Our Europe Trip

Won't be sad to say goodbye to the same 4 sets of underwear but sad that it's our last full day. Weather is damp but we will head out to Eurodisney later. Hopefully some exciting rides won't replace the experiences and memories of the last 4 weeks in the two teenage minds as the "high spots" of the trip! But they are teenagers all said and done

Yesterday we wandered around Paris (probably walked another 8 km). We walked to find the Paris Catacombs. Long queue to get in (over an hour) but very interesting. A 1.4 km walk under Paris in dimmy lit passages lined with skulls and femurs. Not really that spooky really but you had to be impressed by the sheer numbers of bones. We then took a metro and then walked in the centre of Paris and found a Hardrock Cafe - a bit of a regular occurrence for us on this holiday. A little further on we found some lunch and walked on to the Eiffel Tower but the queues were absolutely huge, and the signs were predicting huge waiting times so we may look at going back on Monday morning maybe. We went to Paris's newest museum - very swanky - which is right near the Eiffel tower, then back to our hotel where we "dined in" for a change on chicken kebabs from a local takeaway. Kids squabbled over "little red" computer and a flash game, and we transferred the photos and watched a little BBC TV on a news channel until the stories recycled for a 3rd time!!

From Munich we took an overnight train to Amsterdam (a proper trip this time with sleeper beds and no one had anyone elses smelly feet in their face). Arrived feeling quite well rested, threw the luggage in left luggage for the day, arranged some accommodation for the night and set off to explore Amsterdam.
Took the canal bus and cruised around - one of those hop on hop off where you like things. We did a bit of culture - visited Van Gogh gallery. Nice sunflowers! Then we cruised to Ann Franks house but the queues put us off, so we cruised a bit more and then just walked through the city centre, looking at shops. Found our hotel - rather close to the "edge" of the red light district, but fine location really. Ate a scoop each of "Hollands best chips" and felt full for the rest of the night!!

The next morning we hopped on a train to Brussels with the sole aim of buying some chocolate and eatting some genuine waffles..... both superb, and cruised the shops. Did hope to visit their Atom centre but it was too far for the time we had. In the end maybe we would have had time as we ended up stuck there to 9 pm as it was the first time we had trouble getting a seat and had to reserve one to Paris. Arrived at hotel at 11 pm!! Kids on floor 3, us on 6. Seems a quaint hotel - think we have a really recently refurbished room - the bathroom is BIG and all very new and nice. Plans for today are to activate tourist mode and meet up with the relatives later this afternoon.

Were sad to leave lovely Austria but travelled to Munich with no problems and found our hotel in the rain: Can really recommend the Arthotel as close to station, food and a lot of computer shops! Also a lot of adult entertinment so the boys education continues.....hehe: We have booked 4 sleeper beds for train to Amsterdam so will head off at 10 pm tonight. Begining to feel that end of holiday is rushing up too fast, sigh.
Weather is getting worse as we go North with storms being forecast. Plans for today include museum and retail therapy! Sorry there are no new photos yet but it is fiddly to resize for upload and hotel lobbey internet has no accessible usbs anyway.

Munich update: Spent an enjoyable few hours in a great science/technology museum and then walked around a bit and ate. We headed out to Dachau (Concentration camp) but James decided he really didn't want to see it, so we walked around the town of Dachau, returned to Munich and did some more retail therapy. Finally ended up in Burger King where we urged the kids to make their food last for 2 hours while we tried to use the worst free wifi in the world while we waited for our overnight train!!

Vienna great, Salzburg even better and just spent 3 wonderful days in St Veit ad Glan. Will post more and pictures asap. But no Sound of Music!!
We have just put all our photos taken so far onto 2 dvds as an extra backup....so be very scared at the next department meeting / barbeque!!! We figure that if 4 of us take photos, often the same, we will get some good ones of everything..... but it will take some sorting out.
Austria has to be the most beautiful of the countries we have visited and although I love Greek Islands & Venice is special, Austria does seem to have everything - and they certainly know how to build a very fine castle and terrifying "louge" type rides (and yep I (Jo) piked out on that one again too!!). Just wait for the photos okay!

We left Umbria and went to Pisa for an afternoon and then on to Florence. We decided to stay there for a night and the next morning we went to Venice. We had a night in Venice & until 9 pm the next night so we walked miles and miles.....and got lost several times. At one point after an hour we realised we were back within 50m of starting and nearly got away with it but the boys spotted the same "pavement works" and we were rumbled. They have little faith in our map reading skills.
Venice was lovely and not really changed at all even after all this time, and not too busy. I imagine July would be another matter.

We travelled to Vienna from Venice on overnight train 9 pm to 8 am the next day. We could only reserve seats and that would have been fine except the air conditioning for our whole carriage had problems. After and hour or 2 of sauna they tried to fix it at a station - limited improvement. By 1 am we were in Austria at Villach - where we sat for 2 hours. I think an hour was scheduled but the rest seemed a little random as we were serenaded by various noises and they attached assorted engines to us and dragged us up and down the line, adding a few carriages here and there. However miraculously we arrived the next day in Vienna on time.