Van Wagener Family Fun: 2007

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Copenhagen, Denmark

In early July, Amy was in town for 2 weeks. We all went to Copenhagen, Denmark for 4 days. Scott has been working in a small city 30 min west of here from April until September. A US equivalent is Boston - touristic harbor town. The major difference is that Denmark is a socialist government. A socialist government means that the government guarantees jobs for the entire population (<1% unemployment rate). And while they guarantee jobs, the don't guarantee you the best and brightest of jobs - over 25% of the jobs are public service (i.e. garbage service, janitorial jobs). And what this means is the city is CLEAN. If a dog poops on the sidewalk, you can guarantee it won't be there in the morning. Unfortunately, with a socialist government, taxes are astronomical (60-70% of most salaries are lost due to taxes), and what this means is that it is EXPENSIVE to live or visit there!

Lots of rain while we were there - which doesn't add up to alot of enjoyable walking....

The Copenhagen Opera (built by Maersk, 2nd largest shipping company in the world - located across the harbor so he had something nice to look at out his office.)

When you look up Copenhagen, one of these two pictures are usually what you see. The first, a mermaid and the second, an inner harbor called Nyhavn.

On the weekend that we were there, it was a special holiday on Saturday named "Mid-Summer's Night". On this night they had bonfires all across Denmark.

Copenhagen is an interesting city full of funny-looking spires. Some are immaculate, and some are just strange. While its hard to see, the one on the right are various animals twisted up into the spire.

Next is Luzerne, Switzerland!

Italy (Condensed into 1 post)

Just catching up on some of our blogs. Between the last post and this post was just a bunch of winefests and gorgeous weather...

June came and went with our weeklong vacation to San Gimignano Italy. This was the longest vacation we have taken since being married that was not to go see relatives. This area of Italy is the Tuscany region (wine/olive region) about 1 hour south of Florence. Pisa is 1.5 hours west and Rome is 5 hours southeast. Easily the best vacation we have taken and I would venture to say there will be few vacations that will ever match it. We stayed in a small villa about 1.5 miles from the city - the villa was surrounded by vineyards, on a hill over looking many of the valleys. There were 5 other apartments at our villa, and while the week before and after our villa was full, the week that we stayed, we were the only ones there. We essentially used our villa as a "homebase" that allowed us to take day trips to many of the cities around the area.

This is San Gimignano - called the "Manhatten" of New York due its 13 towers. When we bought our tourbook in December of Italy, we had no idea where we would go. After we booked our trip we realized that this picture was on the front cover. So a book of ALL of Italy, and the city we were staying on was on the front cover. Of course, some tourists (on the weekends) but staying there the whole week allowed us to go during middle of the week and night which was very nice.

Food consisted of Pizza, Pizza, Ice Cream, then more Pizza. In 7 days, Daniel ate pizze 13 times, and ice cream 10 times. Here is 1 of 10.

One more picture of the city before moving on...

Did I mention that our villa had a swimming pool. While we did have "odd" weather (50-70s) for the time of year, it was nice!

So on our whirlwind Italy trip, we went to many cities in the area. First was Volterra (yes, as in the song).

Next was Pisa:

Then Siena:

And then Monteriggioni:

And on the last night, we stumbled across an Italian Festival in Colle Di Val D'Elsa (the crystal city). Italian Festivals are MUCH different than German Wine Festivals, and we really stuck out here. It was more like an Italian cafeteria line where all the food is behind a wall and you have to "guess" what you want. "Give me 1 Polpetti, a Trippa in Umido, a Zuppa di Farro and the BIGGEST bottle of Vino Rosso you have... Ciao Bella!"

Next is Copenhagen!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Our Trip to Trier

On May 18th and 19th we decided to take a very short trip up to Trier, Germany - Thursday was a holiday in Germany, and Friday was a bridge day, so no one goes to work. About a 2.5 hour drive.

For all those non-historically educated people, Trier is the oldest city in Germany, dating back to 68 B.C. Most of it was built by the Romans, and many structures around the city are still standing from when it was built (bridge, old wall, gates, baths, buildings).

And boy does it have alot of shopping!

Here is the large Roman wall, Porta Nigra. It stands to the North portion of the city, and you can walk all through the structure.

While we were there, a big museum exhibition was there concerning Constantine - the Roman emperor when Trier was founded. Here is one of the feet (replicas) from that statue.

We did try out the local fare: Restaurant Louisiana. Nothing to write about - ok at best!

Just off the center is the Constantine Basilica. It is now used as a Protestant church. Walking through the back portion, there are beautiful gardens, and ponds, and an occasional playground.

In the center are two side-by-side churches. One Protestant (on the left) and the other Catholic. They actually share a common wall! Also, as you can tell, they were built in completely different styles.

Walking in the middle, there were various interesting fountains. This fountain represents the craftsmen.

Lastly the view of the old Roman Bridge on the Moselle. This is said to be the third ever Roman bridge.

Next up:

Jun 3-10, Italy, Toscana Region

Jun 21-24, Copenhagen Denmark

Day-Trip to Schloss Auerbach

The 3rd weekend of April, we decided to go one Sunday afternoon about 50 minutes east of us to Schloss Auerbach, a castle near the city of Bensheim (North of Mannheim, south of Frankfurt). Several people at Scott's work recommended both Bensheim and the castle, and while the city looks very nice, the castle was very impressive!

To get to the top, you can drive nearly the entire way there, and then you have a very short hike to the castle. In the castle, there is a cafe and restaurant along with many stairs up to the top of the castle.

The castle itself had many nice views of the Baden-Wuttemburg area.

Unfortunately, we didnt take advantage of the restuarant, which is on a terrace overlooking the valley. We will when our guests come!

For anyone coming to Germany, and looking to do some mild walking, but wanting to see a castle, this will be the castle we go to. The other option is Castle Trifils, but that has a much steeper decent.

Our trip to Antwerp, Belgium

During March, we made it to Antwerp - in part due to Scott's work. We drove up Friday night, and came back on Tuesday Evening. Scott had to work on Monday and Tuesday, so Ellen and the boys had the day to themselves. It was nice to get the "upgrade" to the business suite!

We stayed at the ParkPlaza - a hotel next to the main train station (which you could see from our window), and also the Zoo.

On saturday(a bit chilly) we made it to the zoo. Now you would figure a zoo in the middle of the city couldn't be that nice, but for the amount of land that was there, it was great! We went 2 of the 4 days...

We then went walking around the main shopping areas near the church. Antwerp is the main European headquarters for MANY Global shops (much like Manhatten), so there were MANY different shops to look at. This is the main church in the center of Antwerp.

This is a statue near the church. The legend is that there was a giant whom collected taxes or hands from sailors coming into port. This brave sailor thus cut the hand of the giant off and cast it to sea. The hand is what he is throwing in the picture. The city is also named after him.

On Sunday, we went to the Netherlands (about a 30 min drive North of Antwerp). There, we went to dinner at a city named Bergen op Zoom. Belgium and the Netherlands are the only two countries where the beer is claimed to be better. Scott's beer of choice was Palms and Ellen has a "Snow White" half beer, half sprite.

Scott worked the next two days while Ellen and the boys made it to the Zoo again, and just shopped around the city. Antwerp, while large with lots of things to do, it is also quite dirty, with much of the infrastructure falling apart (or so it seems). Coming in to the city at 11:00 pm on Friday night, driving right through the "ghetto" wasn't a pleasing experience. And it was strange to see Ice Cream Trucks driving through the ghetto at after 11:00 pm as well. While we had a fun time, it was a check mark off our list of things to do, and thats it!

This trip also marked another first - Joshua gets to face forwards!