Our Big Adventure 7

Posted on June 28, 2026 by craftycreeky

Having been home a week I thought I’d better post about the last couple of weeks of our adventure round Europe.

Last time I posted we had just arrived in Tirano, Italy. Tirano is the start (or end!!) of the Bernina Express, one of the famous scenic rail journeys in Switzerland. It is stunning, both the scenery and the engineering involved. The train winds it’s way up the alps, zigzagging up the mountains and doing loops to gain height, the mountain sides are pretty sheer and you can feel the steepness of the track. There are panoramic carriages available at a price, but each train also has standard carriages which have the advantage of windows that open, much better for photos and great fun to just look straight out.

We stopped for a break in St Moritz, we walked around the lake, Helen went for a swim in a nearby small lake which is set up for outdoor swimming – it was very cold according to one German lady who was trying to get in – sometimes you don’t need to speak the language to understand what they are saying 🙂

We stayed overnight in Chur in a former prison – the rooms still had the metal cell doors on. It was clean and comfortable and more spacious than we thought it might be.

From Chur we took the Glacier Express to Zermatt, beautiful scenery but not as awe-inspiring as the Bernina. I was really looking forward to Zermatt and it didn’t disappoint. Yes it was busy, yes it was touristy, but not overly so. My parents came here several times with their youth club back on the 1950’s so we had heard alot about this car-free town in the alps. I had some old photos my parents had taken and with a little help from Google we managed to find the chalet they used to stay in, now a private house. I thought about my mum a lot inZermatt, it seemed strange to think she would have travelled up on the same train, walked round the same streets, we even found the English church just down from the chalet and I’m sure they would have gone to a service there.

We decided to treat ourselves to the train ride up to Gornagrat and it was definitely worth it. We had perfect weather for the views of the Matterhorn and we even managed to get that perfect refection photo when we stopped by the tarn on the way down. Stunning!

After three days in Zermatt we travelled over the alps to Chamonix, it was another stunning train ride, as awe-inspiring as the Bernina but it’s a route you don’t particularly hear of. Chamoix Mont Blanc is a lovely place, not chocolate-box pretty but relaxed and friendly. Helen had booked us a spa evening so we had quite a treat there. We took the train back up the valley a couple of stops so we could walk back through the trees, it was a pleasant six mile walk.

From Chamonix we travelled to Annecy. a pretty town with a few canals and a lake. The lake is a lot bigger than it looks, we went on a boat ride and what we thought was the other end was only about a third of the way down. We had our only really bad accommodation in Annecy, we’d booked an apartment through Airbnb, were always careful to read the reviews, whether they didn’t appear or somehow we missed them I don’t know. Within an hour of arriving the toilet wouldn’t flush, then three door handles fell off, the host wasn’t answering messages despite having read them. In the end we contacted airbnb support and to cut a long story short, we moved to a hotel at 10pm. I was quite impressed with Airbnb, they didn’t quibble, they tried to contact him, when we said we wanted to move they immediately refunded our money and gave us 30% off our hotel bill.

Our final stop was Paris. We had a few things booked for our three night stay, we went to the Palais Garnier which was beautiful, we visited Notre Dame and climbed the tower. The cathedral is beautiful, they have done such a good job restoring it after the fire.

We climbed the steps to Sacre Coeur, even inside the cathedral it was 35’C! We wandered down to Montmatre, we missed the artyfarty bit, but we found the fabric quarter, it was a bit like Goldhawk Road in London, rows of fabric shops! We found one particularly nice shop, three floors of fabric, I treated myself to a dress length 🙂

We also had a day in Giverny, to visit Monet’s garden. It was beautiful, the waterlillies were coming into flower and the borders were full of roses, poppies, hollyhocks, all sorts of flowers.

And that was the end of our big adventure! We travelled back on Eurostar last Friday, just before the heat got so bad they cancelled trains. It was a magical holiday and so special to be able to spend nearly two months travelling round with my daughter.

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My Travels in Stitch

Posted on June 27, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve been back from my travels for a week now and having brought the sunshine with me it’s been so hot I’ve just been chasing the shade round the garden, sitting stitching, trying to finish one of my holiday projects.

Before I went travelling with my daughter I decided I wanted to do some sort of travel journal in stitch, try and do a little stitching to record the places we went to. I found a length of over dyed linen in my stash which was long and narrow and even better it was overlocked down each side. I’ve no idea where it came from, it’s a softer linen, more like a dress weight. It wasn’t cut quite straight so I pulled a thread out to mark the two long edges and also tacked cotton along what would be the page edges. This proved very useful as however crumpled the piece was, I could always see where the pages would be. My plan was for a concertina book, so it could be folded out to show the whole trip.

I packed a little bag with some threads, little oddments of lace, tape and scraps of fabric so I could break up the pages if I needed to.

From the start I was a bit behind! I decided to embroider the major place names and of course that first day we had Otley, London and Ghent so by the end of the first stay in Ghent I was already behind. In my defence I was also trying to keep up with a written journal with little paintings in! I’d probably done my usual of over-committing with craft projects!!

I embroidered the star to represent Eurostar, the train between UK and Europe. In Ghent and Bruge there was lots of wisteria growing up the houses and other buildings, in fact it became one of the quotes from the holiday, “Ooh look, wisteria!” Of course Bruges (and Belgium in general} is also known for it’s lace, I had a scrap of lace in my bag so I cut the leaf motif off it.

In Maastrict we stayed on a boat, in Cologne we ate traditional sausages in a brewery. Whilst we were in Trier we went to an organ recital in the catherdral one evening. Luxembourg struck me as a very leafy city, helped by the huge gorge it’s built around.

On page two I settled down to about three places per page. In Strasbourg we saw storks on the top of trees in the park, I used blue lines of different stitches to represent rivers, canals, lakes etc so Colmar is famous for it’s canals and Freiburg for it’s fresh water rills down the streets.

We then travelled to Switzerland to Lauterbrunnen where the meadows were full of flowers. Lindau has a lighthouse on the harbour and in Munich we saw several swans in the palace gardens.

Salzburg has links to the Sound of Music film, in Vienna we saw the beautiful white Lipizzaner horses. We also had a day trip to Bratislava which is on the river Danube.

From Vienna we travelled to Lake Bled in Slovenia, we stayed opposite the island on the lake. Venice is represented by arches, there are lots in St Marks Square. In Florence we sampled the wine windows 🙂

We then travelled to Bergamo which is linked to the Bergamot orange. I’ve just realised I’ve put a T on the end which will need unpicking! Tirano is the start of the Bernina Express railway line which winds it’s way over the alps to Chur, doing loops along the way.

In Chur we stayed in a converted prison (more spacious than the boat!!) In Zermatt we took the Gornagrat train up the mountains to see the Matterhorn. Chamonix is famous for Mont Blanc, though from the town itsself the mountain is not so distinctive a shape. Annecy has both canals and a lake.

Onto the last part of our big adventure; in Paris we saw the Eiffel tower and took the train out to Giverny where Monet’s garden is.

We caught the Eurostar back to London, under the channel, before heading to home where our OH’s were waiting.

I just need to stitch a title page before making it into a book.

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Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on June 22, 2026 by craftycreeky

My daughter and I finally came back home this weekend, after 45 days travelling through 10 countries, more of that another day, but safe to say we had a wonderful time! In my absence the garden has been growing very enthusiastically, especially the weeds! My OH has been doing his best but it’s a big garden to do on your own.

I spent the weekend doing a superficial tidy up of the beds, by that I mean pulling out the worst weeds like bindweed, thistles, nettles and that sticky weed with mini burrs on! There hasn’t been any rain apparently for a good week, so the ground is too hard to do any digging for roots but at least they’re not smothering my plants now.

This is the view at the top of the garden as we’re going out to walk Bella along the back lane, I think it’s my favourite view at the moment.

The foxgloves have self-seeded themselves all over the place this year, which I love, though I have had to pull a couple up when they were right in the middle of a particular plant.

The apricot rose at the back is a beautiful David Austin rose called Lark Ascending, the yellow rose at the front is one of my standard roses, Roald Dahl. The clematis was planted several years ago, I can’t remember what it’s called but the flowers are huge this year.

The hostas round the pond are looking bigger than ever…

This is my view when I sit in the garden for my morning coffee. The patio gets the morning sun, I like to sit in my arbour in the shade. When the birds are feeding on the fat balls and the sunflower seeds they will be less than a metre away.

Hopefully over the net couple of months I’ll get a bit more on top of the garden, in the meantime it’s still a lovely place to sit with my coffee of a glass of wine 🙂

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Stitch-a-long

Posted on June 14, 2026 by craftycreeky

My daughter and I are coming to the end of our big adventure, home on Friday hopefully. My little catkin is still a lonesome catkin…

Hopefully in three weeks time I will have something to show, like some more catkins!

Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching;


Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,  

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, 

Linda, MaryMargaret, Helen

Posted in Serendipity | 3 Comments

Holiday Sewing

Posted on June 8, 2026 by craftycreeky

I brought a couple of sewing projects on holiday, one for quiet times and one as a record…

I brought my bird alphabet to stitch on the train, some trains I’ve stitched all the way, other journeys have been very scenic and I’ve just watched the world go by. It’s surprised us how slowly many of the trains trundle along, even on long journeys. It’s a nice relaxing way to travel but we’re used to even local trains going 70mph.

According to the interrail app we have now spent more than two days on trains, so it’s indicative of how scenic the routes have been that I’ve only finished two letters!

I think Q is a yellow hammer and R could be any of a multitude of little brown birds but I’m going for a warbler.

Apologies for the unedited photo, but I’m doing this on my phone and for some reason I couldn’t find the to upload here if I edited them!!

The second piece is my stitch journal . As you can see I’m stitching our route and adding a little stitching to represent the place. I’ve packed little snippets of fabric and lace to help along the way. As you can see, I’m a little behind! So far I have;

Ghent and Bruges; lace and wisteria, Maastricht; boat we stayed on, Cologne; sausage, Trier; music, Luxembourg; trees, Strasbourg; storks, Colmar; canals, Freiburg; rills, Lauterbrunnen; alpine meadow…

I’ve kept a list so I know what I’m going to stitch for each place, just got to catch up 🙂

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Big Adventure 6

Posted on June 7, 2026 by craftycreeky

Helen and I are loving our travels round Europe, we’re having such a good time together.

After Salzburg we travelled over to Vienna. We had three nights there so we could pop over to Slovakia for the day!

I liked Vienna, lots of beautiful buildings and a nice vibe. We went to the Austrian national library, absolutely stunning, double height bookshelves full of antique books and an amazing ceiling. The trompe d’oeil was amazing, we were there over an hour mainly looking at the ceiling.

Helen likes horses so we wandered through the Spanish riding school which is part of the Hoffburg palace buildings. We didn’t go to a show but we got up early one morning as they exercise a few of them early in the morning in the local park. The lipizzaner horses are beautiful.

Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is only about 30 minutes from Vienna. It’s a delightful old city, we walked through the cobbled streets and climbed up the steps of the medieval Michael’s gate. The city has some quirky statues, we saw Cumil, a man peeping out of a manhole cover!

We had our longest travel day so far when we travelled from Vienna to Lake Bled in Slovenia. We were staying in the quiet end of Lake Bled. It was lovely, we had three nights there. I tried when planning our route to have a restful place every so often and this was one such place. The lake is a lot smaller than I thought, it’s only 6km to walk round. We hired a rowing boat and rowed to the island, we sat in our apartment watching a thunderstorm whilst sewing or scrapbooking. We got up early to listen to the dawn chorus, we just chilled 🙂

After our rest by lake Bled we travelled to Italy, our tenth country of our trip!

First stop was Venice. I have mixed feelings about Venice, it’s lovely with all the canals and bridges, but to me it looks uncared for, shabby even in places. It’s also very busy. By contrast we got the ferry over to Murano as I wanted some Murano glass earrings, it was lovely, much quieter and it felt cared for…and I got some earrings 🙂 We managed to get tickets to go in St Marks Basilica, that was another Wow! the ceilings and walls are covered with mosaics, the gold on them just glows, it’s beautiful. We did our usual routine of getting up at 6am and going straight out so we could take photos of the main sites before the crowds descended.

From Venice we travelled across to Florence. I liked Florence, it has some beautiful buildings and we had a good wander round the streets. My main issue was the unevenness of the pavements, I think they are the worst I’ve seen in Europe, as I have no balance I had to constantly look down to watch my step, so I couldn’t be looking up at the buildings. I did manage to climb the 400+ steps up the top of the dome and the views across the city were worth it. We also walked up to a viewpoint for views of the cathedral. I had my first grumpy day in Florence, we had a bad night’s sleep as we were woken up at 5am by workmen in the unit below, I was eaten alive by mozzies, I was hot and bothered…. hopefully the last grumpy day 🙂

Yesterday we travelled to Bergamo. This was chosen to save us from a very long travel day so we just had one night here. It’s has a lovely old town which is reached by a funicular train, the city walls are huge, like cliffs. It was quite a busy little city but that may also be because it was graduation day for the students!

Today we are on our way to Tirano, the start of the Bernina Express.

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Our Big Adventure 5

Posted on June 6, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’m way behind with my posts, so here’s the first catch up…

After our time in Switzerland we travelled along the Golden Pass to Lucerne on then onto Lindau. The Golden Pass was lovely, it passes five lakes which were beautiful in the morning light. We only had 3 hours in lucerne in between trains but it was enough to think I’d like to go back.

The old part of Lindau is on a small island on Lake Constance, Germany, it’s only about 1.5 miles wide, it’s connected to the mainland by two bridges. We spent two nights there and it was the perfect place for rest and relaxation. My original plan was to visit Liechtenstein from there as it’s close to the border, but all reports said it really wasn’t worth visiting!

Lindau is delightful, pretty cobbled streets, cafés, artisan shops and surprisingly (for an island) not expensive, we meandered through the old town and round the lake shore. The island was perfect for us, a couple of days doing not a lot.

After Lindau we got the train to Munich, it was a bit of a shock when we reached the station, so loud and crowded, not helped by the platform being so dangerously packed it took us 20 minutes just to get off the platform!

In Munich we visited the Residence, which was beautiful, heavily ornate in places, my favourite area was the artifact room, every part of the walls and ceiling was beautifully painted. The next day we travelled out to the Summer Residence, where we had a peaceful time wandering through the gardens and palace.

After Munich we travelled to Austria, first stop was Salzburg. I must admit I was a tad disappointed with Salzburg, I was expecting a ‘pretty’ city, whilst there is an old town it didn’t feel special. We went in the cathedral which was beautiful, very pale stone which was intricately carved with a dark background. We arrived just before 12 to find they did an organ recital every day at noon. There are seven organs and they played a short piece on five of them. It was excellent.

We visited the gardens where Sound of Music was filmed, walked up the steps where they sang ‘doe ray me’. We noticed there was no info or souvenirs at all in Salzburg about the film. We googled it and apparently the city doesn’t like it’s association with the Hollywood version which is pretty inaccurate and they’re not comfortable with that time in their history. Instead everything is about Mozart and the house where he was born.

After Salzburg we travelled through Austria to Vienna, more of that tomorrow!

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Foragers Journal HQAL

Posted on May 31, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’m still on my big adventure with my daughter so no progress at all on my Foragers Journal. Here are the two pages I stitched before my holiday…

We’re due back just before the next update, so don’t hold your breath for any great progress!


I’m posting this as part of the Hand Quilt-a-long. Pleas follow the links to see what everyone else has been quilting:


Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Sharon, Karrin, and Daisy

Posted in Serendipity | 3 Comments

Our Big Adventure 4

Posted on May 25, 2026 by craftycreeky

Well I’m way behind with my holiday posts so this might be spread over two or three days.

After a great stay in Strasbourg we headed over to Freiburg.This is a small city in the black mountains. We had a great apartment we booked a couple of days before, it was a penthouse flat in an old building, there were huge windows on three sides of the flat giving great views across the town. Freiburg was just what we needed, we could just mooch round the old town and have a relaxing couple of days. The old town is interesting, lovely buildings and cobbled streets which have rills in them, like little streams on the side of the road which were originally made to provide clean water to the town.

In the afternoon we walked up a local wooded hill where we heard lots of birds, we’re getting quite competitive with the Merlin app, Helen heard an oriole but I had four different woodpeckers 🙂

After our short stay in Freiburg, we travelled to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. I’ve wanted to go to Switzerland for years and it didn’t disappoint!! We spent most of it saying ‘Wow’, the scenery is just beautiful.

Lauterbrunnen is a small town in the Alps, it’s in a narrow valley with steep mountains and apparently 72 waterfalls, every sky high cliff face has a waterfall coming down. One of the best known ones is Staubach falls which was about 50m from our hotel. A cascade falls 279m to the town.

Our first day had the best weather forecast so we took the cog train and the gondola up to Grindelwald First. We did the cliff walk which gives amazing views of the Eiger. We decided to walk to Bachalpsee, a small lake which can give a perfect reflection of the Eiger. The sign said it took 50 minutes, they lied!! With snow underfoot in places and the effects of high altitude it took us about 90 minutes…and the lake wasn’t just frozen over it was snowed over too 😀 We enjoyed the views along the way though and saw some marmets and some tiny alpine flowers peeping through the snow.

The next day we took the bus up the valley to Trummelbach falls, they were amazing. The ten falls are inside the mountain, we took the funicular up which gets you to the 7th fall. I was unprepared for the noise when we started walking down a tunnel to the falls, it was awe-inspiring and frightening at the same time, we walked up to the top fall and then slowly made our way down past all the falls, the power of the falls was immense, we loved looking at the geology, how the force of the water had shaped the rocks. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

After the falls we walked to the top of the valley,passed all the flower filled meadows and listened to the bells on the cows, until we reached the cable car to take us up the mountain to the car free village of Murren. Up there we did the flower trail, I think we were a bit too early to see lots of alpines but it was lovely to be up in the peace and quiet of the mountain.

This was my first time in Switzerland and I loved it, the air smells so clean, the rivers are like an aqua green, most of the houses are still the traditional shape, even new ones.

We’ve got another four days in Switzerland later in our trip, I can’t wait!

From Lauterbrunnen we travelled to Lindau, back in Germany but more of that another day.

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Stitch-a-long

Posted on May 24, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’m still on my big holiday with my daughter, so no progress here at all with my catkins, it is still a solitary catkin…

Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.


Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,  

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, 

Linda, MaryMargaret, Helen

Posted in Serendipity | 4 Comments