We boarded Hayden’s first vaporetto, and the small boat was buzzing with excitement, full of foreigners so thrilled to be in their dream destination. I could easily spot the honeymooners (the men playing with their wedding rings, and the women still sporting wedding manicures and perfectly waxed eyebrows). There were also older couples, returning to Venice to relive the romantic locations of their courtship. Once we arrived on the main island, I converted the Kelty backpack to a stroller, and the two of us ambled along the edge of the canal as we enjoyed our first taste of sunshine in weeks.

(Sadly I only have mobile phone pictures for this trip, as the DSLR was too big to fit in the backpack)

A few hours later, we were reunited with mum and Josef. They hadn’t seen Hayden since he was four months old, so he was very excited to show off his new skills that included crawling, clapping, and eating solids. We all traipsed off to find dinner, and Hayden sampled a Caprese mozzarella and tomato salad while I caught up on news from Australia. Hayden seemed really happy to see his grandparents again, and even scored some complementary cookies from the waiter.

We spent the next day visiting the quieter islands of Murano and Burano. We admired the delicate stitching of lace in Burano and explored the canals lined with colourful houses. On the glass-blowing island of Murano, we watched three brothers working together to create a beautiful floral chandelier, then visited the showroom for a sampler of all the different pieces from the island. Mum bought me a striking blue and silver glass pendant for my birthday, a unique souvenir of our holiday.

After three nights in our delightful apartment amongst the rooftops of Venice, it was time to say goodbye with one final stroll along the Grand Canal. After their cruise, we will meet up with them again in Spain for a week in the foothills of the Sierra Blanca.

During the long weekend, the Hasselt Japanese Gardens celebrated o-hanami, the Cherry Blossom Festival. It is the one day of the year where one is permitted to sit on the grass underneath the sakura trees. Kim and Adrian colluded in order to create a suprise picnic for me that was accompanied by bubbly, green tea, and sake. The sun even came out for a few hours to we could sit in the warmth and watch Hayden enjoy some colourful hard-boiled eggs. (Interestingly, in Belgium, they seem to celebrate Easter by eating actual eggs rather than gorging on chocolate like we do in Australia.) After Adrian had peeled one for him and Hayden had taken a few mouthfuls, Hayden decided it was a lot more fun to just crumble his up and roll around on top of it until both he and the picnic blanket were covered in tiny specs of yolk.

The Hasselt gardens proclaim themselves to be the largest Japanese gardens in Europe, however at 2.5 acres by my research they come in fourth, after the 39 acre Valley of singing stones in Lithuania, the 29 acre Parc Oriental de Maulévrier in France and the 3.3 acre Kaiserslautern in Germany. Still, it was a fun way to mark the time of year in which Spring is supposed to arrive, and I hope that the sun will decide to spend some more time in Belgium sometime soon.

Last week the three of us took the train up to Oxford. We stayed in the Visiting Fellow’s snug one bedroom apartment at Corpus Christi College, curling up in front of the fireplace during the crisp cold evenings. Early on Thursday morning we had a tour guide from Oxbridge tours take us on a personalised walk through the colleges. It was really fascinating, so different compared to my university experience in Australia, from the climate to the buildings to to the admission procedure to the academic structures.

Our guide Jonathan emphasised that Oxford is more a collection of colleges rather than a single unified entitiy. A student must be accepted into a specific college to take classes. Although the lectures and the final exams are shared between all students, the individual tuition and tutors are each determined by the college of the student. There are large and small colleges, right-wing and left-wing, modern and ancient. As I read through the history book that was left in our apartment, I learnt that Corpus Christi College was founded in 1352. New rules in 1573 required that Latin was spoken at all times, on the pain of being beaten at the buttery hatch. In 1906, in order to bring in more funding, the admittance policy is broadened to include lay students, not just clergy. In 1960 women were allowed into the college to dine, and in 1983 the college admitted its first female matriculates, causing quite a furore.

Jonathan told us of some of the hundreds of academic traditions. Academic dress is worn during dinners, during exams, during chappel, during progress reports, and during formal lectures. Students are often given a white carnation by friends to wear in their buttonhole for their first exam and a red for the final exam of the semester. If one does very well during ones exams, one wears a fancier academic dress the next semester. Interestingly, we were told that when professors attend graduation ceremonies, they wear the academic dress of Oxford, not of their alma mater, a practise that is very different from most everywhere else.

I was scolded by a custodian for entering Christ Church through the exit, and ate at The Bear on Bear Lane. We visited The Eagle and Child pub where J. R. R. “Tollers” Tolkien, C. S. “Jack” Lewis, and other members of the Inklings read their work out loud to each other. We had lunch at the Turf Tavern, where Australian ex-Prime Minister and Rhodes Scholar set the 1953 world record for drinking a yard glass (1.4 litres) of ale in 11 seconds. We finished up of exploration of Oxford by walking through many of the areas used in the filming of Harry Potter, including the grand stair-well, the dining room, and the the cloisters at New College where an ersatz Mad Eye Moody transfigured Draco Malfoy into a ferret.

There is a “front door rule” that means that the position of the front door determines whether a house is classified as being in Belgium or the Netherlands. The nationality of the home is also indicated by a flag next to the house number. We visited the house in which the border goes straight through the middle of the door, and thus has two addresses (and two doorbells):

Loveren 2
2387 Baarle-Hertog
Belgium

and

Loveren 19
5111 Baarle-Nassau
The Netherlands

There was even a divisive border across my lunch, separating the savoury cheese and potato pancake from the sweet cherry crepe. I ate each in isolation and they were delicious.

Plus, JT hand-delivered to us a delicious Black & White cookie, all the way from New York City. Hayden is still too little, so I ate it for him.

While Adrian and his students presented their work to an international crowd, Hayden and I took long walks along the canals. The air was brisk but most days we had beautiful blue skies that were perfect for sightseeing. Once the talks had finished for the day we met up with Adrian and his colleagues to talk science over a few beers.

We had breakfast each morning in the elegant Winter Garden of the hotel – a huge glass-roofed room built in 1881 and filled with tropical ferns and a long buffet table filled with tempting treats. I started each day with poffertjes (tiny pancakes) with sour cherry sauce, and ended the day with poffertjes with maple syrup.

In between pancakes we managed to do some shoe shopping, as well as visiting the Wetheimpark and the Resistance Museum. A lovely way to mark the end of my maternity leave and squeeze in one more mini break before I go back to work next week.

Thanks to Grant for taking the photo.

We were all suffering due to the heatwave – unbearable highs of 28 both days. Hayden did not make the best first impression, and while all three of us turned up at their home sweaty, dehydrated, and cranky, only one of us was screaming. Yet they took us in and fed us delicious and locally sourced meals – quiche with spinach from their allotment, pancakes with home made wild berry jam, pizza with home-grown capsicum, and stewed apples picked the day before.

We spent most of the weekend outdoors, with a barbeque by the Cam one day and a long walk along the river the next. We walked from Cambridge to Fen Ditton, past cows on the commons, dozens of rowers, and families at home on their houseboats. Cambridge is such an idyllic town, with the energy of the university and the tranquility of the countryside synergising into a dynamic yet peaceful place.

We started the day at the Foundling Museum, built on the site of the old Foundling Hospital. Established in 1741 by sea captain Thomas Coram, it provided a home for children who were deserted under the age of one. For the first five years of their life, they were fostered out to farming families who lived in the region, breastfed by wet nurses and often treated as one of the family. However in their fifth year of life they were abruptly transferred to the Hospital, where they were dressed in uniforms indicative of their future careers – miniature military-style uniforms for the boys and domestic servants’ uniforms for the girls.

Most of these children were illegitimate, given up by their mothers to save their reputation. An unwed woman with a child was seen as morally repugnant, and often would no longer be able to find work. Often these women would continue to write to the hospital for years, inquiring about their child’s health and sending gifts. These letters were rarely passed onto the children until recently, often after the mother had passed away. There were so many women petitioning the hospital that a lottery system was initiated. I put Hayden in the lottery and he was admitted to the Hospital pending a medical review.

After our tour of the museum and an excellent caramel slice in the cafe, Hayden and I took a short walk to the Coram’s Fields Park, also on the site of the Foundling Hospital. As no adults are permitted without children, it was my first time inside. Filled with children running barefoot through the fountains, I took Hayden to see his first goats, chickens, and rabbits at the petting zoo. He wasn’t terribly impressed, but he loved spending the day out and about in the stroller and in my arms. He was in an exceptionally good mood all day, charming strangers with smiles and giggles. One of the best days he and I have had together, a glorious way to enjoy the sunshine.

When we checked in at the hotel yesterday, they told us they would guarantee a good night’s sleep or give us our money back. I laughed and pointed to our cranky little peanut and told them it looks like we’ll be staying for free.

Airport security let him stay in his baby carrier as we passed through the metal detectors, Brussels Airlines ushered us on first and took care of our stroller, and Vincent the flight attended thought that Hayden was so adorable that he gifted him with an autographed bib.

I think that Hayden enjoyed his trip very much. If he wasn’t being lulled to sleep by the gentle motion of the train or the ship, he was bumping along in his stroller or nestled up against us in his baby carrier. Lots of fresh air, new sights, and friendly strangers chatting away to him in exotic tongues, he was better behaved than when he is at home cooped up inside with us. I’m sure that logistics will be more difficult once he starts crawling, but at the moment he is a great travel companion.

In contrast, the MS Versteralen was a great fit for us. Built in 1983 and refitted in 1995, she has 306 cabins to hold 510 passengers, and has a cruise speed of 15 knots (28 km/hr). As soon as we boarded, Hayden was welcomed aboard and given his own passenger ID card to use when disembarking and embarking at the ports. We were able to check immediately into our cabin, complete with old-fashioned porthole. It made things so easy to have a home base to shower, sleep, and change Hayden whenever we wished.

The Hurtigruten ferry route has its origins back in 1891 when the government put out a tender for an express route between Trondheim and Hammerfest, as at the time it took three weeks for a letter to travel between these two ports in summer and five months in winter. In 1893 Captain Richard With took the DS Vesterålen on her first tour from Trondheim to Hammerfest in only two days and nineteen hours. Today the same trip takes one day and seventeen hours, and is still subsidised by the government.

Sadly we didn’t have time to cross the Arctic Circle, and just took a 28 hour trip from Trondheim to Bergen, with a quick stroll through Molde while the ship was docked there. When our southbound ship entered a port during the day it would signal its arrival with two long, one short, and one long whistle blast (the Morse code for Q), while a northbound ship signals with one long, one short, and one long blast (Morse code for K). The ships also do this when they meet in a shipping line, with the northbound ship always greeting first. As we listened to this noisy announcement while pulling into port, Adrian noted that one would always know when it was 4:30pm in Kristriansund.

The scenery was spectacular. We could sit out on the deck or in the salon as islands of all shapes and sizes would drift past us. Inland the houses seemed to be painted muted earthy colours, however the coastal regions were edged with a whole spectrum of bright homes. Tiny white lighthouses could be spotted on rocky outcroppings to help the ships find their way between the islands.

Hayden was the youngest little sailor on the ship. He charmed many of the staff and passengers, and he spent quite a while in their arms looking at them in wonder as they chatted to him in Norwegian. Even when I went down to the gift shop on my own, the woman asked how the baby was doing and happily spent some time with me helping me pick out the best stamps for my postcards, describing the location of each scene and even finding the official MS Vesteralen stamp for postage within Europe.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time aboard the Hurtigruten and would love to return to these ships for a longer voyage. Once a year in Autumn they have a specially built ship that spends two weeks travelling from Spitsbergen to Greenland to Iceland. What an experience.

Note: Today there was a fire in the engine room on another Hurtigruten ship, the MS Nordlys. Two crew members were killed and four injured. All the Hurtigruten staff that we met were considerate, professional, so very kind and accommodating. My thoughts are with their families.

Efteling
Netherlands
One of the world’s oldest theme parks that first opened its doors in 1952. In winter, it is a fairy tale forest with a castle hotel and pine trees decorated with thousands of lights. In summer, it comes alive with shows and rides, including PandaVision and the dark water ride the Flying Dutchman.

Legoland
Denmark
Located next to the original Lego factory, it includes Duplo Land, ImaginationZone, LEGOREDO Town, Adventure Land, Miniland, Pirate Land, Lego City, Knights Kingdom and Viking land. Their website promises me that Pirate Land will deliver “a truly authentic atmosphere that includes everything from ship-wrecked pirates to ferocious crocodiles and sharks.”

Futuroscope
France
A land of the future. As well as numerous IMAX theatres and traditional rides, it also features the augmented reality adventure based on the BBC’s The Future is Wild that takes us through evolution from 200 million years in the past to 200 million years into the future. Plus, It even has a Robot Pavillion with a Robot Zoo.

Nigloland
France
I don’t know much about this little park, however a whole land with a hedgehog theme has to bode well. During summer there is a Poodle Parade, as well as a Dinosaur Adventure, Flying Dragons, and a Bat Coaster.

Europa-Park
Germany
Not to be confused with Europark (the Scandinavian division of APCOA Parking), Europ-Park is the largest theme park in Germany. Its mascot is Euromaus, a mouse in Blue EU overalls, and in the FoodLoop restaurant your meal arrives in pots on a tiny rollercoaster. In addition to ten people-sized roller coasters, one can also find an Ice Show in Greece, a Gladiator Arena Show in Spain, an Acrobatics Show in Italy, and a full scale replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in England.

Dickens’ World
England
Inside a vast aluminium hangar, the world of Charles Dickens is recreated – a warren of dingy, gaslit cobbled streets and old inn yards, gloomy prison facades and sooty brick walls. Inside the schoolhouse there is mouldy, crumbling plasterwork, grim little wooden desks and stern admonitions scrolling round the walls: Respect Thy Elders; Be Seen and Not Heard. The high point of the theme park is surely the dark boat ride through the filthy backwaters of the Thames, complete with animatronic rats swimming in the dyed-brown water and a ragged boy glimpsed peeing in a darkened creek.

Roses cast by mourners float in the lake near the island of Utoya, Norway, on July 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The town still retains the semblance of a nineteenth century sanatorium, with many couples walking through the classical parks for their daily constitutional. I visited the Museum of Water, finding the most interesting part to be the temporary exhibition of historical advertising posters proclaiming “Eaux minerales ferrugineuses” (iron-rich water), “tir aux pigeons” (shooting pigeons) and “trajet en 7 heures de paris” (journey in 7 hours from Paris). Those who came from France and Spain in their flamboyant costumes to partake in the water from Spa were called bobelins (perhaps derived from the Latin bibelus (heavy drinker)), which I believe now is used in Wallonia to mean “stupid and weird”.

On Sunday I caught my private funicular to the top of the highest hill to visit the Thermes de Spa. Nestled amongst the trees are some very picturesque indoor and outdoor baths. I began my relaxation in the outdoor baths, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness, as well as the contrast between the cooler air and the warm water. Eventually wandering back inside, I enjoyed a bubble bed before drying out in the dark and forest-scented relaxation room. My Spa weekend culminated in a Watsu – a water shiatsu massage. The therapist attached foam to my legs so that I could float effortlessly, and then gently whoosh me through the water while tenderly stretching and relaxing my limbs, leaving me feeling completely relaxed and rejuvenated by my Spa weekend.

Adrian and I started our train trip at Brussel-Zuid. Various friends boarded our trains in Brussel-Centraal, Mechelan, and Den Haag, in what Cedric termed a “logistical triumph”. He also warned us that statistically the Brussels-Amsterdam local train was prone to the most delays in Benelux, however we were in luck and we made our connection with minutes to spare. A bus then took us from Leiden to Keukenhof, and we stepped through the front gates of the chateau to a magnificent garden and greeted with the sounds of an old-fashioned automated pipe organ.

In the 15th century, Keukenhof (“Kitchen-gardens“) was originally the site for the herbs and vegetables for Teylingen, held by the Countess Jacqueline of Bavaria, converted into a flower landscape by Jan David Zocher and his son Louis Paul Zocher in 1850, and then first opened as a tulip exhibition in 1949 to promote the Dutch flower export industry.

There are 15 kilometers of walking paths over 52 hectares, and over 7 million flower bulbs hand-planted. They even hire 12 swans for the duration of the opening period, fill their ponds with dutchings, and have a “t Hofje” children’s farm filled with chicks, lambs, calves, and piglets. It was a beautiful day, and even though it was filled with people there was plenty of space for everyone.

I found out afterwards that bridal parties and their photographers get free entry, although it’s unlikely that I would be able to fit into my wedding dress at the moment.

By the afternoon some of our party were feeling a little tuliped out, so we made our way back to Leiden for an afternoon of bar hopping along the canals. We finished up at Annie’s for dinner, sitting on a floating platform and watching the procession of boats filled with party-goers celebrating another fine afternoon of light and warmth.

My next few days began at 5:30 am, where I would wrap a blanket around my shoulders and sit on the balcony to watch the sun rise over the ocean. Then I would wander down to the buffet restaurant for my first breakfast of the day, perhaps some porridge with walnuts, sultanas, and golden syrup. Exhausted by all this activity, I would nap until mid-morning when I would join Adrian and John for breakfast number two, usually some eggs and baked beans, followed by waffles and fresh Cypriot oranges.

We would then amble down to the water’s edge, where I worked my way through The Exception, while the boys argued over America’s history of foreign policy or the relative merits of Obama’s healthcare bill. By lunch time we might have worked up the energy to leave the hotel and amble down the road to find a restaurant for lunch, perhaps kebaps, usually accompanied by a cute couple of kittens begging for scraps.

I would then head back to enjoy nap number two, while John would meet up with new friends and Adrian would bury his head in a newspaper or check-up on the lab back home. After a quick swim, dinner time would soon arrive, and we would again venture out to sample the local cuisine. As the day drew to a close, I would return to our room to again look out at the ocean, temporarily decorated with the twinkling lights of the Israel-bound “Pride North America” oil-rig, with Orion and Sirius standing guard overhead, and fall asleep to the sounds of the waves gentle lapping against the shore.

We promenaded down the Paphos Boulevard with an ice-cream in one hand, and then Anton took us to his favourite restaurant, a small place on the shore, where the chef brought out fresh fish for my approval before grilling up a delicious sea bass. On our way back, we stopped at Aphrodite’s legendary birthplace, a scene of serene blue water and shapely rocks.