April 2018 - The Pilgrimage

The long Easter break of April seemed like a good time to set off on a pilgrimage in Spain. The Camino de Santiago was calling to us. Since this was going to an adventure for the whole family (11 and 12 year olds included) we didn't want to tackle the entire Camino, so we settled for the minimum distance that qualifies for a pilgrimage: 100km. We heard Ourense was a good place to start for this distance, its just over 100km from Santiago de Compostela. We had hotels lined up and we were well-outfitted thanks to Cotswold Outdoor store in London. We acquired our pilgrim passports in London and were ready to get them stamped! We decided to fly into Porto, Portugal since we had not seen any of Portugal yet. We had a beautiful evening to explore Porto before our train and taxi ride to Ourense the next day.

Famous Bookstore in Porto, Livraria Lello. You actually need to buy a ticket to get into this bookstore! It is pretty amazing inside.

pastéis de nata  - a yummy Portuguese tart. These can be found everywhere and are a delicious snack!

Loved our family suite! Tons of space. Discovered there are 2 Spot hotels in Porto, we started at the wrong one before realizing this.

On to Ourense...

Train from Ourense to Valenca, Portugal...

...then taxi from Valenca to Ourense (pricey but definitely the most direct route).

Arrived at Hotel Miño in Ourense in time to explore the city a little bit and find some tapas for dinner. Our hotel was just "meh" but the location was good, an easy walk to the River Minho and onto the Camino. 

Fueling up the night before our pilgrimage!

March 2018

March was surprisingly cold and wet this year in England. As if the December snow was not enough, we had another storm in early March which again left us with icy, slick roads and the car stuck in the driveway. Here is John using our small garden shovel to try to remove some of the snow from the driveway - not the same as our snowblower in Utah! The kids were excited to have another day off from school.

Mother's Day is early in England - March 11 this year. We had a yummy Mother's Day brunch and some time to play at our local playground.

We celebrated Carson's 11th birthday in March - he was very excited to receive some new Lego sets.

In late March we visited the Harry Potter Studio. This is a VERY popular attraction here in England - we purchased these tickets in December! The tour allows you to see many of the sets, costumes, and props that were used during the filming of Harry Potter. It was great fun!

Harry Potter's bedroom under the stairs

actual costumes used during filming

The Great Hall

Gryffindor common room

Green cape is the invisibility cloak!

Quidditch!

Dolores Umbridge's office

This set demonstrated how they can make a person appear larger on film. Rachel's seat is higher up and closer to the camera, making her seem bigger then the rest of the family. They had to use techniques like this for Hagrid's character to make him appear large. 

Spell lessons with wands

Hagrid's Buckbeak

Hogwarts Express

Diagon Alley

One of the most amazing parts of the tour was the castle. Although it looks life-sized in the movie, the castle is actually just a large model. Its set in a room with no windows so they can easily make it look like daytime or night time. After this tour I was left with a new respect for the amount of time and effort that went into making these movies.

Toward the end of March the kids started their Easter school break, almost 3 weeks without school. We went into London one day to Blackfriars to visit the Confraternity of St James where we purchased our pilgrim passports for our upcoming pilgrimage in Spain. Below the kids are on Blackfriars bridge, with St Paul's cathedral in the background.

This was a weather report for March 28 which I took a snapshot of from my phone. Gives you an idea of our weather in March!

February 2018

At Carson's school they have an assembly each week and all classes take turns presenting at each assembly. In February Carson's class had a turn and below is a picture of his class singing during the assembly. They also recited some poems and showed a video they created themselves. 

The kids had a one week half-term break in February - another chance for us to visit Europe. This time we chose Italy! We flew into Pisa then took trains to Florence and Cinque Terre. Pisa is quite small so one day was enough to see the leaning tower and walk around the city a bit.

On to Florence! What a beautiful city. The Duomo which is part of the Florence Cathedral is in the central piazza of the city. Its coloring is so unique - white and green paneling - in contrast to the famous red roof of the dome.

Carson is enticed by the 'mountain gelato' - this was our name for these type of gelato places where each flavor looked like a mountain!

This statue was just outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. We loved the Uffizi, it is smaller then other big-city museums and has a quaintness and coziness that I did not expect. Plentiful windows provide nice views of the Arno river amidst the amazing artwork. Probably the most famous painting at the Uffizi is the Birth of Venice by Botticelli, shown in the second picture below.

Picture taken from inside the Uffizi looking out at Ponte Vecchio

Just outside the museum is the Arno river and the famous bridge known as Ponte Vecchio. There are shops all along this bridge, most of which sell upscale jewelry at inflated prices to unsuspecting tourists. We almost fell into that category of unsuspecting tourists before a simple Google search warned not to buy jewelry here! Thank goodness for Google 😁

We decided to make the trek up to Piazzale Michelangelo and it was well worth the view.

On to Cinque Terre - a string of 5 seaside villages along the Italian Riviera coastline. We stayed at the southernmost town, Riomaggiore, in a small apartment. We were definitely there during off-season, many restaurants and gelato shops were closed until March. But there were a few places open and it was nice to have no crowds.

The main trails connecting the villages were closed for construction (another pitfall of off-season travel) so we took to the hills for a steep climb and were rewarded with amazing views.

Terraced landscaping allows them to grow their own wine grapes despite the steep terrain

We took a short train ride to the northernmost of the seaside villages, Monterosso, where the kids had a chance to play on a sandy beach (always a treat for them).

In February I did the 10K London Winter Run with a group of friends. Great fun running through the streets of London with no cars around, and they raised lots of money for cancer research.

Starting line in Trafalgar Square