Coming up, London...

 

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Part 6: London

Before our trip was over, we hopped on a train out to London. We stayed in a nice little hotel a couple blocks from Buckingham Palace. Our first full day in London was spent walking around the Piccadilly Circus area. 

Now, you may have noticed in the previous sections that I was always on the lookout for movie locations. And in London there are tons of them. But one of my favorites is An American Werewolf in London. So, when we were in the Picadilly Circus square, I was amazed. It's kind of like the Times Square of London. This is also the spot where the wolf goes full on attack mode in the movie at the end and causes all kinds of problems before his ultimate fate.

Below is the shot from the movie:

The place where the final attack starts is an adult movie theater back in the 80's. As you'll see in my pic, it's now a GAP store.

By coincidence, we had started planning this trip and then about a year out it was announced that they would be performing J.K. Rowling's new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in London. It just happened to start a week before we got there. So, I stayed up when tickets went on sale and waited hours and was able to get some killer seats. They were pricey, but they ended up being in the 2nd row from the stage. We were so close we could see the actors spitting all over each other! It was glorious.

As has been discussed elsewhere, the story line of the play isn't the best (almost like HP Fan Fiction), but the acting, the sets, the special effects are all amazing and make it worth a viewing. When the play comes out here I'll be sure to check it out.

The next day were walked about 10 miles around London, hitting all the biggest sights from Buckingham Palace, to Big Ben to the Tower of London.

I thought the shot below was a very British picture. Doubledeckers and a phone booth.

One cool thing with the phone booths is that a lot of them have been retrofitted so be free wifi hot spots. Very convenient. 

When I see Big Ben I think of one of 2 things, Peter Pan landing on the hands and moving them, and the finale of V for Vendetta. 

Here's where the Prime Minister lives:

The London skyline with their weird shaped buildings:

The Tower Bridge:

And lastly, the Tower of London:

After that day, we flew back and reflected on all that we had seen. It was a lot and something that I'll never be able to forget. We're already thinking about when we can go overseas again and what we'd like to do. 

Thanks for reading!