Cambridge Sabbatical

  No, we have not just jetted back to Austria - this is just an overdue post... During our stay in Prague, we took a trip south to the nearest Alps in Austria - the Dachstein Massif. The foothills of this beautiful peak are full of turquoise lakes, and we stayed at one of them -Wolfgangsee - for a few days. Wolfgangsee looks like this when viewed from the nearby mountain called Schafberg: To get up the mountain, we took this cute cog railway: The view from the top was amazing, and we had a great time hiking back down to town After the Wolfgangsee warmup, we went to stay at a mountain hut called Gjaid Alm - a 15 minute walk from the last gondola station on the mountain. The weather was foggy when we got there: ...but then turned sunny and beautiful for the three days we stayed. My cousin Tereza joined us with her family. We all climbed the Taubenkogel mountain the next day: Here is the hut again, both from the outside and from the inside. The other thing we did on this trip was clim...

 We have been staying with my aunt Veronica in Devon for a week.  Rustic country lanes, Stonehenge, horse riding, and cream everywhere! (Cream teas, ice cream, and cream poured on everything). She lives in a village inside Dartmoor National Park, so we went on hikes, horse rides, e-bike rides, and scenic drives. 

 On Sunday we went on a 20 mile bike ride with Deborah and her family. It’s the longest Hanna has ever ridden and the longest in a while for Lenny! Delicious lunch by a canal, and then into Amsterdam (scary city biking) to drop off the bikes and take the train about 15 minutes back to our Airbnb in Weest where we had a light dinner at home and went to bed early! Monday was our museum day. We unfortunately didn’t know about needing to book the Van Gogh museum a week ahead, so that will have to wait for next time. Instead we went to the Rejksmuseum, where Eliza threw multiple tantrums and the big kids did a fun scavenger hunt. Then robert and Eliza went home for nap, while Lenny Hanna and I got pizza and went to Micropia, a fantastic novel museum about microbes.  Then a relaxing one hour boat tour on the canals and we collapsed onto the train to go home for pasta night! 

 We are in Amsterdam visiting Colette's cousin Deborah and her family.  We have 5 nights here and we're staying in a small town just outside Amsterdam to save on Airbnb costs!  We have a 2 bedroom house next to a canal, near restaurants and cafe's.    On Friday we took the train to Amsterdam, rented bicycles for 3 days and rode them home.  On Saturday (today) we took another ride to a fascinating fortress town, went home for lunch, and then Hanna and Colette went to the museum of modern art, then we all met up at my cousin's house for a traditional Indonesian/Dutch rijstaffel dinner (a mix of about 20 dishes of meat, vegetables and rice).