European Holiday

 Last month I went on a wonderful tour of France, Germany and Denmark. I've already written about the European Patchwork Meeting in France and the Rhine River cruise through Germany but there were some other places we visited as well.

We started in Zurich, Switzerland and had a tour of the city and even went to a patchwork shop. We took a group photo of us all. It was a large group of about 34 quilters on the trip.

The following day we left for France and visited Milhouse, we even did some clothes shopping.

I was having lunch at a cafe, when I realised that I was in my first French cafe, I had to have a photo.

We went to a wonderful Textile shop and museum from 1746, where we learnt about how textiles started in France.

Then we stopped off in a lovely town called Colmar.

Then it was off to Obernai, where we were going to spend three nights and attend the European Patchwork Meeting.

We had our Welcome dinner at a lovely restaurant in town.

When we arrived home from the  quilt show the following day, we had time to explore the town a little more. The shops were gorgeous, I could have bought so many things. Honestly, I felt like I had stepped into a fairy tale when I was over there. It is so different to Australia.

I brought a journal with me and I wrote in it every night, so I could remember my trip. Clare thought I was very dedicated and took a photo of me.

Our next main event was the Rhine River cruise, which I wrote about in my last post. On the way to the cruise ship we stopped at Heidelberg and had a tour of the town, some lunch and looked at some shops.

Heidelberg

Then it was on to Cologne for a couple of nights. Cologne is a big city and we were lucky enough to be there on a Sunday, so we could go to a church service in the huge Dome Cathedral and could hear the beautiful music and choir. The Cathedral is so huge that I couldn't get back far enough to take a photo of the entire building.

After the  church service we were able to tour the church and saw many relics including the gold coffins of the 3 wise men.

Dome Cathedral in Cologne

We had a guided tour of the town and did some shopping before we went to our boat for the 8 night cruise of the Rhine River.

We were feeling a little sad after the cruise thinking that our wonderful holiday was nearly over, we had no idea how much we would enjoy our 4 days in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Copenhagen was so different to Europe, instead of hearing all about the Romans and their ruins, we heard about the Vikings. We went to a gorgeous little fishing village and then went on to see the famous Little Mermaid statue.

The Little Mermaid statue

Hans Christian Anderson is from Copenhagen and you see references to him everywhere, he was famous and rich in his lifetime.

Hans Christian Anderson Statue

We had a tour of the Christianbourg Palace, where Parliament sits and the Royal Family have their grand occasions.

Christianbourg Palace

We had a wonderful tour of the Palace and we had to wear blue plastic covers on our shoes. Below is a photo of the Queen's library.

The Library

We also went to the square and saw where the Royal Family lived including Princess Mary's house. Princess Mary is an Australian who met the Prince in Australia when he was visiting and they got married. A true fairy tale.

We were there when there was a changing of the guard.

The changing of the guard

There was a beautiful big shopping street where we wandered a couple of times and at the end is the  gorgeous Nyhavn Harbour, where we had lunch on our last day. Isn't it wonderful?

Nyhavn Harbour

I was starting to feel a cold coming on and wasn't looking forward to the two days of flights home. Little did I know that I had Covid.

Unfortunately, I passed in on to my husband when I got back!

Bye for now,

Linda