After saying goodbye to beautiful Budapest our travels included one planned stop and a few days through Germany and into France. Essentially, we were repositioning for our planned trip to the UK, but first we had a few chores to get out of the way.
The planned stop was Bratislava, Slovakia, and wow, that city could not have been more different than Budapest. In other words, I wasn’t terribly fond of it. Of course, we only visited for one afternoon, but frankly, that was enough.
I am sure it was just our timing and that there is so much more to the city than what we experienced. But the month of June is wedding season and from what we could see, brides and grooms (hens and stags) from all over Europe love to celebrate in Bratislava. It is centrally located, easy to reach, loaded with booze and inexpensive. What’s not to love?
Stag parties had taken over the downtown area. These consist of grooms and their buddies all wearing the same T-shirts with the groom further decked out in tutus and wigs, indulging in bottomless beers and shots, while singing all their favorite songs. Loudly. At the cafe where we had lunch we got smushed in between two stag parties who were competing to see who could be the loudest and which groom could be the most ridiculous. Our burgers were tasty, though.
As we walked further through town, two brides in full wedding dress were traipsing through the streets while being followed by their photographers and wedding parties. No doubt their photos will be gorgeous as it is a lovely town.
We took it all in stride but were happy to get back to Bijou and settle in for the night. For the first time ever we had parked on the side of a road because the parking lot where we had planned to stay was full. All seemed fine until about 4 a.m. when someone decided it would be fun to bang on the passenger side window, which is right where our heads lay while we are sleeping. It scared the crap out of us, but whoever did it was long gone by the time we checked outside. After that, we had no more trouble.
We had a couple of unremarkable travel days into France. We had selected the town of Haguenau as the place where we would stop and get a few things done. Specifically, booster vaccines, a doctor’s appointment for Steven and a control technique for Bijou. She has to pass inspection every two years and it had been a while since Steven had had bloodwork or a physical of any kind, so we figured this was as good a time as any to get that done.
We chose Haguenau because it is small enough that we can get around on foot or bike and we don’t want to try and navigate medical care in a big city, such as Strasbourg a few kilometers away. We were able to get everything set up online prior to our arrival. France has a great app called Doctolib that helps us find local doctors who speak English and where we can book appointments online. So by the time we arrived in Haguenau, we went straight to the pharmacy where we had booked an appointment for our booster vaccines and got that over with right away.
We hoped that everything would be done in a couple of days, but as it turned out, both Bijou and Steven needed a little extra work and diagnostics. Bijou had a couple of minor issues that needed fixing before she could pass her CT, but the technician also told us that “next time” she would need new brakes. We figured we might as well get that done too so we scheduled her in to the nearest shop we could find that could do the job immediately. They gave us a car to use while Bijou was in the shop and, as it was a really hot day, we took off to IKEA in Strasbourg to hang out in the air conditioned store. IKEA is such a great place to kill time and by the late afternoon Bijou was done and we were parked up once again at the aire in Haguenau.
Steven’s testing turned up a low iron issue and the doctor gave him an RX for iron supplement pills. And spoiler alert, Steven is a new man these days. The lack of energy he has had for months has all but disappeared. It is amazing that the loss of energy was so slow that neither one of us really recognized it for what it was. Steven chalked it up to getting old and I blamed it on cream pastries, but really he was just low on iron. What a difference those pills have made! Given what we know now, we are both shocked that he was able to walk halfway across Italy! That’s dedication right there.
All in all we stayed in Haguenau for ten days before hitting the road again. We had hoped to spend a couple of days in Luxembourg, but we needed to get ourselves to the UK. We took the ferry from the Hook of Holland in the Netherlands and arrived in Harwich in England. It was a six and a half hour ferry ride, which could have been much shorter if we had gone from France to England, but we didn’t want to go anywhere near London.
We had absolutely no plans once we reached the UK, other than a stop in Cambridge. Turns out we liked it so much we stayed there for two weeks! More on that next time!
And finally, it’s been a little while since an art post from Steven so let’s remedy that now. This is one of his latest works, inspired by our visit to Morocco back in 2020. This is a scene in Chefchaouen, the Blue City. If you would like to see more, you can keep up with what he’s doing by following his Visual Art page here.
Next up: Cambridge!
Glad to hear y’all took things a bit slower. Especially glad to hear the iron supplement was such a huge help for Steven. I just got a brake job on my Durango!
Y’all take care xoxoxo
Those brake jobs are important! We had Bijou’s checked in Norway because I was convinced they were going to fail on one of those big descents, but they were fine. 🙂
Good to hear from u guys, all hail n hearty!!!
Thanks, Dolores! We are behind in posting, but otherwise doing well!
Glad both Steven and Bijou’s issues could be fixed with relative ease. Looking forward to reading about your travels in England. Assuming your blog is not in real time as the Queen’s passing would certainly be impacting your time there.
We are currently in Scotland. The funeral for the Queen is tomorrow and everything is closed. Other than that, we have not be anywhere close to cities or anyplace that would be crowded. We are enjoying Scotland, everything is gorgeous!
I was trying to figure out the timing and think this was early summer? It’s great how comfortable you are just bipping through different countries and getting repairs and healthcare taken care of!! Wonderful that the iron supplements made such a difference for Steven. Can’t imagine a whole town of bachelor and wedding parties!! Niagra Falls was the only place we’ve seen bridal couples among the crowds. The vending pizzas have to be good or really horrible :-))) Looking forward to your time in Cambridge. Beautiful piece Steven, I’m ready to see what’s around that corner!
Yes, this was actually in the month of June before we made it to Ireland. I am so behind in posting. I am determined to catch up, though!
Haha, love the photo of Steven and Winnie der Poohbar! I’m sure all of the guys at the stag parties were having fun, but…kinda annoying for everyone else, LOL. So glad that you were able to get medical stuff taken care of easily on the road and that Steven is feeling better. I’ll bet he’s happy he didn’t have to give up cream pastries. And wow, that is a gorgeous painting!
I still think the cream pastries are partially to blame, but he says otherwise. And he’s doing so much better, so what do I know?? 🙂
I was just thinking that it has been awhile since we’d heard about your travels! Thanks for posting.
I know! I am a bit behind but I am working hard to get caught up!
Great to see a post from you. Good to know both of you are doing good. Good brakes can sometime come in handy.
Vern in record sitting heat Boise ( 26 days of hundred or better, and all the rest in the nineties .
So good to hear from you, Vern! I hope it has cooled off in Boise, that weather is TOO HOT! We managed to stay out of the heatwaves this year, thankfully! 🙂
What a wonderful post. Thank you, friends!
Our pleasure, thanks for taking time to comment!
So glad that Steven is ok now. Amazing, indeed, that he walked so far while being low on iron. Not fun.
Take good care of yourselves and enjoy the rest of your time in England. Best, Maggie
Thanks, Maggie! So far we have been loving our time in the UK (currently in Scotland)! I am utterly amazed that Steven managed to walk the VF as he did. Looking back, I honestly believe it was sheer willpower. He is so happy now that he can easily walk up a big hill that he’s kind of being annoying, wanting to go for a walk all the time! 🙂 Hope you and Joel are doing well!
Several years ago, I realized my hair was falling out. “That’s not ideal,” I thought. I was developing an actual bald spot on the top of my head. WTH?? Long story short – I had an iron deficiency brought about by giving a blood donation. Who knew iron was so important and who knew it was so easy for some people to end up with a shortage of it? Certainly not me. In any case, a couple months on a prescription strength supplement and I was back to normal. Glad it worked for Steven too. There are, apparently, a million ways an iron deficiency can mess up your life. Glad you were able to get good care on the road.
And I really can’t believe you skipped on the opportunity to try vending machine pizza. I mean, how could you leave your readers hanging like that? “It’s probably terrible, but maybe it’s amazing? And now, we’ll NEVER know.”
Finally, I love the painting – impressive detail in the shadow of the tree and the texture of the wall… Really nice!
Listen, that pizza is still weighing heavy on my mind. I won’t make the mistake of passing it by again. 🙂 How’s the new digs?