Every year I post a recap of our travels by talking about my favorite places. Usually I can narrow the list to five or six places. But this year we spent four months in Europe! Trying to pick out favorites six months later would be a little difficult. Fortunately I made a list, thanks to Tom’s urging, of my favorite things each day of our trip. The best thing of each day is a varied list. One day it was seeing a glacier float by the ship. Another day it was Schwerin Castle in Germany. The day that I could barely walk and had strep throat, it was watching “A Man Called Otto,” which I consider an almost perfect movie.
At the end of the trip I marked the things that were my favorites out of the daily best thing list. Turns out there are thirteen favorite places on the list, so that will be my recap for the year. The list is longer than usual, but I saw so many things! At least I limited it to our European trip and didn’t include all the cool places we went in the US this year (19 new National Park sites!). I am going to divide this list into two posts because it is such a long list.
These are my thirteen favorite places of 2024. They are places that I think anyone would like, but especially if that person likes history. Or good food. Or beautiful scenery. Or yarn. The list is in order that we visited because I couldn’t separate it out any more than that. I would go back to any of these places. I am linking each place to Wikipedia in the title and to the post in my blog. You can go back to the blog if you want to find out more about why it is one of my thirteen favorite places.
One. Saint Peter Port, Guernsey. I had wanted to go to Saint Peter Port on the Isle of Guernsey ever since I read ““The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer. We went to Castle Cornet for some history, saw the German World War II fortifications, and had time to wander from shop to shop in this charming town. The city is small, only 20,000 people, so it was easy to find our way around. We had Guernsey ice cream and found a bookstore – two of my favorite things.
Two. Dover Castle, Dover. There has been a fortified castle on this one spot since Roman times. The oldest building on the grounds was a Pharos, a Roman lighthouse. Most of Dover Castle was built by King Henry II built most of the castle in the 1180’s. Other kings expanded it and new buildings were added as the uses expanded. We climbed Henry’s tower, took a look at the Pharos, and toured the World War II tunnels.
Three. Keukenhof, Netherlands. Keukenhof is one of the world’s largest gardens. From the middle of March until the middle of May, you can visit, along with thousands of other people, to see the tulip beds. The middle of April is the best time to go and that is when we visited. Over seven million tulips festoon the grounds and they are spectacular. It was hard to take it all in. After a while the sheer number of gorgeous flowers absolutely overwhelms. Go – and go in April.
Four. Fyrkat Viking Museum. The Ringborgen (Viking Fortress) is a very impressive UNESCO World Heritage site, but Tom and I enjoyed the Viking Living History Farm much more than the ancient fortress. Talking to Vikings! Seeing how they lived! And they spoke perfect English! It was so much fun. Tom and I wanted to spend the whole day there. Tom was trying to figure out how we could volunteer there, but we figured we would have to learn how to speak Danish.
Five. Visby, Sweden. Tom and I had a long day in Visby and we are so glad we did. We started out by walking all around the medieval wall that preserves the old town as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After looking at the city from the outside, we worked our way in, checking out bakeries and shops. We went to a wonderful yarn shop and I got some Gotland yarn. I am still working my way through all the yarn I bought on the trip. After a wonderful day in the city we posed for our picture at the I Love Visby sign and got ice cream at Europe’s largest ice cream store. Yarn, ice cream, history, a long walk. A perfect day!
Six. Hadrian’s Wall, England. Walking along Hadrian’s Wall crossed off a big item on my bucket list. The idea of a border between Roman Britannia and wild Caledonia has always appealed to the romantic and the nerdy historian in me. Seeing it stretch across the countryside was a dream come true. Although I didn’t get to spend much time walking along it, seeing it was enough. I also enjoyed talking to the living history people at Chesters Roman Fort and Museum, another dimension to Hadrian’s Wall.
Seven. Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford, England. Blackwell’s Bookshop epitomizes everything you think of when you think of Oxford University. History, academic rigor, tradition. It is the world’s largest academic bookstore, which made Tom’s engineering heart very happy. The bookstore didn’t look like much from the outside, but it was huge inside. Five stories! Tom and I were only able to spend an hour there but we stayed as long as we could, even skipping lunch. We could have stayed all day.
I will stop there for today with my thirteen favorite places. On Friday I will post the other six places. Have you been to any of the places I listed? Do you have a favorite European spot that you think should be on my list?