Category Archives: Travel

Vive la Paris!

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glass pyramid, Louvre

Paris, Day 1 What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than heading south to the city of lights–Paris! President’s day conveniently fell near sweetheart day to afford us a 4 day weekend in France. Original plans had all 5 of us traveling south but Lauren couldn’t manage to get away from cheer team practice (and she wanted to spend Valentine’s day with her special sweetheart). So, Will and Lilly eagerly left school a couple hours early for the 7 hour drive. Soon after we crossed the border into France, it started to snow. And it continued to snow for the next 2 hours, so much snow that the road was quickly reduced to one lane traffic and our drive morphed into more than 9 hours to our hotel outside Disneyland Paris.
After a good night’s rest, we woke to sunny skies and a fabulous French breakfast. Just ask Will how good breakfast is in France…crepes, cold cuts, french cheese, baguettes and strong coffee or hot chocolate as your beverage. The hotel gave us one free breakfast for our stay and we’re happy we chose the first day to fill up. We chose to go to Disneyland on our first day: weekday crowds are typically smaller and it was a great motivator to get the kids excited for going to Paris. I bought tickets online for 79 euro per person which allowed us to visit both parks in one day. We could have taken the train to Disney but we chose to drive because we’d heard parking was convenient and cheap. It’s true! We paid 9 euro for a full day and had the benefit of not waiting for the train once the parks closed. The kids chose Walt Disney Studios for the first park to visit. Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster had minimal lines and we sailed onto our favorites. We did notice that the French rides tend to be a bit more intense…and after one hour of riding crazy coasters, Tim and I both had slight headaches and queasy tummies. Around lunchtime, we switched parks and had a hearty lunch in Adventureland with African drummers serenading us by singing Shakira’s WakaWaka song. The food was great..Lilly even had a kids’ pizza in the shape of Mickey Mouse.
The magical day wrapped up with the spectacular Disney Dreams show. Featuring Sleeping Beauty’s castle as the backdrop for the laser light and water show, we were entertained with famous Disney tunes and characters projected onto the castle. Once the fireworks hit the dark sky, we knew it was time to leave. It was a great visit to a Disney theme park.

Buda and Pest

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From Vienna we traveled to Hungary and visited the cities of Buda and Pest, which were joined together in 1873 and linked by the beautiful Chain Bridge which spans the Danube River. Budapest is a beautiful city and the views are equally grand from both sides of the river. On one bank you can gaze at the British Parliament-inspired Hungarian Parliament building; and on the other side, you get a spectacular view of Fisherman’s Bastion. Budapest is a city for lazy walking…along the river, across bridges, up and down hills and the kids indulged my desire to see the parliament building at night…from the other side of the river. They were troopers and it was only Lilly who insisted what we were doing was “Dumb!”

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Budapest also is home to steamy and relaxing thermal waters. We spent a leisurely afternoon soaking in the mineral tubs and large outdoor pools at the Széchenyi thermal baths. It was a bit tricky figuring out where to change and store our clothing but once we unlocked the cabin with our plastic bracelets we were quick to dive in along with hundreds of other Christmas revelers. After an hour in the warm pool, we found the warmer pool and then made our way inside to the stinky pools. The complex is huge and we only ventured as far as the first 3 rooms where we found green pools that smelled like rotten eggs, saunas with magical colored lights and a cold dip which we think had a melting iceberg floating on top. When we managed to drag our tired bodies back to the cabin, Tim insisted he had never felt more relaxed. Although, he could have enjoyed a massage at the baths as well.
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Near our hotel was the public ice skating rink located just outside the castle gates. What an incredible experience to ice skate on Christmas in the glow of a castle. We met up with the Becker family and had fun trying to remember how to skate without slipping and sliding all over the ice. On this trip, Will made it all by himself around the rink several times and Lilly was comfortable just having someone pull her along.

Vienna, the golden city

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Waltzing through Vienna; Just can't help it.

Waltzing through Vienna; Just can’t help it.

We woke on Friday morning to SNOW! Finally, after a week of fog and cloudy skies, and a dramatic loss of the 12 inches of snow we received the week before, we had 2 inches of fresh powder. A perfect way to start the day!
Tim had to work a half day and Lauren wanted to go to school so they took off before 8am. It was my job to rally the remaining troops for the trip to Austria. I wisely determined to let “sleeping dogs lie” except in the case of Lady, our real dog. I loaded her up into the van and drove to the kennel for her doggie vacation. This was a very bad idea. As I made my way out of Lupburg and into neighboring villages, I was slipping and sliding all over the road and then I came upon a hill. A minor hill in normal weather but in the van on a slick and snowy morning, I lost traction and promptly found myself on the side of the road–stranded. As the capable, gifted and can-do gal that I am, I called Tim. He slowly made his way from post and helped right the vehicle. I refused to drive the van any farther and quickly settled myself into the driver’s seat of the Volvo. I followed Tim and the dog to the kennel and then we made our way S-L-O-W-L-Y back home.
By noon, Tim and Lauren were back at home and the family proceeded to pack the car for the 4 hour drive to Vienna. We soon realized that although the autobahn was clear of snow and ice, most drivers were understandably cautious and traffic moved at a consistent safe pace. And, the snow continued to fall. And, it was the shortest day of the year. And, we couldn’t see a thing. All adding up to a very weary drive. After a late meal at McDonalds, we rolled into Vienna around 8pm and the first sight we came upon: Schonbrunn Palace. It was a treat to behold all decked out in golden lights and floodlit to announce to passersby how grand the building really is. The girls exclaimed: We LOVE this city!”

Another blog about Prague

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Once again we made a trip to our favorite eastern bloc city: Prague. Lindsey and her friend Lauren thought it would be great to head out to Prague, our fairy tale city of choice.  Lauren has travelled extensively in Europe but had never been to the Czech Republic before.  We couldn’t resist the chance to present to her a city that reminds us of Disneyland.  We left home at 9am and made it to the Prague-Arcaden mall by 11:30am. We first stopped at the border crossing and paid a quick 16 euros for a vignette, the vehicle sticker that lets us travel unhassled on the autobahn for 10 days. Then, we tried to park at our favorite Park and Ride, next to the Zlicin stop on the metro. But, handy signs on the autobahn let us know that there were no available spaces at the P+R stops so we made a decision to park at the mall and chance not having a “security guard” watching our car for the day.
Not a problem, it turns out. The mall is a nice one with Rip Curl, Starbucks and H+M on hand. We simply walked through the convenient pedestrian tunnel connecting the mall with the metro stop to purchase our metro day tickets (110 Czech Kroene=$5) and after a 20 minute metro ride, made it to the Old Town by 12:30pm.  The three of us hit the Mucha museum first and I highly recommend this delightful little museum featuring the posters and art work by Alphonse Mucha.  Following a tasty salad lunch at a restaurant near the St Charles bridge, we crossed over the Vltava River and took Tram #22 up to the Castle Complex.  This time in Prague, we took the tram to the monastery high up on the hill and managed to score a new view of the city from this great height. We walked down to the cathedral, castle and other buildings in castle complex and wound our way through the vineyards before making back to the car (after a brief stop at the mall Starbucks–open til 10:00pm) and home by 9pm.  Whew…an exhausting but satisfying day!

Berlin

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The Reichstag, Berlin

The Reichstag, Berlin

During our time in Berlin, we managed to cover a lot of ground.  Will commented that the thing he liked best about the city was it’s “excellent public transportation that gets you to where you want to be.”  For the two full days we were in Berlin we bought the group day ticket which got 5 of us unlimited public transportation for 15 euros.  We also had to purchase an additional child’s unlimited use ticket in order for the whole family to travel together.  It was quite a bargain and a good alternative to walking everywhere.  In fact, it was rare to see a lot of vehicle traffic in the city–I think Berliners have done a great job of using public transportation and helping tourists get a handle on the system too.
On Sunday, the family split up with the girls going to the zoo and Tim, Will and I going on a Third Reich Tour of Berlin.  The 3 hour walking tour was fascinating and included seeing the sites of Hitler’s bunker, the no man’s zone between East and West Berlin, the Luftwaffe building and various other notorious buildings symbolizing the tragic events leading up to WWII and the separation of the city.  We chose berlinwalks.com for our tour needs because we’ve used them before in other cities and their guides have never failed to both inform and entertain us.  Mort, our guide for Berlin, offered many personal illustrations about life in Berlin during 1920s through today  and we have a good handle of the role Berlin played in the Great War.
Our afternoon was spent in the Pergamon Museum and a walk at the East Side Gallery to see the Wall.  I was a bit disappointed with the Pergamon, primarily because my vision of what the temple should look like was not at all how it actually is today.   For some reason, I was expecting a fully formed temple with goddesses and gods gloriously guarding the entrance.  Instead, it’s a combination of historical pieces and “blank areas” that you have to use the imagination to bring the structure to life.  Far more impressive is the Ishtar Gate in the adjoining room.  While it is also missing a great deal of the original structure, the sheer size and deep blue color of the tiles allows the mind to visualize how grand the space really was.
The visit to the East Side Gallery to see the artists’ contributions to the Wall was inspirational, if a bit long.  Lilly was simply dragging throughout the entire walk but I did see 2 paintings I consider iconic…The Kiss and The Trabi breaking through the wall.  Once I saw those images, I felt like I could put a checkbox on the experience.