July 20, 2018

Norway: Bergen, The Fjords, and Oslo

Bergen is the gateway to the Fjords, which are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. We stayed in the Bryggen area, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The temperature when we were there was in the mid-60s and sunny, which was perfect for us! I read in an article while in Bergen that the Norwegians have a saying: “there’s no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.”   Fjord photos (below)   Fjords – We did the Norway in a Nutshell tour, which consisted of taking a 1.5 hour train ride from Bergen to Voss, and then a 1 hour bus ride from Voss to Gudvangen, a 2 hour boat…

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written by TravelDocta - Posted in Europe, Northern Europe, Norway

July 20, 2018

Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland

Glasgow Glasgow (which means “Green Place,” according to my friend, Steven, who is from Glasgow) was established in the 6th century, and it was a small fishing village with 1500 people. In 1100, they got a Bishop and a cathedral. Glasgow grew when tobacco lords wanted to build, and they left when immigrants wanted to live there, which made it become “slummy.”   There is a bridge over the River Clyde that is called the Garbles, which connected the city to a leper colony. When people came across the bridge from the leper colony, they had to ring a bell and cover themselves. They also had to have their own…

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written by TravelDocta - Posted in Europe, Northern Europe, Scotland

July 20, 2018

Dublin, Ireland

Home of Guinness beer (since 1759, they have a 9,000 year lease on the building, which started in 1757; the biggest Guinness factory is actually in Lagos, Nigeria!) and Jameson Whiskey “Dublin” comes from Duvh/dove [black] and Linn [pool], which reflected the inland harbor at the time, which was full of eels, so it looked black. It was eventually anglicized to Dublin. The city is 12 square miles, and is split in half by the River Liffey, around which it grew. Dublin is home of the largest Viking settlement outside of Scandinavia (outside of Denmark, primarily). They would get to Dublin Bay by making their way up the River Liffey….

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written by TravelDocta - Posted in Europe, Northern Europe, Ireland

July 17, 2018

Blogpost: Exploring Northern Europe

Greetings! My husband and I recently planned a trip to Scandinavia (defined in this entry as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), and because we were invited to a wedding in Scotland (which is not an independent state, so I couldn’t include it in my country count even though I had never been there before), we decided to go to Ireland as well! This brings my country count to 57. On the subsequent pages is an accounting of what we learned on our trip, information of which was primarily gathered from tours we went on, but also from people we talked to, and written material we gathered. I have outlined the countries…

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written by TravelDocta - Posted in Europe, Northern Europe

April 12, 2018

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

Greetings! During a recent extended weekend trip to Paris with my husband, we embarked on a day trip (2 hour train ride from Paris) to the small (2586km/1606mi) country of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is surrounded by France, Belgium, and Germany, and is considered to be a Grand Duchy and, as such, has figure heads with titles of “Duke” and “Duchess.” Below is some information that we learned about Luxembourg during our 2 hour walking tour. Please note that it is not intended to be an exhaustive history of the country:   Most of the land of Luxembourg was given to/taken by Belgium, which has a French speaking part of it. Luxembourg…

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written by TravelDocta - Posted in Europe, Luxembourg