September 5, 2015

Our week in Paris is coming to an end.  We have had a very nice, relaxing week just hanging out in Paris and trying to give ourselves some downtime.  The last couple of days, we have visited Versailles, gone to the light show at the Eiffel Tower, then we spent today climbing to the 2nd viewing level of the tower.  Yesterday, we took the train out to Versailles and toured the entire palace area.  We had downloaded the Rick Steves audio tour, so we used that to make our way through the palace and out in the gardens.  It was kind of an overcast, yucky day, but it only sprinkled for a few minutes, so we got lucky.  The entire grounds are amazing and beautiful.  I think that it I could pick anywhere to live, this might be it!

Versailles

Versailles

Chapel in Versailles

Versailles

Hall of Mirrors – Versailles

Versailles

Versailles

Apollo Fountain at Versailles

Versailles Garden Fountain

Versailles Gardens

We got back into Paris and came over to the Eiffel Tower to watch the light show.  We weren’t sure how busy it got, so we came plenty early to get a good spot right in the center.  Hayden had fun taking pictures where he was holding up the tower.  lol

Holding up the tower

We got into our front and center spots and took pictures from light all the way to dark and then with the sparkly lights on at 9:00 pm.  You can see the progression of it getting darker in the pictures below…

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

After a “late” night last night (getting home at 10:00 pm is a late night for us these days), we slept in this morning before heading back to the tower again to go up to the top.  We decided to be adventurous and climb to the top instead of taking the elevator (plus it only costs about half the price!).  There were a total of 688 stairs to get up to the 2nd viewing platform.  You are not aloud to walk all the way up to the top for safety reasons and there was a crazy, huge line for the elevator, so we decided to just stop at the 2nd viewing platform.  We read that this is the best view anyway, so to say $18 and at least 2 hours, we were fine with that!  The view was beautiful and we could see the entire city.  We walked around for a while before heading back down.  From there, we came back to the apartment where we are now getting all packed up.

Climbing the stairs…688 steps to the top!

Elevator on the Eiffel Tower

Adam “climbing” the tower

View from the 1st floor

View from the Eiffel Tower

View from the Eiffel Tower

View from the Eiffel Tower

View from the Eiffel Tower

View from the Eiffel Tower

View from the Eiffel Tower

From Paris, we will be heading up to Normandy tomorrow for a few days.  We are planning to do a Normandy tour tomorrow and then go out to St Michele on Tuesday.  We will leave on Wednesday and go to Puy du Fou, this really awesome medieval town with jousting, chariot races, falconry shows, etc.  It should be pretty awesome and Hayden (and Adam) are super excited.

September 1, 2015

After a rough trip out of Switzerland and into France, we finally made it to Paris.  The train ride was a little miserable because the lady at the counter did our tickets wrong, so we didn’t have actual seats and had to sit in the jump seats in the doorway for about 4 hours.  Despite that, we made it and after a 2 hour ordeal with closed train lines, buses and terrible traffic, we got to our Airbnb apartment and got settled in.  Staying in an apartment for the next week is going to be great…we have a full kitchen, a real bed, and a washing machine…yay!

We spent Monday and Tuesday doing the hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city.  It really is the easiest way to see everything and get a good overview of the city.  I know they’re kind of cheesy, but I still like to do them!  On Monday, we spent much of our time at the Louvre.  The museum itself if beautiful and to think that it used to be a palace is amazing…it is SO BIG!  We saw all of the most famous things;  the Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo, Winged Victory, lots of amazing rooms, and Napoleon’s apartment.

The Louvre

The Louvre

Mona Lisa

Venus de Milo

Winged Victory

Ceiling in the Louvre

Napoleon’s Apartments

Hayden was most excited that we saw (yet another) Egyptian exhibit.  I’m pretty sure that he is going to end up being an Egyptologist…he is completely obsessed and would love nothing more than to spend all of his time in the Egyptian parts of museums.  He has so much fun reading the hieroglyphics (he knows just about the entire alphabet).  We spent at least 3 hours in the museum and didn’t even come close to covering the whole thing.  I think one of the coolest parts for us was going downstairs where you can see the old palace/castle/medieval part and they had a model of what it used to look like…really cool!

Egyptian exhibit in the Louvre

The Louvre Pyramid

At the Louvre

We spent the afternoon driving around the city on the bus.  We got a nice once-over on the highlights of the city and planned some of our upcoming days and other things that we want to do while we are here.  The buildings around the city and the river are really nice to look at, it’s amazing the detail that is put into the architecture.  After the bus, we went back to our apartment to have a nice dinner (it’s wonderful to have our own kitchen again!) and to relax with and watch a movie before going to bed.

Eiffel Tower

Egyptian Obelysk

Paris Opera House

On the River Seine

One of the big things that we wanted to do was to tour Notre Dame.  Hayden didn’t know much about it, so we watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney version) last night so that he would be a little familiar with the church.  The pictures don’t do it justice and it really is hard to imagine how big it is until you are standing under it looking up!  We went on a great walking tour of the church and the surrounding area.  The tour guide was great and we learned lots about the church.  It’s amazing to think that it is over 800 years old!  The highlight of the tour for Hayden was having a pigeon land on his head and sit there for a while…it was pretty funny.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Friendly pigeons at Notre Dame

Notre Dame Cathedral

We also learned that this star in front of the church is the official “center” of the city.  Although it’s not the “actual” center, anytime that they refer to the center of Paris, the distance is measured from this location.  We also walked across the “love lock” bridge where people hang their locks and throw the key in the water.

“Center” of Paris

Love Locks on the River Seine

After leaving the City Center area, we got back on the bus to see some areas that we had missed the day before.  While Adam and I enjoyed the rest of the sights along the city (Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge, lots of great views of the river), Hayden pretty much pooped out and spent at least an hour sleeping.  The only problem with him taking a nap in the middle of the day is that he will want to be up all night!

Too much touring!

Arc de Triomphe

The Moulin Rouge

Of course, given his nap in the afternoon, we stayed up late walking movies (Ratatouille, since we are in Paris) and getting excited to go to Paris Disneyland tomorrow!  I’m not really sure who is more excited…probably me.  🙂

August 30, 2015

I would have to say that Zermatt, Switzerland is definitely near the top of the list for our favorite places so far.  The town was absolutely beautiful, the food was amazing and the view is to die for!  We spent two nights/three days right outside of Zermatt in Taesch (the closest town with camping – but only a 10 minute train ride away).  The ride in from Milan was really great.  As we got closer and closer, the mountains kept getting bigger and Hayden about went crazy when we started to see snow.  🙂

First view of the mountains from the train

We made it to town and our campsite was only about a 5 minute walk from the train station…super convenient!  It was right next to a river and had a great view of the mountains.  The only downside is that it was pretty cold at night, but we made due.  We did have some really fun neighbors…these crazy mountain goats that were half black/half while and had super long, shaggy hair.  They were pretty hilarious.  I wish I had an audio clip of them bleating…it was SO FUNNY sounding!

Welcome to Zermatt from Wooly

The view from our campsite

Awesome camping neighbors

The first night, we went to a local restaurant for some fondue (of course – can’t miss the fondue in Switzerland!).  It was amazingly good.  I had the cheese fondue, Adam had the meat and Hayden had the most amazing Mac and Cheese I have ever tasted.  It was macaroni with cream, cheese, bacon, potatoes, and caramelized apples.  I am totally going to try and make it when we get home!

Best Mac and Cheese EVER!

Cheese fondue…yum!

We slept great and slept the next day making our way up to the Matterhorn!  The Matterhorn Express takes you all the way up to almost 4,000 meters high into the mountains.  Just to compare, the Matterhorn is 4,478 meters tall, so we were practically at the top!  The ride up had beautiful views and was nice because it wasn’t crowded, so we had a gondola to ourselves.

The Matterhorn Express

Riding the Matterhorn Express

The Matterhorn

The Matterhorn

We made it to the top after about 45 minutes and HOLY COW…it was stunning!  The pictures don’t even do justice to the amazing views.  It really is like being on top of the world.  We were completely surrounded by mountains and it felt like you were in the sky.  The entire area is covered with snow year round, so there were even a bunch of people skiing.  We spent our time snow tubing, having a couple of good snowball fights and making snow angels.  Hayden was in heaven and certainly didn’t want to ever leave.  We have decided that were are going to start training to be serious hikers so that we can get up into the mountains again and actually be able to walk further than 100 meters without losing our breathes!  lol

At the top of the world

Swiss Alps/Matterhorn

Swiss Alps/Matterhorn

The Matterhorn

Swiss Alps and the Matterhorn

Snowball Fight!!!

Let’s go tubing!

Back up the hill for another run

Snow Angel

Another really different thing are the houses…they are very cute, but the funniest thing is that the roof shingles are just giant pieces of rocks!  We are still trying to figure out how the houses hold up that much weight, but it seems to work!

Cool houses with stone roof tiles!

Despite the scenery and snow, I think the highlight of Hayden’s trip to Switzerland was that he got his very own Swiss Army Knife.  We was SO EXCITED.  He has been asking Adam all day if there is anything that he can open/cut/or otherwise use his knife for.  He has now announced that he is going to do Boy Scouts so that he can use his knife to learn how to carve and to survive in the wilderness.  🙂

Hayden’s new Swiss Army Knife (from Switzerland!)

I really could have stayed in Switzerland for a few extra days, except that it is a little cold for our summer weight sleeping bags up here in the mountains.  From here, we are taking the train up to Paris and staying for a week up there.  We have an AirBnB apartment, so it will be nice to be out of a tent for a while!

August 26, 2015

Yay, yay, yay…we spent two great days at the World’s Fair!  It was such a good time and Hayden had an awesome time (and so did we).  🙂  Our campsite was right near the fair, so it was very convenient to get back and forth each day.  The campsite was very nice and they even had a petting zoo.  Hayden had fun taking bread to feed the animals in the morning.

Petting zoo at the campsite

Over the course of two days, we made it to about 70% of the pavilions.  There was SO MUCH to see!!  It was basically like a giant version of the world showcase at Epcot.  The theme for the year was Feeding the World and talked about how each country works to alleviate hunger.  It was really interesting and there were a lot of great innovations that were being shown off.   Here are a whole bunch of pictures from the fair:

In the USA Pavilion with FL and NC

PepsiCo in the USA Pavilion

Wall Garden…pretty awesome!

France Pavilion

Sliding in the Germany Pavilion

Ready to climb the net bridge in Brazil

Net Climb in the Brazil pavilion

16th birthday present?

2015 Milano Expo

Playing with puppets in the Vietnam Pavilion

Puppets in the Vietnam Pavilion

Horticulture exhibit

Virtual Reality in Slovakia

Inside of the honeycomb in the UK Pavilion

Bee Keeper Hayden

Honey background in the UK Pavilion

Windsurfing

Doing some rock climbing

Off to the races

Super cool exercise bike!

Walking on the equator in Equador

Just relaxing

Tree of Life at the Expo

OMG…the best meal ever!

Nepal Pavilion

Hugging the cow in Ireland

August 25, 2015

Well, Adam has now full-filled his life long goal of going on the Sound of Music tour!  We went on a bike tour of the city that focuses on the filming locations from The Sound of Music.  We had an awesome guide and doing the tour by bike was much more fun than just sitting on a bus listening to a headset.  We started in the center of the city where we had a beautiful view of the Hohensalzburg Castle, the river, and the surrounding areas.  From here, we continued through the city up to Nonnberg Abbey where the real Maria was training to be a nun and where some parts of the movie were filmed.  It was pretty neat to see the actual places.  Very little has changed since the filming, so it pretty much looks the same.  There was also a great view of the mountains from up here.

View of Salzburg

View of Salzburg

View of Salzburg

Sound of Music bike tour!

The Abbey where Maria was training to be a nun

Abbey where the real Maria was training to be a nun

Next, we went to St Peter’s Abbey which is considered to be the oldest abbey still in operation today.  This was where they got the inspiration for the crypt scene where the Von Trapps are hiding behind the gates in the cemetery when the Nazis are looking for them.  They were not allowed to film inside of here, so they had to build a set for the actual filming.

Inspiration for the abbey graveyard in The Sound of Music

From there, we rode to Schloss Leopoldskron where they used the garden and lake view of the palace for the garden scenes.  Although they liked the lake view, they thought that house (palace) looked to big to be the house of a Naval Captain, so they used the yellow house that is scene in the film (although the inside wasn’t used…just the outside).

House that was used for the yard scenes in TSOM

Von Trapp’s house (from the movie)

Doing the “heel click” from TSOM

Going from the city area out into the country, we HAD to make a stop in an open field to do The SOund of Music opening scene twirl!  We had fun!!  🙂  The actual place where this was filmed is up in the mountain and it’s private property, so people can’t go there.  😦

Biking through the Salzburg hills!

The Hills are Alive!!!

The Hills are Alive!

The Hills are Alive!

Beautiful view of Salzburg

Another stop along the tour was the big fountain where Maria splashes the horse as she is going to the Von Trapp house singing “Confidence”.  We got to play in the fountain for a few minutes and get some good pictures.

Fountain where Maria splashes in The Sound of Music

Fountain where Maria splashes in The Sound of Music

The last stop was at Hellbrunn Castle where they have the gazebo that was used for a couple of the scenes.  You can’t go inside of it, but it’s pretty cool to see.  Hayden even got to climb a tree just like the kids in the movie!

The actual gazebo from TSOM

Climbing trees just like the Von Trapp kids

At the end of the tour, we came back to Mirabel Gardens and had a chance to walk around on our own to see where they filmed the “Do Re Mi” part of the movie.  It was a really nice garden, so we even stopped to have lunch inside.

Mirabel Garden

Riding a unicorn

The next day, we crossed back into Germany (although only by a mile or two) to go visit the Salt Mines.  We weren’t really sure what it was all about, but it was really cool!  We got to dress up in coveralls and take a train into the mines.  From there, we had to go on two different slides to go deeper into the mines.  They give a good overview of how the salt is actually mined.  I had no idea what went into the process!  In order to get the salt, the drill a huge hole and fill it with water creating a giant pool.  Over the course of several years, the salt is absorbed into the water and they eventually pump out the salt water.  They cook off the water and area left with all of the salt.  We got to taste the water in the lake/pool and it was VERY salty!

Ready for the Salt Mines!

Slide into the salt mines

Where they “harvest” the salt from the giant salt water pools

Salt Mine Tour

On our way back from the salt mines, we stopped at a spot where we planned to hike up to an ice cave, but it turned out that it was a 4 hour hike, so we scrapped that idea and just spent a couple of hours going for a more leisurely hike.  We found a nice spot by a river where Hayden and Adam built bridges and jumped over the waterfalls.  It was a lot of fun!

Hiking outside of Salzburg

Out for a hike

Nice place for a rest

We eventually made it back into town and made a quick stop and Mozart’s birth place and the house where he grew up.  We didn’t go to the museum, but we felt like we at least had to go by it since we were in Salzburg.

Mozart’s birth place

From here, we decided to add Milan to our itinerary so that we can spend a few days at the World’s Fair.  It will be a good time for all of us and Hayden especially, is super excited!

August 22, 2015

OK, I’m really falling behind on my postings!  We have been running so fast from city to city that before I know it, I’m already an entire country behind!  I will get caught up by tomorrow!!  🙂

We spent 3 days in Munich this week.  The weather was projected to be rainy, so we stayed at “The Tent” which was a giant tent where you could find a spot on the floor to sleep.  We were SO GLAD that we did this!  It absolutely poured rain the first night and although I have great confidence in our tent, I don’t know if even it would have held up!  We liked having a warm/dry place to sleep where we didn’t have to worry about our stuff.

Our spot in The Tent

We downloaded a Rick Steves audio tour for the town of Munich and used that to see the old town area.  It was very informative and if it hadn’t been for the continued rain, we would have really enjoyed the tour!  The city is beautiful and many of the buildings are very impressive.  The town hall is huge and beautiful and there were several really neat churches.  (We only went into one because Hayden’s a little “churched out”!)

Town Hall in Munich

May Pole in Munich

St Peter’s Church in Munich

When it got too wet for us to be walking around, we popped into the Hofbrauhaus for dinner and a (very big) beer.  It was a fun place to hang out and we ended up at a table with a couple who were from Marco Island, Florida and were doing a house exchange there in Munich.  Adam enjoyed his beer while Hayden had an Apfel Schorle that looked just like a beer.  They had fun toasting and drinking.

Hofbrauhaus Munich

Hofbrauhaus Munich

Cheers!

Drink up…

The next day was MUCH nicer and we took the train and a bus out to Neuschwanstein Castle.  This is the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty castle for Disney and is the model for the castle in Disney World.  Unfortunately, the tours were booked up for the next 8 hours, so we decided to just kike to the top and look around the outside without going in.  We didn’t really feel like we missed much because the entire tour was only 30 minutes anyway.  It was as cool looking as I remember from when I was here almost 15 years ago.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Hiking up to Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

View from the castle

We lucked out because Saturday was the 90 year anniversary of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, (Science and Technology) so we got free entry to the museum and to see the planetarium show!  We were pretty excited because Hayden really wanted to go to the museum and we are always happy to save money!  lol  The museum ended up being a great way to spend half a day.  They had lots of exhibits on space, atoms, and the creation of the Universe.  Hayden was totally into it and has decided that he wants an electron microscope for Christmas.  🙂  They even had a playroom for kids with Giant Legos, so he was in heaven.

Deutsches Museum

A Lego Masterpiece!

Tiny Hayden

From Munich, our next stop is Salzburg, Austria then back to Italy for the World’s Fair in Milan.