The Framptons' Blog » travel

Barcelona, Spain

Ken — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:07:08 +0000

We recently returned from a week in Barcelona. We had a great time and what a fantastic city! The week didn’t start off so well though. When we arrived at the Barcelona airport we called the owner of the appartment we had rented only to learn that it had been double booked! The rental agency worked hard to find us another place for the week. It turned out to be a dump. The only heat were two plug-in rediators, the hot water didn’t work, the bed sheets stank and the neighborhood sucked. So the next day we found an internet cafe, logged on to one of those “last-minute-hotels.com” sites and booked a suite in a 5 star hotel (at a pretty good price). We did get our money back for the crappy appartment too.

One of the coolest parts of the city is Las Ramblas, a street through the heart of the old city. It is packed with street performers, shops and weirdos (besides us).

We spent New Years Eve at our hotel having a very nice din

ner. We capped off the year by setting our table on fire with som

e of the confetti we were given!

Holiday in Crete

Ken — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:57:00 +0000

Hi its Lynlee – I am posting under Ken’s name because I can’t remember my logon details – [Ken has edited this post to include appropriate photos]

Our summer holiday this year was to Georgiopolis, Crete with our good friends the Luckwells. Phil and Carol have been going to the same place in Crete for about 10 years running and are treated like family at the hotel. So we wer on holicay with Carol and Phil along with their daughter Katie and her boyfriend, Eric.

Georgiopolis is a small pretty much tourist town on the northwest end of the island between Hania and Rethymnon. The hotel is about 1/2 mile up the mountain with a georgeous view of the city.

We had a pretty small room with one bathroom between the 4 of us with a shower just inches from the toilet. Mary is going through a very shy time regarding anyone seeing her without clothes on but we had to convince her that if she was going to take 30 minute showers someone might have to come in during it. I am not kidding – I did it and got wet. The plumbing in Crete is a little old fashioned so you couldn’t put toilet paper down the toilet anywhere. Big signs in english reminded you at every toilet. OK – enough about the bathrooms.

The hotel is a family affair with Ava doing all the cooking, her Mike waiting tables and taking care of us and grandchildren helping out as well. One night we told Ava that we wanted to eat there for dinner and she had a couple other people – a Scottish couple and their kids that the Luckwells knew and a couple of old geezers. They set one big table for 20 and we ate family style – no menu just what Ava was cooking that night. That night we had 2 types of lamb, green beans from Ava’s garden and greek salad. She charged us only for the wine that night. There are photos on Picassa web showing this night including the strange drinking game we played called “systema”.

The secound night we ate at the hotel was a lunar eclipse and we had no idea it was going to happen. We had been on the beach until late because we were watching the most beautiful full moon come up. Here’s a picture of Noah on the beach that night.

When we got back we were all too tired to go out so down to the resturant we went. Of coarse the resturant looks right over the city and we were sitting outside that night.

At one point Mary looked at the moon and said it wasn’t full anymore and sure enough one little corner of it was starting to go away. Throughout our evening we watched the moon get smaller and smaller. Believe it or not we were in a place that had a view over an 80% eclipse. Apparently it was complete about 1:30am but I had gone to bed a little bit before then.

Our first day in Georgeopolis we spent the whole day at the pool downtown. Noah and Mary met a couple of kids just their age from Wales and spent the whole day in the pool. Certain parents neglected to put suncreen on their children and both of them got lots of sun that day. The pool was right in front of the beach so you could either stay at the pool or wander down to the beach anytime. There was also a resturant right at the pool which allowed us to let the kids stay in the pool while we ate lunch. That night we got back to the room and Noah was exhausted. The whole group of us was going into Rythemnon that night but Noah asked if he could go to bed – at 7:00. I stayed with him while the rest of the group drove into Rythemnon.

Ava was kind enough to bring me a yummy greek salad for dinner that night along with some of her homemade meatballs. I made the group promise that we would go back to Rythmnon another time due to the fact that the real shopping is there.

The next day we went to a water park and the kids ran into the friends they had made at the pool the day before.

OK – this is a small place. Great pools and amazing water slides. There was one slide that was a total free fall. I got to the top of it and said NO WAY. When we got back to the chairs I asked Ken if he had let Noah go on that slide. I didn’t get a straight answer so I had to go to the boy. And YES he went on it.

One morning right after I had boiled water for my coffee – yes I was using a cafeteria to make coffee – no laughing. Anyway the electricity went out. Ava said that “it happened now and then” and it would come on later. Apparently some type of engery saving measure. We got into town and all the resturants were open but you couldn’t get anything hot or cold. No one seemed at all worried about it. We got to the pool and they had a generator so I got my Diet Coke with Ice – thank you very much. The one grocery store we went to had a generator as well. It was all very strange in that if the electrity goes out in the US – life pretty much grinds to a halt – but here it wasn’t any big deal. As it turned out there had been a major fire that had blown out a transformer. We had light when we returned from Rythemnon were we went for dinner that night because we thought that would be far enough away that they would have electricty.

The last day of our trip we went on a boat ride. They took us to an area where a hermit supposedly lived but we had to swim to the shore and then climb up to his home. It was pretty cool although it was staged. They took us on a ride to another cute beach where we hung out for a while and then back to the boat for lunch.

This was one of the best trips we’ve had in Europe. We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing but really just relaxed and soaked up the sun. On one of the last days Noah was actually mistaken for a local boy because he was so brown.

THE FOOD WAS AWESOME- Lamb, greek salad, gyros and calamari. Did I mention lamb?

Vacation on Lake Como

Ken — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:42:00 +0000

We returned from our holiday on Lake Como in Italy a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time even though the weather wasn’t the best. Noboby seems motivated to blog about it now, but there are lots of pictures so go check those out.

Durdle Door

Ken — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:28:00 +0000

Noah and Ken spent an afternoon at Durdle Door along the Dorset coast of England.

On the way there we drove through the Dorset military range and Noah got to see some old tanks that they use for target practice (but not on the weekends).

Geologically, and visually, this is a very cool place. Click on the pictures to see more.

New Year’s in Brugge, Belgium

Ken — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:30:00 +0000

29Dec07 – The trip from Ypres to Brugge was really only about 60 – 90 minutes long. Once again though I was without good directions to the hotel. We were following directions to “Centre Brugge” and were really feeling very smug about our intelligence factor when we went into this tunnel which led directly into a parking garage. We were able to get out of the parking garage lane but had to pull over and let Ken look at the map. We got into old Brugge at about 5:00pm and it was a madhouse. This is a not a place that was ever built for cars. It was hopping with people shopping and walking around and buggies pulled by horses. Pulled over again and called the hotel. We ended up finding a place to pull over right in front of the hotel and were able to unload and then Ken and Mary went to park the car.

So Brugge was once a 13th-century cloth making center and is know as Brugge (Flemish), or Bruges (French). Apparently the city was right on the North Sea in those days but over the centuries the city has lost its port and canals were built. Today it has a very medieval feel and the center historic section is mainly pedestrian only.

So our hotel is not exactly posh as the Brits would say but the bar was open anytime so we went down and Noah made friends with the lady at the bar. She provided him with his own little bowl of nuts and a never ending supply of apple juice. She finally brought a bottle of apple juice out of the kitchen after the 2nd day instead of having to keep going back to the kitchen for Noah’s refills.

The shops were closing about this time so we decided to rest a while and then head out for dinner. Ken was in search of a cash machine so we did get a chance to walk through the town a little before deciding on a place to eat. We found this place that was covered with rock – n- roll star pictures and movie star memorabilla and Noah found an almost lifesize Elvis standing in the basement outside the bathroom.

Now Noah apparently has taken after his mother when she was young in that he wants to go to the bathroom about every 10 minutes. I actually discussed putting in the Lynlee Burton bathroom rule which I had as a child allowing me one trip per dinner. I can really remember trying to make the most of my one opportunity but that’s another story for my shrink. The interesting part was that I could actually go with Noah to the bathroom because especially in France most of the bathrooms were co-ed. This is really unnerving in a place where you can’t speak the language – walking into a bathroom to see a man standing at a urinal and actually being in the correct bathroom.

During our first walk around town all the shops were closed but there was a chocolate shop near the hotel. Of coarse Belgium is famous for its chocolates and you can get almost anything you want molded in chocolate. Mary was very distressed over the chocolate breasts.

30Dec07 – Our hotel did include breakfast and we continued to enjoy the standard European breakfast. I am not much for the meats and cheeses but I think I could get used to French bread and strawberry jam every morning. Yummy. The coffee was excellent in Belgium as well. I think poor Ken struggled with the coffee but it was perfect for me – very strong.

The first thing we did on Sunday morning was head for the center of Brugge and go on a horse and carriage ride. The center had an ice skating rink surrounded by the standard Christmas market shops which are very popular in Europe. The reviews I have seen about the Brugge Christmas market being mostly food and drink stalls are true and will tell you that Germany is the place to go for Christmas markets. They know how to do it.

The carriage ride lasted about 45 minutes and took us through the city to see the main historical spots. We had been promising the kids ice skating since November when we first starting planning the trip so we had to do that next. Mary did a great job and Noah finally got into the groove. Mary wanted to keep skating so I took Noah over to one of the places serving hot chocolate and he downed 2 hot chocolates in about 5 minutes. One of the ladies in the hot chocolate booth was from the US and she told me the best chocolate shop to go to – Gauller. We had lunch and headed to the Chocolate Museum. After the museum we decided it was time to find a place to start trying the 400 Belgium beers.

Now Belgium is also known for their beer and I must say that I am not a big beer fan but some of this stuff was really good. Ken tried and few and had the unfortunate experience to find out after the fact that most of the Belgium beer is actually 9% as opposed to the 3 – 4% that he is used to. We had a little trouble getting him back to the hotel after that first experience and for the rest of the trip he was a lot more careful. Instead of wine stores they have these beer stores and we went in one that was about the size of a small grocery store and did carry several hundred different types. They also have a glass for each type so you could buy your beer and the specific glass to go with it.

31Dec07 – This was the shopping day as well as the discovery of Belgium waffels by the kids. Actually Mary preferred the waffels while Noah preferred the pancakes which were really more like crepes – very thin. Both are served with whipped cream. Both enjoyed this as either breakfast or lunch. I have been eating a lot of omelettes, mussels and french bread. Fortunately we are walking quite a bit so hopefully I will still be able to fit in my clothes when we return.

I have reservations for dinner at an old church that puts on a medievel dinner theatre reenactment of a wedding from the 1400s. We stood in line for ever to get in and finally realized what was taking so long. Before you go in they stamp this big pole and introduce you. Tee hee – We were the Burton family since you know who made the reservations.