Butler Family Travels

Sarah the Logistics Queen had quite a load of work arranging visit dates and the transport between them for the last bit of our trip.  As time draws shorter, arrangement of the last destinations becomes more interconnected, so a flurry of research and reservations have been necessary. Visits to England, Prague, Amy in Hamburg, Therese, […]

We are learning that the attempt to see and do it all can be counterproductive to our desire to experience a place.  Making a list of the things we would like to do or see before arrival in a city or place is helpful.  Especially if we then do just barely enough of those activities […]

We caught the train early in the morning from Basingstoke to Waterloo Station – just a 40 minute ride and we were in the heart of the city where England swings like a pendulum do Bobbies on bicycles, two by two Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben The rosy red cheeks of the little […]

“Cheers, lovely, smashing!” Yep. We are in England and they really say it just like that. At least the elderly lady beside me said it as she was handed a hot coffee. We went to church with the Sakakinis on Mothering Sunday and had coffee and cake after the service. Mothering Sunday is the European […]

Finding lodging each place we go always proves to be an adventure. We’ve booked places in advance and had the dates all wrong. We’ve showed up cold turkey other places and found better prices than if we had booked. You just really never know. One thing is always the same, however, and that is that […]

Turns out we traveled to England so that Sarah and Rebekah could go to the thrift store.  Here they call them charity shops and they are everywhere.  Starbucks and McDonalds don’t have a prayer in the race to be on every corner.  Who wants to see Stonehenge or the tower of Big Ben when there is […]

Purpose is medicine for a family habitually driven to do something!  Don’t misunderstand, while we are sure that the passive intake of tourism is therapeutic for us, change of pattern is also difficult. One of our goals in the UK was to visit the Isle of Bute in Scotland.  Sarah’s great, great Grandfather Peter Barr, […]

I’m sure you have all figured out how this blogging thing works. It’s a bit like a diet. Binge, starve, binge, starve… No consistency whatsoever. Please bear with us. If you care enough to do the math you would know that we are NOT actually in Milan anymore and haven’t been for almost 2 weeks. […]

We have learned to eat where the locals eat, but sometimes that takes a day or two to figure out. When I first got to Athens,though, it was easy to find a Gyros stand where I got one and promptly dripped tsatsiki sauce and made a mess on myself. This became a regular experience for […]

We spent a day driving north from the coast through Provence, stopping in St. Remy for lunch. It was a small touristy town that reminded us too much of Leavenworth. Beautiful place with great shops and old buildings, but everything was made in China. So we bought locally-made baguettes, cheese and wine, soaked up some […]