The overnight journey into Rome went a lot smoother than our first. We all kind of felt into a routine to prepare for bed time – rather amusing how easily we slipped into it! Pat flew in from London (he couldn’t take the time off from work for the other Europe legs) so we were all reunited again as a family. Rome gave us an absolutely amazing start to the trip with gorgeous blue skies and extremely warm weather. I kind of accidentally led the family the long way around to our apartment … but we got there in the end!

Rome was absolutely heaving with tourists in a way that Salzburg wasn’t. Even after only a couple of days of relative quiet it was a bit of a shock to the system!

Highlights of the trip included:

Walking around seeing all the Squares, buildings and markets

Touring the Vatican. Lines and crowds at the Vatican were ridiculously long and large. Something to do with a tourist alert so security was really tough – and of course this had a knock on effect on the number of people inside. Great idea to do the guided tour though – everyone really appreciated the almost insider information to the Vatican. Even though I’d been on that tour before because we had a different tour guide he gave his spin and chose different art to discuss.

Touring the Colosseum. Again it was very worth doing the guided tour of the Colosseum. Despite the large number of people milling about with your own tour there is a sort of sense of privacy or exclusiveness which makes the visit more meaningful than it would otherwise be.

Riding these kind of pedalo type things in the Villa Borghese – a beautiful park in Rome. I’ve never laughed so much in my life. If you didn’t get one of electric pedalos it was very hard to ride – unfortunately that was us! Getting around these sculptures were tricky too!

Gelati. Lots and lots of gelati. In one day we had about five cones I’m sure including about three of them in the space of about an hour! Patrick had this list of top gelati stores to go to – one store was absolutely overwhelmingly busy. You had to get your “ticket” first and then fight your way through three people thick layer crowds just to even see the flavours on offer. Crazy.

We had less than 48 hours to spend in Salzburg! Eek! I don’t know how we managed – but we did actually get around to do quite a lot of things, including fitting in visits to the Aldi for my Dad! Ha ha! Was this the reason Dad fell in love with Salzburg? He even had cause to comment that he was considering a crazy notion of getting a vacation house in Salzburg. Well – who could blame him – Salzburg is just one of those really naturally pretty places.

With our train pulling into the station the weather that greeted us was much the same as what we had when first arriving in Paris – gray and wet. But, just like Paris, the weather did go on to improve much to my delight.

We decided to walk from the main station into the Old Town which is where we were staying. Luckily Salzburg isn’t that huge – and it did us wonders to wake us all up from our long train ride from Paris! I have to make a special mention of Hotel Elefant – although a Best Western Inn its actually independently run and we were well taken of from the beginning. Everyone was very friendly and helpful and even better we were able to be checked in to at least one room straight away.

So what were the highlights of our stay in Salzburg. As I mentioned earlier we certainly got around to a lot of places. On our first day we simply walked around exploring the Old Town, and also set about organising to get on to the Sound of Music tour for the following day (yes a must-do for all.) We also picked up the Salzburg card which we made sure to make maximum use – from free public transportation and to reduced and free entry into attractions.

That night we even found ourselves making our way to the Salzburg Casino! Yep – double whammy of being Chinese and Australian is that gambling is in our blood! The Casino was a bit spooky walking up to – with the mist rising from the ground and the architecture of what I think was a former palace of sorts – it all combined to give a very vampire-esque feel to the area.

The second day was our Sound of Music tour. There are a couple of Sound of Music tours you can go on – I asked to be put on the original one but I don’t think we were as our bus was called the “most unique” Sound of Music Tour . Nevertheless, we still had a good time and saw all the sights we needed to. Plus had the all important soundtrack playing on the bus – Dad loved that! As an added bonus we even stopped long enough to do a toboggan ride down the mountain-side! Dad loved that too!

On the tour we had stops in all the relevant places including Leopoldskron Lake so we could look over to Leopoldskron Castle (the front being used as the Trapp family home), Hellbrunn Castle to see the glass pavillion, driving past St.Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang and stopping for some apple strudel at Mondsee – and any interested could visit Mondsee Cathedral, the site of the wedding between Maria and the Baron. The final stop was Mirabell Gardens.

Here’s the family and their funny posing again!

Dinner was at one of the recommended beer halls. I ordered the pork knuckle and the look on our waiters face when he went to put it on the table in front of me cracked us all up. He actually went to put it in front of Stephen before Dad corrected him. He was shocked. Loves me my pork knuckle!

Our final day in Salzburg was the day that we got around all over the place. We first stopped at Hellbrunn Castle where we toured the famous trick fountains. I can’t give away the trick but suffice to say – wear waterproofs! And that includes protecting your camera or any electronic goods! We then did a whirlwind audio tour of the castle itself – when I say whirlwind I mean less than probably 15 minutes. How terrible! Ha ha. But we had lots more to see that day! The art inside was actually pretty fascinating but its not that huge in there so didn’t take long to whip around.

We then hopped on the bus to get over to Untersburg to get the Cable-Car to the top of Untersberg mountain. I must admit that it was looking a bit sketchy for any sort of clear weather but once we cleared the clouds – wow! We were joined by a bunch of hikers who were hiking down I guess! It was truly a memorable experience for all of us and simply breath-taking.

I had worn my thongs that day and everyone at the top of the mountain was laughing at me – even the army dudes! It was rather amusing.

From the top of one mountain it was back into town, after a bit of lunch, to then climb up to Hohensalzburg Fortress – central Europe’s largest, completely preserved fortress dating from the 11th century. I would recommend doing a tour of the ramparts because then you get to climb to the tallest point of the Fortress for some nice 360 degree views.

After some more tomfoolery that was sadly the end of our visit to the beautiful Salzburg. Off to the train station then to catch another overnight train …

I asked Dad, Mum and Stephen which European cities they wanted to visit during their short visit over this side of the world and they named Paris, Rome and Salzburg as their top pics. In Paris and Rome they certainly chose two of the largest and most popular cities in Europe to visit and with Salzburg they would get something a little smaller but no less beautiful and charming.

Hitting these three cities in just 11 days was going to prove interesting. I thought one of the ways of making the journey a true Euro-trip was to get everyone to use the overnight trains to travel between Paris and Salzburg and Salzburg and Rome. The fact that it was greener than flying was an added benefit. But before I get on to the train part of the journey – our first stop in Europe was Paris.

In Paris we spent a lot of time pounding the pavement – Dad loves nothing better than to just wander and explore. It’s a good sentiment because you do often miss quite a lot by just going from point to point – especially if you are stuck underground on the metro or something like that.

Here are the photo highlights of our Paris leg:

Walking around the Champs-Élysées and along the Seine

A day trip to Versailles. The Palace of Versailles was the centre of political power in France a long time ago but now welcomes many visitors to visit the beautiful golden gilded palace and lush gardens and fountains. If you can plan your visit to Versailles you would do well to buy your ticket in advance otherwise, like us, you will be subject to being stuck in the line for hours! Ticket prices are based on the bits inside the palace that you ant to enter but a visit to the garden is a must. Audio tours, for what they’re worth, are included in the entry price.

The interior of the Palace is as grand as the fence on the outside. Rather interestingly mixed in with the antique stuffs the Palace was also exhibiting some of Takashi Murakami’s work. Apparently he was on Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list back in 2008. It was pretty cool combination of new and old.

The gardens were an absolute delight and at specified times the fountains are switched on so you can enjoy them in all their glory.

No visit to Paris is complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. The day for our visit was really nice – I was a bit cruel and made Stephen and my parents climb the Tower. Heh heh. But I think it would have been crueler still to make them wait in line for ages! Actually, I think we all had a lot of fun climbing the stairs. It really was a gorgeous day to be doing so.

The other must visit for many tourists is the Louvre. My family, including me, are not the greatest for art galleries and museums but the Louvre actually managed to hold our interest for more than an hour on this visit. Dad was absolutely fascinated by the sculptures. The line to get in was surprisingly long, even despite the fact it was a constantly drizzle. The entrepreneurs were out selling their umbrellas at ridiculous prices – but if you’re getting a soaking you’d probably pay the world for one!

There were some funny finds in Paris including the ability to order your own meals from a kiosk at McDonalds and the fact we went to the Hippopotamus Restaurant Grill for more than one meal! I asked Caro about the chain when I got back to London and I don’t think she would have recommended it – but we enjoyed the food enough – clearly enough to go back again for another visit!

Oh and I made sure that we didn’t leave without trying out some frog legs … even if it was in a Chinese restaurant!

So, getting on the overnight train to Salzburg was interesting. The train was definitely a step down from the train that Pat and I took when in Finland last December … but we had at least booked out the whole cabin – which, if you can believe it, supposedly fits 6 people! With 4 people we could at least convert two of the beds into a couch. It was cosy and noisy but really good for me to get to sleep because of the rocking of the train.