Conwy Castle, Wales

On our third day in Chester, we packed the kids up, made a picnic lunch and hopped on the train to visit Conwy Castle in Wales.  It was only about an hour's train ride away and what a spectacular place to visit!

The scenery was beautiful, the sky was blue, the temps were well into the 70's...what can I say - perfect!

The castle area was amazing and we wandered around and climbed up the various towers for quite a while and then found a shady spot to enjoy our PB&J sandwiches.

We spent the day exploring and climbing around, walked down the harbor and beach area a bit and, of course, stopped for an ice cream cone along the way. We also saw the smallest house in Great Britain - and my was it tiny!!!

And, yes, that is the door behind us - you had to duck to get inside.  It was two rooms, and literally there was barely space for 4 people standing up inside.  There was a tiny stairway that led to the sleeping area and the trap door at the top of the stairs was part of the floor space.  Absolutely hysterical to think someone actually lived there!  As a matter of fact, one person that lived there had been a sailor and was over 6 feet tall!

One of the other funny things we saw was in the little shop at the castle - I will let the picture speak for itself...we obviously were cracking up and couldn't help but snap a photo!

Here are just a few other photos from the day - we wore the kids out and had a great time!

After our busy day, we headed back to Chester, got the kids settled in for the night, and then Sharisa and I were off again, this time to meet up with some of Sharisa's friends for a Girls' Night at a local French restaurant, Chez Jule.  We enjoyed a delicious 5-course meal and I met some lovely ladies! It was so much fun and a nice adult outing for us ladies!

The following morning, we got up and Jason shuttled us back to the airport for our flight.  All was going well until we got to our layover in Oslo...we had to get our baggage and then re-check it for the flight to Stavanger...problem was, the flight was a few minutes late getting in, we were getting our bags on a conveyor belt with about 5 other international flights, and there were probably 300+ people gathered around the conveyor belt...needless to say, I was about to give up on us getting our bags after about 45 minutes because it was getting to the point that we were potentially going to miss our flight!

My frustration level was at the bursting point and I had two hungry kids in tow (turns out there was absolutely no drink or snack service on the plane) when, out our bag comes...probably the last of the whole bunch from every flight!  Then the people wouldn't move so I could get it off the belt.  So with my patience being thin, I shouted, "...if you let me get my bag, I can get out of your way so you can get yours!"  From there, it was the 3 of us at a half run to get to the baggage check line only to find the line a mile long...yep.  Starting to panic now because I really don't want to miss our flight!  Finally, they opened another line and were pulling those with a flight time that was near, so we ran over, re-checked the bag and took off for security...made it through there, grabbed sandwiches and in all but a dead run, took off for our gate.  Good news was, we made it and the bag did too!  WHEW!  

So, with the exception of the Oslo airport, I can definitively say, we had a superb trip, had a blast seeing friends, and loved exploring places we had not been before! I do love Europe!!!!