Road trip through Scotland Ireland and Wales

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We had lots of sun cloud and rain everyday, our stereotype of of Irish and Scottish weather was strongly reinforced.  Luckily we would get some really interesting photo's in the process.   Our odometer on our rental bill was at 2200 miles of driving in our 11 day trip.   I never expected everything to be quite so beautiful throughout our trip,  I definitely think it's something worth experiencing even if its a bit cooler in the summer.
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At the top of Ben Nevis: 1344m

Caernarfon Castle sword fight

Welsh Highland railway steam train in Caernarfon.

Switzerland and South Germany (Luxembourg too!)

Between Zurich/Chur

On our 7 hour train trip to Zermatt with 7 train transfers!

Between Chur/Visp

Between Zermatt/Gornergrat

360 at Gornergrat station.

Between Zermatt/Gornergrat

Zermatt Downtown

Uhh.. I was too hungry to remember to photo our awesome Bratwurst  with bread and mustard in Basel Switzerland  :D

Dion, Ace and Suz.

Baden-Baden

Black Forest

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Bacharach

Bacharach

Luxembourg

Aschaffenburg

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See the rest of the photos here!

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Our 5 day speed vacation all came together very quickly once we got a call from Asaph telling us he suddenly decided to do a week vacation in Germany/Paris and wondered if we wanted to join him.  I've spent all my free time after work booking flights hotels and cars scrambling to put together a trip worthy of the giant price tag attached to flying with short notice.   It's hard to believe how well it all turned out and how much we accomplished in such a short period of time.  With some help from an unexpected change of warm sunny weather we were able to get some great views of central Europe.
Our journey through Switzerland is fantastic by train, it turns out doing a trip from one end of Switzerland to the other and back works perfectly for getting a "Swiss Pass" which gives you unlimited train travel for two days on the main train lines. It's pricey at 180 Swiss Francs per person but in the end your saving quite a bit and not worrying about where you go.   However while travelling in Germany I would recommend renting a car as it's surprisingly similar to driving in North America.  In fact I really enjoyed that part and it allowed us to cover lots of land and see many things in a short period of time.  We even ambitiously decided to trek it all the way into Luxembourg and when your driving at 200 kph it doesn't take as long as you think!

Ben & Jerry's Sundae Festival

Free ice cream!

More free ice cream!

Oh and bands too!

Ben & Jerry's Sundae Festival Site

Google map: Clapham Common park

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We heard about this little gem of a festival though someone Susan met at work.  The key attraction is the free all you can eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream!  I suppose the catch is it's £17 a ticket but it's hard to pass up an opportunity to eat as much ice cream as you want while enjoying some quality entertainment.   Aside from day being pretty overcast the sun eventually came through in the end which topped a cherry to an excellent day.

The Imperial War Museum London

British Red Cross Jeep- I love these things!

Nazi auto pilot jet bombers that struck England.  Distance before diving down was calculated by the rotations of  a mini propeller at the nose.

Susan in front of an interesting bomber used in WW2.

It had two floors with a little desk for radio and mapping coordinates. So neat!

Imperial War Museum:Official Site

Imperial War Museum:Google Link

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I read in the paper on Friday that apparently our summer is pretty much finished here in England which is very disappointing, we are expecting roughly 40 days of cold and wet.  So Saturday we decided to make the best of it and check off another museum we've been meaning to see here in London.  For it being another free museum there was too much for us to see in our 4-5 hour stay!    Tanks and airplanes from various wars between 1880's to the Gulf War including miniature models of battlefields, war videos and mountains of various weapons and tools. There is a lot of amazing, interesting and depressing things to learn about at this museum and there are 5 more different war museums still to see!

Private WB Showing of Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2

Empire Theatre

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We were recently informed at Rocksteady that WB was kindly giving free showings to their employees (and families) to see the final Harry Potter at Empire Theatre in Leicester Square two day's after it's Premiere.
Aside from the novelty of getting to see the movie before the public, it just felt authentic to watch it as part of the WB employees, some of whom worked on the film.  Meanwhile to be in the heart of London watching a British movie that references London and England throughout it really did end up being a pretty special experience.