Bizarre Brussels, Belgium

Brussels is a beautiful city, full of ornate old architecture from the Gothic period, and rich in interesting and diverse history.  One of my favorite pieces of architecture are the guild houses in the town square (bottom center).  The detail is staggering.  I just stood and stared at them for a while.

Tower of London

Embarrassing confession of the day: I used to think the Tower of London was one of the towers on Tower Bridge.  And I thought that up until the day my tour guide said "here's the Tower of London" and pointed at what would generally be described as a castle or fortress.  Whoops.

Due in part to my ignorance and in part because it is Sar's favorite part of London, I took a tour of the Tower.

Top left: Traitor's Gate
Bottom left: My tour guide
Top right: The White Tower and Tower Bridge
Bottom right: Old meets new. Tower of London in the midground, the Gherkin in the background

Fandoms' London

Upper left: The pub Charles Dickens frequented, still standing

Middle left and bottom left: the buildings Gringotts was modeled after

Center: "Feeeeeeed the birds!"

Upper right: Temple of Templar Knights, as seen in The Da Vinci Code

Bottom right: Millenium bridge.  Aka the bridge the death eaters destroy in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

That's right.  I never even made it to 221B Baker Street or Platform 9 3/4 (it's just not the same anymore) and still I was surrounded by fandoms!

More London

First, Traditional London:

Covent Garden! (Look kids!) Big Ben!  Tower Bridge!  (Look kids!) Big Ben...again!  Tower of London!  (Yeah, I didn't realize it wasn't a tower.  I thought it was part of Tower Bridge.  This is embarrassing, especially given it's my best friend's favorite part of London.  She's weird, it's ok.)

Art and architecture in Liverpool

Liverpool is an artsy city, not just because of music: it was declared the Cultural capital of Europe in 2008.

Bath time

On my last day in Cardiff I took a day trip out to Bath, which is really all you need.  It's pretty (mostly due to the fact that all the buildings are primarily made out of the same white stone) and it's neat to wander around the only entire city that UNESCO has designated a world heritage site, but there's not a lot to do.  I spent an hour touring the Roman Baths, and then window shopped a little, then I was ready to go home.

Castles and Haggis: It's Scotland!

Scotland is absolutely beautiful.  It's green, there's cliff's everywhere, and there's centuries of architecture smooshed into Edinburgh.

When you think of Paris...

...you inevitably think of the Eiffel Tower.

Farewell Tour of Zagreb

Tomorrow morning I hop a train to Munich (change of plans!) so today I -- and my belly full of food poisoning (one should not choose a tuna sandwich that's been sitting in the deli window for God knows how long, even if one is suffering from an acute hypoglycemic episode) -- took one last trek through Zagreb.

On a whim I entered the Archaeological Museum, only to find out that it was closing in 20 minutes.  Lucky for me, Sundays are free, so I took advantage of my twenty minutes and asked the museum workers for a recommendation.

"Third floor."

"Oh, third floor, yes." 

"Third floor, on your left."

Upper left: broach made with a pretty rock during the iron age
Upper middle: stone figurines that look a helluva lot like bears to me
Upper right: repeatedly patched pot
Lower left: a bunch of pendants and other jewelry
Lower middle: A doll's head?
Lower right: more broaches

Wandering around Zagreb, Croatia

I set out today with almost no agenda and was greeted with a few mini adventures in the northern part of Zagreb.