September was a bit crazy. We took two big trips with just a few days home in Porto in between them. We experienced weather extremes and saw and did a Lot.

At the beginning of the month we went to The Netherlands and Belgium. We based that trip around a funky parade that we had seen mentioned last year on Facebook in a small town in The Netherlands. The town of Zundert with a population of around 21,000 has been putting on a community parade since 1936. Each of 20 neighborhoods creates a giant flower-covered float using volunteer labor. The floats competing for top prize can reach a height of 20 meters. It is a fun, wholesome, and very well-organized event. We flew into Amsterdam for a day, then took the train to Breda to stay near Zundert. We took a short bus ride to and from the parade. After that experience, our travels continued by train to the popular tourist towns of Ghent and Bruges in Belgium. We then took a train ride to Brussels before the return flight to Porto. It was great traveling with no car. On this trip we saw unseasonably high temperatures with most days getting up to over 30º C. (Over 90º F.) We walked a lot and most days required three or more showers.

For contrast, our trip at the end of September was to Iceland. The weather was mostly cold (to us), very windy, and rainy. Had it been just a couple degrees colder, our rain would have been snow. As it was, the snow-capped mountains were gorgeous. The few sunny hours we had were treasures. Still, it was one of our favorite trips ever and a place we definitely want to get back to (in warmer weather ) Over ten days, we drove the entire ring road around the island plus a few back-roads. Most tourists go for the waterfalls, which are countless and amazing. For us, it was the rugged terrain that had us mesmerized. We were especially in awe of the mountains, glaciers, and moss-covered lava fields. Even in ugly weather, the country is stunning. We also loved the simple wooden churches and scruffy Icelandic horses. We appreciated seeing no stop signs – just yield signs and round-a-bouts.