Rome: The mini-series pt.3 (the finale)

The Rome mini series ends with a firey explosion at a castle on the banks of the river. There's mystery and intrigue as an ancient coded trail is unlocked (OK, I shouldn't write a blog entry while drinking wine, the first bit about the firey finale was true at least).
Continuing my plans to run in as many cool and interesting locations as possible during our trip, I started this morning's run at St Peter's Bascillia (which is precisely 102 of my steps from our front door), over the river, past Piazza Venezia and a lap of the Colosseum as a turnaround point. It felt a little surreal like my Eiffel Tower turnaround point a few weeks ago. After so many long and boring runs in the same Melbourne areas it just doesn't feel real to be jogging around such landmarks. It was a fairly simple 6km run, though as I started late after a sleep-in, it was already 29 degrees on my return stretch at just past 10am.
After sorting out how to mail back home another 8kgs of the finest junky souvenirs my hard-earned Euros can buy, we all headed off to the Colosseum this time. We reluctantly took the same bus company on their long-winded circuit of Rome, but gave up and started to walk when we were an hour into the trip and only 3/4 of the way there (silly bearing in mind it took me 16 mins to run there earlier in the day). To anyone else planning a trip to Rome, I recommended getting a hop-on bus company brochure because it's a good way to score a free map. Then use the free map to walk around the centre of the city to all of the attractions. All of the main sites are close by foot and you'll see a lot more wandering the streets.
The hot sun was scorching and made the trip a little hard work (yes, I know those suffering the cold in Melbourne will have no sympathy), but we still had a great time at the Colosseum. I'm not sure about the accuracy of my MCG comparisons, because the kids were left with some weird impression of lions trying to tackle gladiator footballers (see, not that different to AFL).
As we're reaching the point in the trip where we need a few easy days as a family to recharge for the final stretch, we caught the bus back home to give the kids an afternoon break. But breaks are for kids ... I still had more exploring to do and a couple more sites on the Angels & Demons trail to knock off (now completed). I reckon I walked 15kms from what I can figure on the map, by completing a full circuit of the city area past all of the main landmarks by foot. The kids have done a marvellous job to maintain such a pace for 5 weeks, but it was also good to power around the city by myself for three hours as well to spend more time at key spots.
Returning back to the apartment, we all then headed straight out again to catch some fireworks at

Castel Sant'Angelo which is practically down the end of our street. Now I won't go on about the significance of this site in the Dan Brown fictional book, but it was pretty cool watching the famous

castle 'explode' with fireworks in the evening. The show went on for about an hour, and while we have no idea what the fireworks were in aid of, we'll just have to safely presume the Romans were keen to farewell us and make sure we left the country.
The Italian part of our journey was awesome even though Italian service was fairly average. In the morning we take a flight to Amsterdam to meet up again with our Dutch friends Sofie, Daan and Paul at their house (they should be happy with the Dutch winning the 'foozball' today and progressing to the quarter finals in the World Cup).

Rome: The mini series

They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was just one day that we had to see everything last time Sandra and I were in town with my Mum eight years ago. It's nice this time to supposedly take things a bit easier this time, but after a long day of serious tourist activity we're still completely exhausted. Rather than just tick sites off the list like last time, we were able to stop to take in the atmosphere today which was great.

This morning (Sunday 27 June) started with a trip to St Peter's Bascillia which is literally less than 100 steps away for us to walk from our apartment. Not wanting to make the same mistake as last time I was careful to wear trousers to not be turned away for causing offence to the Church (or more precisely some slick Italian security wannabe who'd still let in gorgeous young ladies wearing next to nothing). So it was very nice to at last see the inside of this beautiful cathedral for the first time. Unfortunately we were misinformed and the Pope wasn't giving Mass today, rather will deliver a service on Wednesday when we fly out to Amsterdam. Nevertheless, it was still interesting to see a regular Mass performed in the church to hundreds of people with their cameras. Thinking we were in line to see the Sistine Chapel, we instead ended up in a queue to take a lift up to the top of the cathedral to see the dome up close from the inside, before climbing 320 very steep and narrow stairs to get on the roof. While it was hot and hard work, especially for the kids, it was an unexpected treat with the views of the Bascillia and Rome below simply fantastic (see first pic).

We returned back to the apartment for a quick lunch and change into more appropriate clothing for a 30 degree day and headed off to find a hop on / hop off bus like we did last time we were in town. We weren't on the bus for long after seeing another important site to tick off on my sad Angels & Demons tour - the Piazza Navona. Apparently it's more famous for three beautiful fountains by Bernini than Dan Brown's fictitious attempt to kill off a cardinal (the 'water' element for those that care). It's also famous for it's killer gelato - or at least should be - with a couple of excellent stores in the area. We all cooled off in the sun by the centrepiece fountain with several flavours of gelati (no cardinals floating around in the water un/fortunately). Here there was also a large artistic market where the kids took in turns posing for their own masterpieces (well, 10 Euro caricatures of themselves - see second pic of Lachlan modelling).

A short walk had us at the Pantheon about 30 minutes later - 10 mins if it wasn't for the junky souvenir shops serving as a distraction. Like last time, the Maccas out the front saved the day as the only real toilet stop in the area, and was where we stopped for some takeaway as it was already about 5.30pm. The front of the Pantheon where we stopped to eat is undergoing renovations unfortunately, but it was still "impressive" inside to use Lachlan's exact words. The kids have changed so much over the past five weeks that we've been away. I reckon Lach has grown a couple of centremetres at least and is talking like a teenager sometimes. Johanna has always taken challenges in her stride, but even more so over the past few weeks, and seems to be learning a lot about the world as we visit new places.

After the Pantheon, we continued our walk through the laneways to the Trevi Fountain. Its bright white marble, and clear blue water shone out from the gritty lane on the approach to an impressed "woah" from Lachlan (about as a good praise as you get from a 5-year-old). Legend seemed to work for us last time as throwing a coin into the water is supposed to ensure your return to Rome. We repeated the tradition, this time with the kids (see video below).

We then returned to the hop on / hop off bus only to discover that it must have just been a hop off bus because after an hour of waiting there was nothing to hop onto. Dozens of similarly annoyed tourists gave up as we did, and instead took to walking. For 65 Euros for two days we weren't impressed that the bus failed to come after 7pm (it's supposed to run to 9pm, but that might just be what tourists of all nationalities joke as "Italian time"). So, as we hadn't done enough walking, we trekked about 4 or 5kms back to the Vactican and 'home' to call it a night. We'll try our luck at getting a refund on the bus tomorrow (no joy tonight though hopefully we scared off a few other tourists from using this company). If nothing else, this trip has certainly been good for keeping the family physically active as we're constantly on the move.

While it's not fair to tar an entire nation with the same brush, our impressions of Italian service generally has been pretty average. Awesome country with many wonderful things to see and do, just not great when it comes to service unfortunately.

Video of Lachlan and Johanna at the Trevi Fountain follows (watch for the scene-stealing pigeon) ...

Roma

Today, Sat 26 June, we again achieved the impossible with the amount we managed to cram into our suitcase and smaller bags as we got ready to depart Venice. After lugging everything over a few bridges and down the laneways to a boat, we got to the station to find out that we'd be up for a 1.5 hour wait for an 11.30am train to Rome as earlier ones were fully booked. The day was already very warm, so the wait gave us the chance to stop for a drink and call my Mum and Sandra's parents (it's great to hear familiar voices at the other end of the line and hear how loved ones are going back home). We filed down to the platform shown on the departure screen about 10 mins beforehand, but - just like France - forgot that the Italian train system is a little dubious at times and they changed platforms with a couple of minutes to departure. Despite a mad dash with 60kgs of luggage between us, we missed it and had another two hour wait until the next service. The French and Italian trains are nowhere near as good as their Swiss and Austrian counterparts, but our train was still comfortable for the journey south over almost four hours through Bologne and Florence to Rome. As we went through Florence, Sandra and I thought back to the awesome week we spent in the region with my Mum, Johanna as a two-year-old and our friends Sofie and Daan eight years earlier. Then, our Dutch friends looked after Johanna as Sandra, Mum and I drove to do Rome in a day (a bit of a rush around the landmarks but still a lot of fun). This time around, we have three days in town to take in the sites and it's great to be back.
Arriving at our apartment by taxi we knew we would be close to St Peter's Bascillia, but were pleasantly surprised to find it about a block (or 5 mins walk) away. Just before a summer thunder storm rolled in we spent some time wandering around the square which was being set up with seating for Sunday morning mass (we think with the Pope). We'd been here before, but this time it seemed even more amazing as rain fell on the hot stone pavement (my awe may also have something to do with me watching the movie Angels & Demons on my iPod while on the train ... sad I know, but I think I've convinced the kids to come on an 'angel hunt' with me tomorrow [anyone who's read the Dan Brown book will know what I'm on about]). We're hoping the Pope is giving Mass tomorrow and we'll go along in the morning.

Our apartment around the corner is right above a pizza shop area much like Lygon St in Melbourne where Sandra & I lived during our uni days, so we dropped in for a pasta before calling it a night. The meal was pretty crappy, but Sandra was lucky to get a special surprise with her meal - a chunk of metal in her lasagne from a kitchen scowler (some people just get all of the luck). I looked for nails and bit of glass in my spaghetti carbonara, but was sadly disappointed to just find undercooked bits of ham. Well, at least we know where NOT to eat for the next few days. (Footnote: the metal chunk is OK as it was not digested).

The far canals of Venice

We're finally getting used to the peculiar nature of Venice and the leg muscles have had a great work out with the constant crossing of bridges. It no longer feels scary to walk around several narrow laneways with signage that means little and what felt completely bamboozling a couple of days ago now seems to make sense. Even Lachlan was able to correctly navigate (ie. guess) the 13 weird laneway turns and four bridges from our nearest boatstop to our apartment. The island area is almost entirely dominated by tourists with the locals only coming in to work in the shops as it's too expensive to live there permanently. It's actually nice to have no cars or trucks around, with the area given overly to pedestrians on land or boats on the canals.
Friday 25 June the girls spent some time together doing what girls do (shop of course) and Lachlan and I met up with them in the early afternoon for a wander around the popular Rialto Bridge / Ponte before getting a gondala ride.
We had no idea what the going rate was for a gondalier and thought the 80 Euros for a 35 min trip around the canals was initially a bit steep, but later on we all agreed that it was worth it for a once in a lifetime experience (later that day I overheard an American guy accepting a 150 Euro charge for a 45 min trip at Saint Marco's Square so I'm guessing it depends on how long you want, the area you board, time of day and how much of a sucker you look like).
Our gondalier was a young guy who gave a great commentary of the area's history and famous buildings. The Grand Canal is like a highway and his skill navigating his gondala around the water 'buses' and bigger boats was excellent. But it was the smaller canals that we crossed over many times while out walking that we loved the most. They were so very peaceful and it was like turning off a highway and driving down a quiet country road. As a movie fan I thought it particularly cool to say to our gondalier that a little boat 'garage' down one canal looked familiar to find out that it was a key scene in the movie 'The Italian Job' from several years ago.

Blog catch-up

We've been without a decent internet connection for the past several days, so I've just uploaded 7 posts. For those keen to find out what we've been up to, scroll down to 'Aussies in Austria'.
It's great to have the internet back, and we can't believe that we leave the country for a few weeks and Big Kev gets the boot as PM by Julie Gillard. Wow, what an interesting time in Australian politics. Johanna is due to get on a bus to Canberra a couple of days after we get back to Oz so she's excited about seeing our first female PM in action during Question Time when they visit Parliament House.

Venice, Italy

I've admitted in earlier posts to being a bit of a train gunzle, so now that that's out in the open I can safely say that our overnight train was a pretty cool experience. We had a family cabin of four bunk beds which we were keen to jump into after a big day walking around Innsbruck. It was a little weird to be rocked to sleep by the gentle sway of the train, awoken by the heavy braking of the driver, rocked to sleep again, awoken by the clunking of the train being split and falling back to sleep not really caring which country we ended up in (we had a really nice staff member looking after us so we were confident that all was in good hands).
Arriving in Venice at 6.30am was another strange experience and it took a few moments to orientate ourselves. Falling asleep on a train among the cold mountains of Austria and waking up by the canals of a very warm Venice was a strange but enjoyable experience.

We had to kill time until we were allowed into our apartment at 2pm so we checked our bags into the train station and went off to explore. The broken night's sleep on the train had us all fairly tired so we visited a cafe to recharge the batteries. But as the city doesn't really awaken until 9.30 or 10am, we checked out the boat system to get around town and tried to orientate ourselves. We met the agent at 2 to pick up the key to our apartment and eventually came to the realisation that maps are practically useless in Venice. The city doesn't follow any logical pattern, with you crossing bridges every 100 metres. I gave up on the map and eventually let the human GPS take over. I can't guarantee I took the most direct route, but it seem to work to just wander in what felt like the right direction. Even as I type this blog post on the steps of our apartment at midnight (only place the wifi works) I can hear an English couple arguing about the right direction to take.

It's hard to believe we're in Venice and we need to stop and just take in the surrounds for a few moments as it's all so very surreal. We played a game with the kids while we were waiting for the apartment key where we just sat on a bench and watched the locals going about their business, trying to guess what each person does, watching how they bundle their rubbish on the doorsteps to be picked up by a guy with a cart who then takes it to a nearby boat for dumping. Lachlan is astounded that there's no cars and is having withdrawal symptoms.

Today, Thurs 24 June we decided we needed a bit of a rest day so took a boat across to the mainland to visit a Venetian beach for the day. It was great to lay back in the sun (it's 28 degrees), contemplating our time in the snow a couple of days ago. On the way back from the beach we hired a four seater bike where in theory everyone pedals. I think I did 80% and

Sandra and Johanna the rest (Lach's feet couldn't reach so he had a good excuse). As I did most of the work, I suggested we pull our bike into a roadside cafe where a group of locals were watching Italy join Australia on the World Cup sidelines.

Tomorrow (Friday) we're going to explore more of Venice before getting a train to Rome on Saturday.

Farewell to Austria

On Tuesday 22 June we said farewell to Austria, but not before checking out a little more of the countryside at a town near Hopfgarten called Soll. We spent the morning wandering the village streets before having lunch with Sofie, Daan and Paul (who won't leave Austria to return to Holland until Thursday). Fortunately our Dutch friends will take one of our large suitcases with them on their 900km journey by car to save us lugging everything around Italy. We'll meet up with them again at their house about 40km out of Amsterdam in just over a week.
After leaving Soll we drove another 100km to Innsbruck which is a beautiful former Winter Olympic town among the snow-capped mountains. If we were to live anywhere in Austria it would definitely be here as the town was fantastic. Sandra loved the shopping (OK, I admit it was pretty good), and the scenery was just superb.
We were a bit worried about the length of the wait between us dropping off the hire car (which we originally picked up in Switzerland) and our next train trip at 11pm. Despite the 8 hour

wait for the train, the kids did a fantastic job with us checking out the town's shops until they closed at about 7pm. Wondering how we could kill another 4 hours we walked along the rapidly flowing river banks then Sandra and I thought it would be fantastic to have a progressive dinner where we just walk along and buy a snack a different shops over a couple of hours on the walk back to the train station.
It was a great way to see the city. Our train was an overnight sleeper train to Venice in Italy and it fortunately arrived on time (even though we weren't 100% sure it was our train due to some average signage at the station and the train splitting destinations somewhere in Italy as we slept, but the staff onboard were great and really helpful).
I'm so very glad that we spent almost a week in Austria as it's a wonderful country. The food is marvellous, the prices cheap (Switzerland is a major rip-off) and the landscape awesome. I'd love to come back when it's winter and the land is covered in snow.

Video: Snow in Austria

The 21st of June was supposedly the first day of summer in Austria, so what better day for it to snow?
We caught the ski lift from our house in Hopfgarten up to the top of Hohe Salve as it wasn't snowing at our 3/4 point on the mountain. We all had a great time in the snow and can't believe we were at the beach in Dubai during 40 degree heat a couple of weeks ago (check out the video below) ...

Salzburg, Austria

On 20 June we drove about 150kms from Hopfgarten to Salzburg in Austria. The trip was incredibly slow with the weather really bad and rain constantly coming in sideways making for not-so-great driving conditions.

Sandra was keen to see the city (she denies being a fan of The Sound of Music, but I'm not convinced because she was singing "doe, a dear, a female dear ... ray a drop of golden sun.." the whole way. Not really, I'm just kidding).
When we eventually got there we found driving in the city to be pretty easy (after over 2000kms I've got this driving on the right thing nailed) and found a parking spot in the old part of town. Mozart is big in town, and if I could be bothered I would have figured out why, but when you see a cool looking castle on top of a hill it just cries out for a look.

So, after trekking to the top (I exaggerate because there was a cable train ride) we checked out some of the town's medieval history.

Lachlan bought a sword and shield because he really wanted one and it had absolutely nothing to do with me thinking it would be cool to dub him "Sir Lachlan of Northumberland".

Yet again, we tucked into some good Austrian tucker before doing more of the touristy things in town despite the rain not stopping for a minute.

The drive back was another long 150km to Hopfgarten but it was fun for the kids to spend about an hour of the trip in Germany where we stopped for a burger at a truck stop (just so we could say we had at least one meal in Germany!).

Ellmau, Austria

On Saturday 19 June, we made good use of our four-day Austrian ski lift pass. The seven of us squissed into our hire car and drove about 20kms to another small ski town called Ellmau (pronounced Elmo like the small red dude from Sesame Street, though I don't think the locals saw the marketing potential).

The towns have gone to a significant effort to attract tourists during the 'summer' period by creating mini theme parks at the top or mid-point of the mountains which are presumably completely covered in snow during the winter. In Ellmau they had some strange magical frog theme happening, which was totally lost on those of us who don't know a word of German, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. We took a steep train ride up the mountain rather than a ski lift like other locations. The engineering required to pull off such a steep cable train climb was incredible (like most things in Austria) and as a certified international train gunzle I was suitably impressed.

At the top the fog started to roll in and the young and older kids alike loved jumping on the trampolines at the summit (it felt almost as if you were going to jump off the edge) and playing in the themed playground. But further up the hill, we found more of the wacky little wooden frogs who were blurting out something super important in German that we think required us to find magical clues around the mountain, though Johanna and I opted for trying to find the hidden speakers in the forest. There was a cool 'rain forest' of fake trees which squirted water at us as if we weren't wet enough from the constant drizzle, while the real trees 'laughed' at the humans walking along

the path through the hidden speakers. At the top, Johanna and I found a large picture frame to stand in for photos with an incredible mountainous backdrop (see pic).

Shortly after we warmed our cold bodies with some hot chocolates and apfelstrudes (I love Austrian food and Sandra and I wish there was more of it in Australia) at the restaurant at the summit.

But, that was enough of the day's fun. There was serious business to be had with the rest of the day and there's nothing more serious in Europe at this time of year than the World Cup (or fussball as they call it in Switzerland and Austria). Returning back to our house we settled in for beer and

fussball with Holland taking on Japan at 1.30pm and the Aussies versus Ghana at 4.30pm. With half the house Dutch and the others Australian it was a good chance to don the orange for the first game, then green & gold for the second. The Dutch won their game easily even though our colleagues were unimpressed with their effort, but the Aussies drew with Ghana after being robbed with a rubbish red card and penalty goal against Harry Kewell (isn't it amazing how most Aussies don't care about soccer for 4 years then all of a sudden become experts during the World Cup?).

Video: Running up Austrian mountains

I've resolved to run in as many cool locations as possible during our trip and while I've loved running in Paris and along the Medetterean coastline in France, a run 3/4 of the way up the mountain of Hohe Salve in Austria was awesome for a whole new reason.
Here's part one of a video I took while taking the ski lift down to the base at Hopfgarten to start the run ...

This run was particularly 'cool' for a very different reason. Not only because it was constantly raining during my run, but because the temperature dropped to 5 degrees at the base (and presumably a lot colder as I went up). The scenery was breathtaking (and so was the running). This was serious altitude training and very tough with the steep up hill climbs that the car could only do in 1st and 2nd gear the whole way up though I don't think I got out of first. The 5km run took me just short of 37 minutes which is very slow by normal standards, but considering it was a 600m climb with very few flat bits I was happy (plus I 'had' to stop to film the awesome view). Here's part two of the video ...

Aussies in Austria

We're now in Venice, and have an internet connection (albiet a dodgy one in our apartment, or more precisely sitting on the steps downstairs) so here's a recap of our past few days in Austria ...

Back on Friday 18 June we took to the ski lifts which were operating in the mountainous area we stayed at despite it being summer. That said, the locals told us it was an unusually cold period and the temperature was consistently around 5 degrees at the top of the mountains and around 10 degrees at the base. We stayed at a beautiful three-storey house in the tiny town of Hopfgarten which is about 100kms from Innsbruck in Austria (see the pics of our house in the blog entry below which I've just added). Our Dutch friends took to the bottom level and we had the first floor which was great to spread out after the cramped conditions of the campervan back in France. 'Our' house was about three-quarters of the way up a mountain called Hohe Salve, with lifts going down to the town below as well as the summit. After purchasing a four day pass for the price of one winter day we went up to the summit for lunch, with some of the most impressive mountain views you could imagine. However, it was incredible how the view disappeared in an instant when the fog rolled in (see pics), then cleared a few minutes later as a reminder that we indeed had our heads in the clouds.

The restaurant at the top of Hohe Salve was great and it was fantastic to start spending some time with our friends Sofie and Daan and their adorable (almost) two-year-old Paul. They're great friends and one of the very cool things about this trip so far is that we've not only caught up with them, but Sandra's brother Darrin in Paris and our long-time friend from our Ballarat days Janelle while in Dubai.

Later in the day while the others settled in to make dinner (Sandra cooks / I drive ... that's the deal!), I caught the ski lift back down to the base with the aim of running back up the mountain to home which was just over 5kms (see video post above).

Offline for the next couple of days

Right now we're in a little internet cafe in Salzburg in Austria, but as we don't have a connection for long and no way to upload pics, I'll update on our travels of the past few days later in the week when we arrive in Venice and have an internet connection at our apartment. Everyone is well and having a great time in the Austrian mountains ... but more to follow on Wednesday!

Hopfgarten in Austria

On Thursday 17 June we said farewell to Switzerland and drove almost 400kms from Luzern to a holiday house in Hopfgarten, Austria. En route we passed through some awesome countryside - at least when we weren't underground in one of the many tunnels. The massive network of tunnels was very impressive, including one which went for 15kms and several others 2 to 5kms long.
We arrived at the holiday house at about 5.30pm after a long, slow day of driving in wet conditions. The house is three quarters of the way up a massive mountain called Hohe Salve which is 1829m above sea level and has some incredible views of the town below, and snow capped mountains in the distance.
More importantly, it was great to meet up with our Dutch friends Sofie and Daan and their two-year-old son Paul who we met for the first time.

Mmmm, the land of chocolate

Homer might have been thinking of Germany when he dreamt of "the land of chocolate", but the Swiss certainly know how to make chocolate. Ironically, it's also one of their cheaper products, which meant of course that we had to buy more.

Today (Wed 16 June) started with a trip into Luzern to board a boat for a cruise around the massive lake and to perhaps visit one of the towns in the mountains that we can see from our motel room. But unfortunately the weather was very 'Melbourne' today with a constant drizzle and a lot of fog making the 120 franc (roughly $AU120) 1 hour boat cruise a bit of a waste of money. So Sandra pulled out the female handbook and consulted it for things to do in wet weather. Just like 'things to do in good weather', the single word 'shop' was offered as advice, so that's what we did today.

We found the new part of town to be nowhere near as interesting as the older, medieval section with its fortified walls (and hundreds of tourist shops which I'm guessing are a more recent addition). I picked up a Swiss Army knife, because you just never know when you'll be stranded in the middle of nowhere and need to hunt down a deer for food (besides, it's come in handy cutting the tags off the kids' toys!). Unfortunately I didn't get time to set up a Swiss bank account like I wanted to (again, you never know when you'll need one), while Sandra took to the shops to buy some clothes and is looking more European each day.

But the real objective was to check out the chocolate shops. While there was an awesome range to choose from, we ended up with a 4kg pack of 20 blocks (pictured), though not all of them made it back to the motel. And what's the best way to wash down excessive chocolate consumption? That's right, with a hot chocolate ... which is what the kids did when we visited a tea house to finish up the day.

On the way back to the bus / train station we past dozens of pubs and cafes with people pouring out into the streets watching Switzerland eventually pull off a surprise 1-0 victory over Spain in their opening World Cup game. There was a special big screen set up at the train station and there were hundreds of fans screaming at every kick of the ball (bottom picture).

Just like this morning, I finished the day with a nice easy 4km run around the hilly area where we're staying (like AFL footballers I thought I might try some altitude training!). We've just got back from the bistro that's part of our motel where we had dinner and the kids were given some cartoons to colour in by the waitress. However Johanna had no interest in that so she and I judged Lachlan and Sandra's colouring efforts over a glass of wine (Jo had a lemonade).

This might be my last blog post for a few days as tomorrow we pick up a hire car and drive about 4 hours west into Austria to meet up with our Dutch friends Sofie, Daan and their two-year-old son Paul whom we're looking forward to meeting for the first time. We'll be there for five days before moving on to Venice. I'm hoping they like chocolate, because we might be eating it for a few days.

Luzern, Switzerland

Unlike the French train system, the Swiss run their public transport like clockwork. This morning we used our EuroRail pass to travel three hours to central Switzerland in a beautiful city called Luzern. The train trip itself was fantastic, not just because we managed some great first class seats, but for the incredible scenery. Johanna had probably the best classroom in the world as she caught up on some of her homework and knocked off a book review while passing through the Swiss Alps and awesome lake areas by train.
We arrived in Luzern at about 2pm and got a bite to eat at the station (and also managed my most expensive hmm, toilet break so far - 2 Swiss francs, which is about 2 Aussie dollars - for a leak!). We've found France to be pretty reasonable price-wise, and Switzerland very expensive for pretty much everything (including 7 francs for a coffee this evening).
We caught a local bus about 15 mins to our motel, which was easy despite some very heavy luggage, and were very impressed with our lodgings. Our family room is modern (rare for a European motel) has a great view of Lake Luzern and the surrounding mountains.
Not long later we were back on the bus into the city again to check out the medieval township which looks so very different to Geneva. The town seems to have managed to still be a modern metropolis while retaining its historic beauty, particularly around the lake area where we crossed a heritage bridge (pictured) with paintings depicting the areas past aligning the inside roof.

We're staying in Luzern until Thursday morning, which means we have tomorrow to explore the area a bit more - particular the massive lake (which looks more like a giant river) and mountain ranges. Coming from a country of drought, it's great to again see so much water and green countrysides (if only we could have some of it back in Australia).

Geneva, Switzerland

This morning (Monday 14 June) we packed up the campervan and returned it to the rental place in Lyon before heading off to the train station for our trip through to Geneva. We arrived at the station at about 11am but weren't on the train until just after 3pm (see post below) and into Geneva just before 5pm. Considering the very long delays, the kids did a fantastic job (thank you Nintendo DS).
This is our first trip into Switzerland and a very exciting new experience. While campervanning around southern France over the past two weeks was awesome, we were ready to hand back the camper and get a little more space in a motel room for a few nights.
After checking into our motel across the road from the train station, we went down to Lac Leman (pictured) to see Mont Blanc and the impressive water fountain before having some dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Tomorrow we pack up again and head off for a couple more hours on the train to Luzern, also in Switzerland, before then driving on to Austria on Thursday.