What's Changed in 3 Years and What Hasn't...

Blenheim was well worth the visit. My husband and I toured the palace including the Churchill exhibit, but we only saw a smattering of the huge grounds, although we did make over to the "Harry Potter tree" (featured in a scene in one of the movies) because the kids wanted to. Afterwards, we spent a bit of time in the lovely village of Woodstock, touring their humble but nice little free museum, but deciding to skip their military museum as it cost 9 pounds and we'd only have had 30 minutes. I can't quite tell if the town church and graveyard were all that remarkable, or if I was just caught up in being surrounded by old things again. As a former tour guide, I'm a sucker for both. It's really a lovely little place and I could've easily based a night or two there to explore and see Blenheim, which is walking distance.

We had dinner at a pub called "The Fishes" which has a huge sprawling lawn and paths through a forest, but even though the pound to dollar conversion rate had me a bit anxious, I was reasonably happy with the prices compared to London. And while we were graciously being driven around, we were informed that quite a few people visit by foot or bike from Oxford.

Once back in Abington, our hosts walked us to the hilariously named "The Spread Eagle" pub, which was lovely and very traditional, with some very sporting senior citizen cyclists who had gathered there. This was sadly our last night in the area, as we'd booked West End tickets in London the next night. We had much better sleep and in the morning, my friend took us to an utterly charming farm shop and cafe ("Where all the private school moms go after drop-off" we were informed) because I'd requested a great scone, and this place delivered! I'm happy to share any of the places we visited but since it's so niche and few people reading this will end up in Abington, I'll leave off that info for now, but feel free to DM me if you simply must know.

Our friend generously offered to drive us to London, and on the way we stopped at a churchyard to see George Orwell's grave and visit the nearby pub he enjoyed that has now been renamed in his honor. Our friend dropped us off at Ealing High Street Tube station. I'd bemoaned leaving behind our Oyster cards from our last, pre-Covid trip to London, and my friend laughed and said we can just use our debit/credit cards as a ticket. That was a nice surprise! We had a very small AirBnB room a 15 minute walk from St. Pancras. Upon arriving at the nearest tube station to our room, we debated walking or getting an uber, and opted to walk, which was a mistake. We are now in our late 40s, the uber was 10 pounds, and the time and effort saved, even though our luggage was light for the length of our trip (1 carry-on size bag each, one "hand luggage" which in my case was an uncomfortable to carry but cute beach bag with a rope strap that cut in to my shoulder) would've been worth it. We'd learned this lesson previously, I don't know why we decided to cheap out and ignore it this time, but it was a good lesson to re-learn.

By the time we checked in, got sorted, and had a refreshing drink at the pub around the corner, it was time to meet the husband of our hosts for pre-theater dinner at Dim Sum Library at Covent Garden. He works in London one day per week, but his timing left out the possibility of a very early dinner at my pick, Dishoom, so I booked us for a post-theater snack which my husband thought was overkill. Dim Sum Library was nice enough, with some truly unique dumplings and adequate service, but more expensive than the nearby Chinatown offerings.

After that, it was off to see Cole Escola in "Oh, Mary!", reprising the role they created in the play they wrote for a few weeks only in their West End debut. As a result the tickets were very expensive, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and totally worth it. I barely stopped laughing the entire time.

After the show, we went to our Dishoom reservations, and by then my husband was hungry and no longer doubted my choice, as the tiny fried shrimp and chaat dish along with the cocktail we had was so delicious and the service so friendly and efficent, I'm sad we only got to eat there once this trip. A nice guy from up north we met later at a craft beer bar said it was touristy, and it was in fact slammed with the after-theater crowd, but with our reservation we bypassed the huge line after just a few minutes wait, and it was probably the best food experience of our entire trip. I just cannot recommend Dishoom enough. Ironically we'd passed one in Oxford when we first arrived and I'd contemplated stopping there for a snack and a drink, but because we knew we were going in London later, we decided not to - probably a mistake!

We had the 7:00am Eurostar train to Paris departing from St. Pancras the next day so we only were able to grab a few hours sleep, as we were told by Eurostar to arrive by 5:20am, although our friends said we'd be fine arriving by 6:00am, which we did, and it was. Getting coffee and breakfast in the overcrowded area they heard you into after passport control and security, however, was not fine. It sucked. We chose this mode of transit because we wanted to go from city center to city center since time was of the essence but we paid for it, and it was the most unpleasant travel experience of the trip until our return connection in Dallas. It literally would've been significantly cheaper to fly, but we did save quite a bit of time, which was good, because we had one night in Paris.

So yes, if you're following along, we had two nights in Oxfordshire, one night London, and now one night in Paris, before going on to Germany, arriving Paris at 11:00am on Thursday and departing at 6:00pm on Friday. Why such a punishing schedule? Well, it based on a truly cheap flight to Heathrow, and the timing of meeting up with other friends in Paris and needing to be in Stuttgart by Saturday for Christopher Street Day. It was definately a little exhausting, but it actually worked out fine, as we're experienced travelers and knew what we were getting into, and this wasn't a sightseeing trip, although in Paris we managed to pack in:
- A visit to the Notre Dame towers, reopened just last year after the fire which I reserved about a week in advance
- A very leisurely, very French dinner (bone marrow! veal liver! sweatbreads!) with our friends who live well outside Paris now, but were in town for their kids' attending an English theater camp
- Finally visiting the Orsay, which I liked way more than I expected, since I'm more interested in Medieval and Renaissance art than
Impressionism (we did not see everything by the time we got hungry/tired after about 3 hours, so we will need to return)
- I got to swim in the Seine! Something our French friends thought was insane, but they test the water for safety every day, and I have a goal of swimming in all the major European rivers, so now I've got both the Danube and the Seine down.

All without rushing, also enjoying our favorite Bahn Mi shop (eating sandwiches in the nearby square, a favorite activity of ours), a leisurely breakfast, and a few cafe drinks. And we were lucky with the weather, as it was warm enough to make a swim pleasant, but inbetween heatwaves. We were quite sad to leave Paris, but we accomplished a lot and had a fantastic time. We made our train, although we opted to take an uber from our hotel to the RER to get to Gare du Nord and walk to Gare de l'Est during rush hour, which was not a great experience. Looking back, trying to get anywhere with luggage during rush hour in Paris was probably not wise, but we survived a very hot and extremely crowded train and made our ICE to Stuttgart with some time to spare.

The ICE train was quite civilized, and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip back to the city we called home for 13 years. That said, when we left, I had foolishly assumed the state of the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof would've been improved - perhaps, the new station would even be open? by the time we returned well, that was silly. The Stuttgart 21 project, originally projected to be finished in 2021 (hence the name), then 2026, we found out had been pushed back another 5 years and the same god-forsake ramps that you have to spend 10 plus minutes hauling luggage through to reach any other public transit connection are still in place, somehow, making it the most inconvienent train station in Germany, or perhaps all of Europe until this project is finally completed.

As we traipsed our luggage through the Schlossgarten biergarten, I wondered why we'd decided to meet our friends downtown in the quaint Bohnenviertel instead of at this convienently located spot, but when I texted my friends that suggestion, they complained in typical Swabian manner, that a liter a beer there is over 10 euros, so we hopped on the U-Bahn and made our way to the Rathaus stop, only to find out that the crowded neighborhood festival, which surrounds our favorite pub, was in full swing. Why didn't any of our friends who live there fail to mention this? They forgot, and I forgot to check, focused on CSD as the main festival that weekend and forgetting that in the summer, many urban festivals in Germany overlap. Amazingly, there was a free table when we arrived, so the night was saved and we had a good time seeing our friends before making our way to our Marienplatz Radisson for 3 nights.

We'd opted to stay in the city proper for the weekend, instead of my best friends' home out in the suburbs, which was a good call, because the S-Bahn was undergoing it's 6th annual summer break, meaning no S-bahn service from the Hauptbahnhof to the suburb of Vaihingen, which was our main convenient route from my best friend's house into the city proper. And by that point in the trip, having a normal hotel room was a luxury, and it was only 80 euros per night for a quite nice room in a great location.

The rest of the Stuttgart portion of our trip - 3 nights at Marienplatz, 4 nights in Kornwestheim - aren't of much interest to this forum, we saw friends, marveled at how much bigger their kids were after 3 years, went to BBQs, had Turkish brunch and Ethiopian dinner, partied with the queer community and mourned with them the next day after the horrific car ramming attack at CSD in Berlin. Although in theory this was the "slow" part of our trip, it didn't much feel like it, as our schedule was packed with plans the entire time and we still didn't manage to see everyone we intended to or for as long as we'd have liked.

After Stuttgart, we traveled by train on a group ticket with Stuggi friends to Munich, to see other friends. This was a mini group trip and in retrospect, I should've planned better, but I wanted this time to be relaxed and go-with-the-flow, but when you're traveling as a group of 6, and visiting friends with a baby there's just no such thing. Also it was now another heatwave with temperatures reaching nearly 100 degrees. Our main goal for this part of the trip was time on the Isar river, which our Munich friends are pros at, including being great hosts, and thanks to their new home in Oberfoering, we pretty much just hung out at theirs and the river, which was mostly fine by me, but I did miss having an evening in a proper biergarten, and we got properly rained on at the river both days. Had a delightful time regardless, but there was too much "what's the plan?" discussion when looking back, everyone just expected me to have a plan, because that's the kind of traveler I usually am. But after the pace of the previous part of the trip, I just went into relaxed local mode once in Germany. Oh well!

Great trip report! Just a note on Blenheim Palace to help future visitors. It’s definitely not a National Trust property and NT tickets are not valid. Your friends must have had specific passes for the privately owned palace.

Another great benefit of having friends with cars who live in the burbs is we were offered a ride to the Munich airport, which saved us a lot of time and travel on public transit with our luggage. We were on our way to Athens, where we took a taxi to Piraeus, to take a boat to my favorite truly chill vacation spot, the little island of Agistri in the Saronic Gulf. This was my 8th visit, I think, over 10 years, if that gives you an indication of how much I adore it as a beach vacation spot. This was our "vacation from our vacation", planned very purposefully, and we didn't tell our friends about this trip until we were already in Germany, for fear they'd try to come too - and one of them did, we had to be a bit firm here, as after this much socializing and moving around we really needed some time to just chill out.

And that's exactly what we did - also not much of interest to report here unless you're specifically planning this kind of trip here. We finished several books on the "beach" terraces (rocky entry/ladder entry to water, but the plus side is no sand and incredibly clear, gorgeous sea), ate amazingly well for shockingly low prices, and didn't do much else. Even by our own standards in Agistri, we were pretty lazy, our biggest excursion was to take a taxi to the other side of the island (15 minutes drive, 10 euros) for dinner and a nice walk back along the shore. Although we were there in high season, it didn't seem too much busier than our usual trips in September. We tried to rent a self-drive boat but waited a bit too late and they were booked up, but we didn't mind another excuse to be lazy again.

After 4 nights at Rosy's Little Village, now my preferred place to stay for the cheaper prices, direct water access, relaxed vibe, and plentiful loungers near the water (my husband found the double room a little small, but it was fine once we'd unpacked properly) it was time for our 9am ferry back to Piraeus, this time making the walk to the metro (not worth a taxi in this case, as it was a 7 minute walk and not hot yet), then the long metro trip getting us there at 11:30am for our 2:00 departure to Dallas.

Despite the multiple transit modes, that part of the trip went fine, until we arrived in Dallas. I had been foolishly worried about 2+ hours being enough time to go through passport control, get our luggage, go through customs, recheck the luggage, and get to our gate, but we arrived with 30 minutes prior to boarding, only to have our flight delayed for 30 minutes again...and again...and again. After an hour our 9:00 flight had been pushed back to 12:30am back in our original arrival terminal, so we took the Skylink again, and once we arrived the flight was delayed 30 minutes again, until finally being pushed back to 5:00am, and we were given a hotel and meal voucher. Given that we'd only have time for about 90 minutes sleep if we'd stayed on the original delayed flight, we rebooked for no fee for a 7:30 flight, and got a whole 3 hours of sleep instead at a weird Ramada, but at least their shuttle was 24 hours. Probably better than trying to catch a few winks at the airport, but then that 7:30 flight was delayed until 9:00am, and I had to work that day, so I lost out on a few hours of work, hopefully considered offset by purchasing wifi (so much for free fast wifi for AA cardmembers!) on the long-haul flight and catching up on some emails. Arriving in Omaha at 11:30pm then going to work at 9:00 the next day wouldn't have been ideal but getting in 12 hours later and still going to work was worse! 34 hours in transit with 3 hours of sleep is not ideal, but it was already considered quite excessive that I was gone from work for 19 days (something my European friends laughed and laughed about, our sad American working lives.)

Next: final notes and thoughts

Random notes and observations:
-I was afraid I'd "lost" my travel skills and (poor but serviceable for my needs) German (and smattering of French and Greek) but not only was the German right back, but so was switching entirely back to Celsius, the 24 hour clock, date-month-year, to the point where I'm having a little trouble functioning at work or talking to friends because I'm still thinking in those modes, my English got re-Germanified where even in speaking in English, I'm using the more expat sentence structure if that makes sense. I was pleased I didn't lose my ability to quickly and easily use public transit.
-Despite our friends thinking we'd packed little, we still overpacked. In my case, I wanted to really be ready for 3 days of beach life, but I probably didn't really need the big german towel clips, and a backpack would've been more practical than my beach bag, although it's waterproof compartment did make it easy to carry around a wet swimsuit, and i highly recommend microfiber beach towels in general because they dry so quickly. I could've probably done without one less pair of pants and a couple shirts. My husband was more egregious, with 4 pairs of shoes (he could've done with his birkenstocks and one pair of sneakers) and 2 hardcover books, which is insane to me but he refuses to read a book on my kindle or his phone. Could've further paired down toiletries. On the plus side, it saved us from buying too much to take back.
-Card is so often the default now, even in Germany, if you're in the city, and obviously many places in Greece prefer cash for...reasons.
-I always get ill from a long plane ride, but the zinc lozenges - not pills or chews, but actual lozenges you have to suck on then avoid drinking or eating for 20 minutes after - are clinically proven to prevent a little hint of a cold from becoming a full fledged cold if you use them as advised, and it worked for me, both going and coming back. My husband probably got strep after sharing a fork with one of our friend's kita-aged child (stupid!) but we were able to use a telehealth appointment for $25 which got him seen within the hour, prescribed antibiotics, and within 48 hours he was better, but he did mostly rest in Munich, which worked out OK since we all spent so much time at our friends' home anyway, and he was feeling better by our first full day in Greece.
-We hosted a friend and her boyfriend and our friends' home in Germany, and went to the Rewe grocery store to buy some cheese and wine, and was utterly gobsmacked by how cheap everything was. I was vaugely aware that at some point while living abroad, prices in German stores were lower than in the US, but after the post-Covid inflation in the US, it was genuinely shocking, and we live in a low cost area.

-I'm from California, so I never understood why US military folks stationed in Germany say the produce is so much better there, but after 3 years in Nebraska I do. It's night and day. And even much better when you get to Greece, of course. We ate so healthy in Greece and loved every second of it.

-Obviously we're very lucky having so many amazing friends, but in addition to missing them, I so miss the lifestyle in Germany and Europe. It's not perfect, but for me, the public transit, the chill Sundays, the long dinners, I can honestly say our quality of life was so much higher there and this trip really reinforced that. Simple things I used to take for granted like the biergarten or mineralbaeder now seem like luxuries, and the natural beauty even in the center of Munich, having forest walks in the middle of the city in Stuttgart...sigh.
-The one thing I forgot though was how to use European appliances. We did laundry frequently and I will say that Anthropic AI's Claude was very helpful in trying to figure that out.
-It is crazy how long construction projects are taking, at least in Stuttgart! Not just Stuttgart 21, it was everywhere.

Skye thank you for that correction! Our host had said it was National Trust but she was probably confused - even she wasn't sure what kind of annual ticket they had. I do possess a 12 month ticket for Blenheim now and obviously won't be returning within that time period, it seems a little unfair they don't have pricing for tourists who are only able to visit once in a year (or lifetime!) I will say her having a family ticket is a big reason we chose to visit, because we'd have felt obligated to pay for them as well if they didn't, and that would've been very expensive for 3 adults and 2 children. The UK did feel very expensive in everything we did from luggage storage to restaurants to tube tickets, part of that is just the pound versus the dollar, and part of that was when we were in London, but it was pleasing that with every stop on our trip, everything became cheaper.

One random note I failed to mention is that I'm a massive England football fan (sorry, Skye!) and when I booked this trip I wasn't even thinking about the World Cup final, which usually wraps up well before late July, so we flew out on final day. I stressed the entire month before the trip, because of course we'd bought the cheapest, non-refundable tickets, and I was very close to using the entirety of my miles with American Airlines to shift our trip to landing a day prior so I could watch the final in England with England fans had we made it, but of course we didn't. On the plus side, Omaha bizarrely has a surprisingly large and passionate England fan group, so I got to watch every match but one (and the third place "final") with fans, which was fantastic, and we nearly missed our flight to Dallas watching Spain finally, deservedly beat Argentina at the tiny Omaha airport bar.

Unsurprisingly, all our German friends told us that between the difficult match times and Germany's poor performance, nobody was that into the world cup there, but it sounds like things had changed a bit for England once we kept progressing, and a colleague who was in Ireland just before me saw the France vs Spain semifinal at a pub in Dublin and credited my attempts to bring World Cup madness to our museum where I now work with her getting into the spirit and said watching that game was a highlight of her trip!

Now both World Cup and the big vacation are over and busy season at work is beginning, but between both it's been a surprisingly lovely summer and I'm so glad we made this slightly insane trip, we had the best time, and I'm more determined to find a way to get back to living in Europe again than ever.

Thanks for reading my ramblings and if you have any interest in any of the locations/restaurants/etc mentioned please feel free to message me!

There is a tax incentive in the UK for charities to sell annual passes which is why it’s become standard. You don’t actually pay more. A day ticket would be the same price. This comes up quite often and that is the reason.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I really enjoyed reading it.

so glad the trip went so well (until DFW).

sad we never had the opportunity to meet up when you were working in Stuttgart.

and yes, the Hbf IS an absolute zoo. Even with the stack of Ritter Sport statue.

I was back in Stuttgart for the Christmas markets this year (same reason a friend and I did a couple of tours with you back in Dec 2017). Yup... the train station was still a mess without the appearance of improving any time soon.

Thanks for the trip report, Sarah— it sounds like you had a wonderful time! I'm really glad you liked Dishoom. It's one of my favorite places. I discovered it in Edinburgh about three years ago and eat there every chance I get when I'm over there.

There is a tax incentive in the UK for charities to sell annual passes which is why it’s become standard. You don’t actually pay more. A day ticket would be the same price. This comes up quite often and that is the reason.

Helen, I remember reading that on many of the flyers I got from various historic sites when I was there in 2024 for those six weeks. I thought it was really nice that they were able to get a tax incentive for doing that. I just wish I could have stayed longer or come back so I could have taken advantage of it! 😊

I panicked a bit when it said it could take several business days for our visas to be granted, but once we'd completed the process we were approved within minutes.

I just wanted to address this so anyone reading this is not confused. What you got was not a visa. It's an ETA, which stands for Electronic Travel Authorization, and is basically gives someone permission to travel to the UK. It is required for short-term visitors who do NOT need a visa. It's been around for about 1.5 to 2 years. The US has had the same sort of system in place for years, but now other places are catching up. It's a pain, But it is important to use the UK app. There are some that might be easier, but they charge huge fees.

Hi Sarah, nice to see you on the forum again. We met up with you in Stuttgart in 2023, when you were kind enough to show us around. I remember one of the things you said “We will always be outsiders here because we are not German.” It sounds like now you would prefer to be living back in Europe?

Also, fyi, your profile still says you live in Stuttgart. You might want to change if you are back here in the US.

What a lovely, detailed trip report. I loved the comparisons to life when you lived there & now you are back. I, too, love the bus from LHR to Oxford. FYI, I had pre-purchased & was early & just asked the driver and he let me get on because he had room. Thanks for your insights.

I very much enjoyed reading this! I felt like I was on your trip with you. And it was interesting to read your reflections on revisiting Europe.

Thanks for this great report!

your profile still says you live in Stuttgart.

Once it gets in your heart it stays there, Tammy.

I love Baden-Württemberg and understand

Thanks so much for your TR! I had to laugh that you swam in the Seine as I just had a bunch of stories pop up yesterday on FB saying the Seine is at it's warmest for this time of year ever (possibly!).

I can't believe you went to work after that marathon trip home...yikes. I hope your job is not juggling chain saws or something like that, hahaha!

And where in Paris do you like to eat Bahn Mi? Just want to file for future reference, hahaha!!

Very nice TR Sarah!

'I hope your job is not juggling chain saws or something like that'. Outstanding, Pam!
I am done. the travelerz

Thanks for the trip report. I saw Cole Escola on Broadway in Oh Mary, and it was absolutely worth every penny!

This work of his is free, and PDF (pretty darn funny):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYkDGvT4tJk