Krefeld

Long ago, when he was still at school, John had stayed with a family in Krefeld, Germany for a few weeks to improve his German. Some years later, the eldest son of the family came to stay with us in Cambridge for a short time. Over the years, contact had been lost, but about 18 months ago John searched the Internet and found the family still in Krefeld. Ryanair has a flight from Beziers to Dusseldorf which opened in March and so we decided to go to see them for a few days.












Eva, Gerd and some of their family live on the outskirts of Krefeld in the historical town of Linn. They renovated their 16th century house themselves - Gerd who rang a joinery business, had also built their first house.
















The front door is the entrance to their house and to another, where their granddaughter lives. There is a way through to garages for the houses around them.










Two of Eva and Gerd's children joined us for brunch on Sunday, together with one of the grandchildren.













Linn has a castle dating back to the 12th century.
















There is also a hunting lodge close to the entrance to the castle as well as a museum (once the home to a wealthy family).





















It has a music room in the house with an exhibition of long gone equipment including a piano roll and an old record player.























The entrance to the castle.



















Inside the castle walls

















A view from the top of the tower and panorama.

























Inside the castle, a tapestry















The bread oven
















Old fire engines which are sometimes used for display purposes, but not in April!














After our tour of the castle, we walked around the small town with Eva, calling into a couple of art exhibitions.












We took our leave of Eva and Gerd in the evening an returned to the centre of Krefeld.

The following day we looked around the town and relaxed, before our flight back to Beziers.





- Pat and John on tour

Pat and John on tour

Pat and John on tour

London and home

We had intended to spend three days in London, seeing the family on our way home.

When we arrived, Ernie had been unwell with a stomach virus for a week and Helen had been unable to work. Our offer to help out was accepted and so we stayed until Ernie was well enough to go back to his child carer. While he wasn't 100%, he was well enough for us to do our usual trips to the parks, cafés and do the shopping.

One day, John took Ernie to a shopping centre where there was room to run around and another day, we took him to Hamely's on Regent street - his little eyes lit up as soon as we entered! He was given an enormous blue balloon/bubble which had just been blown and loved the yapping toy animals and bus layouts with moving buses. Most of all, he loved the space to run around and picked up a push along toy that he has at home and a bus that he knows from his child minder, then ran around the shop.




















We left the shop with a London bus, a taxi and a friction drive bus which he adores.







He is fascinated by the drain in the summer pool in one of the nearby parks, and always has to investigate it.









In the park, Ernie is always on the look out for balls (usually belonging to other children)










and scooters, which he is obsessed with and just pushes around. It became very clear that his birthday is too far away, and so his Christmas voucher for the local toy shop was used to buy an orange scooter and we put him on it and headed straight for the park for him to try it out in the drained pool.





By now, Ernie was back to normal and eating!

We returned home on Tuesday and are leaving today (Saturday) for 3 days visiting friends of John in Krefeld in northern Germany.



- Pat and John on tour

Lisbon (2)

We had two days to see the rest of Lisbon. We took a hop on-hop off tour so that we could cover the central area on the first day,and the the more westerly area, towards the Atlantic on the second.

The central area, which had some very steep slopes, was on an old tram. Because of road works, the tram was going the wrong way round the circuit, so one had to always look left when the view was on the right and vice versa. The tram drivers were extremely patient, waiting for motorists who were parking carelessly to return to their cars. Photos were not easy with the tram wires, trees and other obstructions.



A tram, with free loaders










The very elegant Rosario railway station designed in 1886.












Praça do Comércio, originally the location of a palace which was destroyed in an earthquake in 1755. The trams start from here.










Tiled houses, typical of Lisbon streets


















Kiosks are everywhere











São Benito Palace, the home of the Portuguese parliament.








Sé cathedral




















Igreja de Sao Vicente de Fora and the monastery dominate the skyline.



















Close by is St George's fort with magnificent views across the city, peaceful places to sit and a peacock with a magnificent tail (and doesn't he know it!)





































The following day we took the bus down the Tagus river and closer to the sea to pay our respects to Vasco da Gama in the St Jerome Monastery, which dates back to the 15th century.






The monastery.










This is where da Gama rests.














The cloisters of the monastery are magnificent.





























Our next stop was the tower of Belem which was built in the early 1500s as a defence close to the mouth of the Tagus river.









The tower is ornate and has good views of the 25th April ('red bridge'' reminiscent of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco)









and the Cristo Rei statue (reminiscent of Rio da Janeiro).





Here we are on the Tower of Belem.







In the evening, we took our final photos of Lisbon, the St Juste elevator








A now deserted building.









- Pat and John on tour

Sintra

Sintra is not far outside Lisbon and towards the Atlantic at the foot of the Sintra mountains. It has an old Moorish castles and 19th century palaces, where once the Portuguese kings and queens spent the summer. It is now a UNESCO heritage site, with a constant flow of tourists, being an easy trip from Lisbon.

We had originally planned to go to Sintra on the third day of our visit, but were told that Lisbon closed on Monday, but Sintra was open, so we rapidly altered our plans and hopped on the train.






This is the town hall, close to the station.

We intended to cover three sites, the National Palace, the Pena Palace and the Moorish castle. John thought that we could walk between the sites, but Pat was doubtful. The route to the National Palace was fine, but then we saw the castle and other palace high above us, and it was clear that the bus was needed.







The moorish castle from the town.












An 'aerial' view of the National Palace from the Moorish Castle.







After lunch, we asked up the road to the National palace along a winding road. We passed this resting place on the way up to the palace.







The National Palace from the road. The two 'towers' are actually the kitchen chimneys. The current building dates from the 15th century, although there was an earlier castle that was the residence of the Moorish rulers. It continued to be used by the royal family until the 19th century.








This is the swan room, so called after the swans painted on the ceiling.









This courtyard is in the process of restoration. Wall paintings from the 16th century have been discovered and restored.



















Other rooms,










The ceiling of the mermaid room






















The Blason (Coat of Arms) room.










Outside the castle












We then took the bus up to the Moorish castle or at least as close as we could get by bus - we still had a good walk up.














We passed the church of St Pedro, on the way.
















We reached the top of the tower, but some of the climb was a bit hairy for Pat who doesn't like narrow paths with a steep drop.





A panoramic view from the castle






Our last stop was the Pena Palace. It was once a chapel and then a monestry was added, before both were severely damaged by an earthquake in the 18th century. The buildings were restored in the 19th century as a palace by the heir apparent. If Walt Disney had been around at the time, I wouldn't be surprised.










The gateway, front and back


























The main entrance and detail











A newt, apparently, over the main entrance.











John photographing the newt.















The clock tower









And courtyard







The royal dining room










Window in the chapel













The Noble room











The clouds sweeping in at the end of the day




- Pat and John on tour