Chocolate, Cheese, Cowbells, and Cable Cars: Our Weekend in Switzerland

With less than two months in Europe before we return to the US, we are trying to cram in as much last minute travel as possible.  We took advantage of a bank holiday weekend (David had this past Monday off for the "Early May Bank Holiday") to travel to Switzerland.  We followed the advice of my best friend Rick Steves and headed straight for the Alps after our arrival in Zurich.  We found the Swiss train system to be extremely efficient and extremely expensive, like most other things in this country.  As a bonus, there are playgrounds on the top levels of some trains.  Colin was a big fan! After a 4:00am taxi ride to the airport, a 7:00am flight to Zurich, and three train rides, we finally made it to our hotel in Lauterbrunnen by early afternoon.

Lauterbrunnen is a small, picturesque village located in a valley of the Alps, between giant rock faces and mountain peaks.  After checking into our hotel, we set out to explore the area.  Unfortunately, we got our first dose of bad weather this afternoon with near constant rain.  We managed to take a small hike and explore the waterfall behind our hotel, Staubbach Falls, before deciding we needed to postpone more serious hiking for another day.  After drying off at our hotel, we had our first Swiss meal of the trip at Restaurant Oberland, cheese fondue for me and rosti (a Swiss dish consisting of hash brown potatoes, cheese, and various other toppings like ham and mushrooms) for David.  We were already big fans of the Swiss cuisine.

We are pretty sure cows do not sleep as we were kept up most of the night by the noise of cowbells outside our hotel room's windows.  Oh well, part of the Swiss experience!  On day two, we had planned to head up to the Schilthorn.  The revolving restaurant at the 10,000 foot Schilthorn summit, the Piz Gloria, was the setting for a James Bond movie.  Getting to the summit requires taking a cable car from Lauterbrunnen to Grutschalp, a train from Grutschalp to Murren, and then two additional cable cars to get to the top.  Unfortunately, the rain we were experiencing in Lauterbrunnen had turned to a heavy snow by the time we reached Murren.  We checked out the live cameras showing the weather at the Schilthorn summit, and it was basically white out conditions.  The weather at the top was not expected to get any better so we decided to save the $200 or so it would cost to get to the top and just explore Murren for a bit.  We walked around the quaint ski village and had another cheese based Swiss lunch (raclette, a melted cheese served with potatoes and pickles, and more rosti) before taking the train and cable car back down to Lauterbrunnen.

Fortunately, the weather had improved in Lauterbrunnen by the time we returned so we took a hike to Trummelbach Falls.  Trummelbach Falls are a series of 10 glacier-waterfalls located inside a mountain.  They are reachable by a combination of an elevator and a hike up the inside of the mountain.  The experience was very cool, a bit scary (slippery stones, steep ledges, and lots of warnings to hold on to your children made me super nervous having Colin along), and very wet.  We hiked back to our hotel enjoying the scenery, random cows in the road, and some Swiss chocolate on the way.

The following day, we bid a sad farewell to the beautiful Swiss Alps and headed to Lucerne.  After storing our luggage at the train station, we spent a few hours exploring this beautiful city.  Lucerne is best known for its famous Chapel Bridge, a wooden bridge that was once decorated with paintings depicting the development of Lucerne. Unfortunately, the bridge caught fire in 1993 and many of these famous paintings were destroyed.  After some sightseeing and a lunch of pretzel sandwiches, we were back on the train heading to Zurich.

The final day of our trip was spent exploring Zurich before flying back to London. There aren't very many "must-see" sights in Zurich, but you could tell the city has a lot of money due to the banking industry and would be a very easy place to live.  The weather was beautiful so we spent a lot of time just walking along the river and lake and letting Colin play at a playground.  It was a relaxing way to end our vacation.  I think we all agreed that Switzerland is a country we definitely plan to return to one day!

Loving the playground on board the train

Our hotel in the Alps - Hotel Staubbach

Staubbach Falls located behind our hotel

Hiking in the Lauterbrunnen Valley

Cable car ride to Murren

Trummelbach Falls

A very wet hike to see Trummelbach Falls

Hiking down from the falls

Chapel Bridge, Lucerne

Lion Monument, Lucerne 

Playground break in Zurich

Zurich's famous Luxemburgerli - mini macarons

Lake Zurich

Easter in Eastern Europe: Vienna, Bratislava & Budapest

When we found out we were moving to London in May of 2012, I created a list of all the travel I wanted to do during our time in Europe.  Two of my "must-see" cities on this list were Vienna and Budapest.  We finally made it to both cities over the Easter holiday weekend and were even able to add in a day trip to Bratislava as well.  In the UK, both Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays, so we took advantage of the long holiday weekend plus an additional vacation day to travel to Eastern Europe.

The first stop on our trip was Vienna.  Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria. The city is known for its music (Beethoven and Motzart once called Vienna home), Parisian-like architecture, and cafes.  After a quick lunch stop for some Viennese sausages, we started our trip with a visit to Hofburg Palace.  Hofburg Palace was the principle winter residence of the Habsburgs, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The palace was impressive but most interesting was the museum related to the life of Empress Elisabeth who seemed to be a bit like the Princess Diana of her time.  We found some time for an afternoon coffee break at one of Vienna's famous cafes and dined at a traditional Austrian restaurant that night.  Needless to say, we did not go to bed hungry.

The next day, we took an easy one hour train ride to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The people of Bratislava have made a significant effort to rebuild the city after the fall of communism.  The city has a bustling Old Town and made for a great day trip.   We were able to easily walk around and see the city's sights including Old Town, Bratislava Castle, the "UFO" bridge, and the presidential palace as well as enjoy lunch before taking an early afternoon train back to Vienna.  Upon returning to Vienna, we visited St. Stephen's Cathedral and walked around some of the Easter markets in the city before enjoying a piece of Vienna's famous Sacher-Torte.  Sacher-Torte, the "world's classiest chocolate cake", consists of two layers of chocolate cake separated by apricot jam and covered with dark-chocolate icing.  Yum!

On our final day in Vienna, we headed outside of the city to tour Schonbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Habsburgs.  Schonbrunn Palace rivals the grandeur of Versailles with luxurious royal apartments and spectacular gardens.  After our time at Schonbrunn, we gathered our luggage at our hotel and headed to the train station for a three hour train ride to Budapest.  After checking in to our hotel, we set out to explore Hungary's capital city.

Budapest is known for its amazing architecture, spectacular views and thermal baths. Unfortunately, due to me being pregnant and not able to deal with the heat, the thermal baths were not a part of our trip, but we loved seeing the rest of this amazing city.  We started our trip out with a classic Budapest experience, a night-time cruise along the Danube to see the amazing architecture lit up by floodlights.

The next day, we saw many of Budapest's other sights including Castle Hill, Matthias Church, the Chain Bridge, Parliament, St. Istavan's Basilica, the Hungarian State Opera House, Heroes' Square, and City Park. We must have walked about 10 miles this day which caught up with this pregnant lady by the end of the day, but it was worth it.  We finished the day with a traditional Hungarian meal.  We all agreed that Hungarian food is much better than Austrian.  Even Colin loved his Hungarian noodles (tiny dumplings).  This was actually Easter day.  Not a traditional Easter but one that will always be remembered.

We ended our trip the following day with breakfast at the grand New York Cafe.  The New York Cafe is an extremely opulent coffeehouse that was originally built in 1894. After years of neglect (at one point it was a textile warehouse), it was reopened in 2006.  Definitely the most amazing "cafe" I have ever been to.

Following our breakfast, we packed up our hotel room and headed to the airport. Another amazing European travel adventure.  I posted some pictures of the highlights below.  Our time left in London is limited (only a little over two months to go), but we still have a few more amazing trips to look forward to.  Next stop, Switzerland!

Hofburg Palace, Vienna

Cheese!

Grassalkovich Palace (presidential palace), Bratislava

"UFO" Bridge, Bratislava

Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna

Vienna Easter Market

Budapest's Parliament at night from a Danube River cruise

Castle Hill in Budapest at night

View of Budapest's famous Chain Bridge across the Danube

Parliament, Budapest

David ran into Ronald Reagan in Budapest

Yummy breakfast at the New York Cafe on our last morning in Budapest

A Gelato Filled Journey to Milan and Lake Como

Since we love Italy so much, we decided to squeeze in one more trip to the country before our time in London is up (under four more months to go now).  On our two cruises last summer, we were able to see a lot of the country (Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Sicily, and Venice), but we hadn't seen any of the inland cities.  We decided on Milan for this trip, the second most populous city in Italy known as being a world leader in fashion and design.

We arrived in Milan on Friday afternoon and decided to spend some time at the large park across the street from our hotel to allow Colin to burn off some energy after being such a good traveler.  There was a large playground and a ride with various types of vehicles (train, tractor, motorcycle, plane, etc.) so he was a happy boy.  My goal of this trip was to eat as much gelato as possible since we wouldn't be returning to Italy before moving back to the US so we started out the trip on the right note by enjoying some gelato before having a yummy Italian dinner (caprese salad starter followed by pizza for the boys and lasagna for me).

The second day of our trip we went on an all day guided trip to Lake Como.  Lake Como is a popular vacation destination.  The areas most famous resident is George Clooney who seemed to be mentioned about 20 times during our guided tour.  We started the day by spending some time in the town of Como and then took a boat tour around the lake.  The lake is very narrow and shaped like an upside down "Y".  The houses lining the lake were amazing.  I am sure they are right in our price range so we will be looking into purchasing one soon.  After a fun day in the Lake Como area, we made it back to Milan in time for another Italian dinner.   Oh, and I managed to have gelato twice this day so it was another success.

During the final day of our trip, we had time to explore the main sites of Milan.  We started the day with a visit to Milan's Cathedral (Duomo), a Gothic cathedral that is one of the largest churches in the world.  It was pretty impressive but to be honest all these churches (and castles for that matter) are starting to blend together at this point.  We have been spoiled with all of our European travels.   The highlight was watching Colin chase pigeons around like a mad man in the square outside of the cathedral.  After visiting the Duomo, we walked to the Galleria.  The Galleria is one of the world's oldest shopping malls and is housed in an amazing double vaulted glass arcade.  There was no shortage of designer stores here.  The only thing we could afford was some gelato (at 10am - starting the day off right).   The weather was gorgeous this day so we spent the rest of our time enjoying the city's parks and having a final Italian lunch of flat bread sandwiches.  We also fit in one last gelato stop completing the total gelato count on this trip at five so the title of this post is appropriate.

Train ride - great start to the trip for Colin

Lake Como

Colin loved the Lake Como boat ride

Lake Como

Son and Dad enjoying the boat ride

Milan's Cathedral (Duomo)

Poor pigeons!

Gelato at the Galleria

Valencia: Paella, Oranges and More

David's busy season at work is fast approaching.  Knowing we won't have many more weekends left this winter and spring where David doesn't have to work, we took advantage of cheap plane tickets and spent a weekend in Valencia, Spain in mid-January.  Valencia is the third largest city in Spain.  Having already been to the two larger cities (Madrid and Barcelona) as well as Seville, we have become big fans of Spain so looked forward to spending a few days in Valencia.

One of the draws of Valencia was that there are a couple of attractions that I knew Colin would enjoy. The first was Bioparc Valencia.  Bioparc is a zoo, with a safari-like experience, where the animals are in enclosures that often do not have glass or cages.  We were able to get up close to animals such as monkeys, lions, elephants, and giraffes.  We followed our trip to Bioparc with a visit to Oceanografic, an aquarium in the futuristic part of Valencia known as the City of Arts and Sciences.  It was definitely one of the best aquariums I have ever been to.  Colin especially loved the dolphin show!  In between the "kid activities" we visited Valencia's Central Market, a giant indoor farmers' market that is one of the oldest in Europe.  Since we were so close to the ocean, we also had to take a short walk on the beach even though it was quite chilly.

The tourist attractions are fun, but the thing we like the best about Spain is the food.  Valencia is known as the birthplace of paella.  Before going, we were told repeatedly that we needed to try the black paella.  This type of paella is made with squid and the black color comes from squid ink.  Sounds a bit weird, but it actually was really good.  For dinner, we stayed on the safe side and enjoyed a traditional seafood paella.  We also managed to squeeze in a lunch of tapas during our day of eating.  Oh, and a snack of churros and chocolate!  I don't think I could ever get sick of the food in Spain.  On the downside, dinner is served so late there.  We couldn't find a restaurant that even opened until 9:00pm.  Not exactly convenient when traveling with a two year old.  We were waiting at the door of the restaurant we decided on when it was unlocked at 9:00 and were pretty much the only ones there for our entire meal.  When we left at 10:00, people were just starting to arrive including families with children.  I can't imagine getting used to eating dinner so late!

Now, we just need to survive two months of David's busy season and the rest of the gloomy London winter.  We will go on a few more trips this spring/early summer and then move back to the US in July.  Our time here is going by fast!

Checking out the giraffes at Bioparc Valencia

I loved how all the streets were lined with orange trees

Churros break

Waiting for the dolphin show to start at Oceanografic.  Not sure why he is holding up his fingers.

Aquarium tunnel

Chilly walk on the beach

Munich: Cars, Beer & Christmas Markets

We had so much fun visiting Berlin last year during the Christmas season that we decided to visit another German city this year to experience some more German Christmas markets.  I had previously been to Munich back in 2003 and thought that it was a city David would like (they are known for their many beer halls so it wasn't too difficult to know he would enjoy it).  We were only there for a quick weekend visit but made the most of our short trip.

Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria.  It is the third largest city in Germany, behind Berlin and Hamburg.  The city is well known as the home of Oktoberfest, a 16 day festival in late September and early October.  Even though we weren't there over Oktoberfest, we did sample some German beers including enjoying liter steins at the famous Hofbrauhaus.

Munich is also home to BMW.  We visited the BMW Museum which was a pretty cool display of a lot of classic BMWs and Rolls Royces.  Across the street from the museum was the BWM Welt which exhibited all the new BMW models.  There was a pick-up zone outside for pre-ordered BMWs.   I am not sure why we didn't do this!  Colin, of course, was in his glory getting to sit in cars and pretending to drive them.  The BMW Museum was located right outside of Olympic Park which hosted the 1972 Summer Olympic games so we took a walk around and toured the stadium while we were in the area.

The main agenda of our visit was to check out the Christmas markets.  Unlike Berlin which had many markets spread out around the city, Munich only had one main Christmas market.  It was a huge market located right in Marienplatz, a large open square in the center of the city bordered by Munich's most famous landmark Neues Rathaus (New City Hall).  We spent some time walking around the market and enjoyed some drinks and food but got sick of fighting the crowds fast.  We ended up finding a tiny Christmas market nearby our hotel that was more for locals and way less crowded that we liked much more.  In fact, we visited it twice.  I was able to get in my annual quota of Gluhwein (mulled wine) on this trip so I would consider it a success.

Here are some photos from our time in Munich:

I thought this little car at the BMW Museum was cute!

David at Olympic Stadium 

Colin loved this fire truck at the Deutsches Museum

Enjoying my stein of beer at the Hofbrauhaus

Colin is thrilled to be at another Christmas market

Gluhwein (mulled wine) = YUM!

Colin does like Christmas markets!

Exploring Ireland with my Parents

I am finally getting caught up on my blog.  Too many travels in late summer followed by an autumn full of visitors caused me to fall a bit behind, but I think this post will mean I am caught up on blogging about our travels.  Perhaps, I will have some time to write some London related blog posts in the future now that our travel schedule is calming down.  That may be wishful thinking though!

Earlier this fall, we met my parents in Dublin, Ireland.  They were a day late arriving in Dublin due to a cancelled flight and a not-so-convenient rescheduled flight through Madrid.  We still tried to see as much as possible in the little amount of time we had in the city.  This was my second visit to Dublin, and I still really like the city.  I know the draw of Ireland to most is the beautiful countryside and while that is also great, the city of Dublin itself shouldn't be missed on a trip to Ireland.

After spending the weekend in Dublin, David flew back to London due to a slight inconvenience known as having to work while my parents, Colin, and I picked up our rental car and headed out of the city.  My dad was the brave driver for our group.  There were a few moments of panic and driving on the wrong side of the road, but overall, he did a great job.  I am glad I didn't have to get behind the wheel.  I still haven't driven since we have been here and plan to keep it that way!

We were able to explore a lot of the Irish countryside during the day and stayed at some cute family run bed & breakfasts at night.  We had typical Irish weather with stretches of rain closely followed by stretches of sunshine and rainbow sightings.  The countryside is so beautiful, and we were able to see a lot in the short amount of time we had in the country, especially considering we had a two year old travel companion.  We certainly won't forget the flat tire we had late Sunday night at the Cliffs of Moher anytime soon, but we also have a lot of fun memories from this trip.  It was great getting to travel with my parents just like in the old days of family trips, and I am glad Colin got to spend a lot of quality time with his grandpa and grandma.  Much of the trip was spent with him walking side by side my dad holding hands.  So cute!  He got to spend even more time with them in London where they stayed with us for six more nights following the time in Ireland.

This is definitely a trip where the pictures are way better than anything I have to say about the visit.  Here are some of my favorites from the trip.

Learning the proper way to sample Guinness in Dublin

Enjoying our pints following the Guinness Storehouse tour

Cliffs of Moher

Happy at the Cliffs of Moher before finding out our car had a flat tire

Exploring an Irish cottage

Bunratty Castle

My wonderful parents! 

Best buds holding hands in Dingle

Traveling for Colin means multiple ice cream stops

So many different shades of green

Inch Beach

Ring of Kerry

Hi Mom!