Our past two overseas family holidays proved very successful and enjoyable. As there is lots more to see and do in Europe, we decided to head back there to visit some different countries such as France, Switzerland and Italy.
We flew into Paris and checked into our hotel. We wasted no time and freshened up and hit the streets walking around where we were staying which was the Citadines Apartments which was well positioned to access what we needed.
The Hop on Hop off busses are fantastic and we started with them in order to get our bearings around Paris. We saw sights such as the Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, Montmatre, the Montmatre Artist Quarter, the Arc de Triumph and the Louvre as well as many other sights. We walked along the Champs-Elysses as well as rode down it on a bus, we passed the Louis Vuitton building that had a huge bag out the front - no way anyone could not see it! We walked along the Seine River and across some of the bridges and stopped to watch the artists paint Parisienne scenes.
In Montmatre, the artists quarter was amazing and we ended up buying an original Parisienne scene done in watercolours. We had it framed upon our return to Sydney.
We lunched there and explored the little alleyways and shops.
We visited The Louvre and saw some amazing art and sculptures. We even got to see the Mona Lisa - right up close! It was much smaller than we thought it would be!
We spent 3 days exploring Paris before leaving our hotel with our luggage and walking to the Hertz Rentals office located directly under the Louvre to pick up our car and start our drive throgh France and Switzerland.
Once we got the car, Andrew drove up the Champs Elysses toward the Arc de Triumph, where we went around the round-about and headed out of the city and south with our stop at the end of the day being the village of Beaune located near Dijon.
Andrew wanted to stay in a chateau with a moat and drawbridge. He found such a place and upon arrival, we were assigned the bedrooms in the tower. It was on large grounds and it had two fortification towers at the front that sat in the surrounding moat. The Chateau itself was behind the moat and towers. The photos below show the front view, rear view, the house and the guest dining area.
We spent a couple of days seeing the sights of Beaune and even did a wine tasting at a French winery! The French rural countryside is beautiful and we walked to a local restaurant for dinner from the chateau. On the way, we were stepping on all these nuts so we picked one up to inspect it and they were chestnuts. These cost a fortune back in Sydney, and here in Beaune they're just on the footpath and road!
The chateau is located on a huge winery and there are a heap of vines producing lots of fruit. The photos below show the moat that surrounds the Chateau.
Beaune is your typical medieval stone town as shown in the photo below, and the village itself borders the winery that our chateau is located on.
After speaking with the owner of the chateau, he suggested we only take the "B" or "C" roads and stay off the motorways while going to our next destination, because the motorways bypass everything and you see nothing of the country. We took his advice and were glad we did!
While driving from Beaune to Lucerne in Switzerland we came across a village called Chablis. It was as we expected... the village that the Chablis wine comes from! We stopped for a quick look and it was such a quaint little village that one could miss if they blinked while driving through it!
We continued into Switzerland and made our way to Lucerne and found our hotel which was located on the lake.
Lucerne is a beautiful city and everything is pristine. It is a picturesque city, on a picturesque lake, with a picturesque backdrop of the Swiss Alps.
The drive toi Lucerne was also very picturesque, and we hit the ground and started walking to explore the city.
The hotel had looked after us extremely well, and they assigned us a permanently reserved table in the restaurant that we could use at any time. We received a complimentary platter to our room and they went out of their way to be helpful.
One one of the days, we hired a boat and crised around the lake. We took lunch with us and explored the coastline from the water. We were happy to have the boys drive.
On another day, we decided to go up to the top of Mount Pilatus. The world's steepest climbing cog train takes you up to the top and a cable car brings you back down!
Once we reached the top, we had a bit of a look around and walked around on the stairs and checked the lookouts - however, the top of the mountain was in and out of fog so we were unable to see everything, but it was still a fantastic experience.
The photo below shows how thick the fog was around the cable car at the top.
On the way down and near the bottom, we could hear lots of cow bells as we glided over rural areas. Cow bells are definitely a Swiss "thing".
At Lucerne, we dropped the car off and caught the train to our next destination - Venice in Italy. The train travelled through the mountains and the view was great.
Venice is one of those unique places in the world that everyone should visit. It is fascinating, beautiful and busy. Venice is made up of over 100 islands all contected by bridges.
We arrived at the Venice train station and then made our way to the ferry (Vaporetto) and loaded our bags and got on. The got off the Vaporetto at St Mark's Square and made our way to our hotel.
We walked everywhere around Venice, we rode a gondola (as you do), were amazed at the architecture, bridges, boat traffic and the entire experience.
Leaving our hotel in Venice, we then caught a "taxi" (boat) from our hotel lobby to the train station to catch a train to Florence.
Florence is known for it's leather goods, gold jewellery and magnificent gardens. The jewellery dealers are located on the Ponte Vecchio - a bridge that crosses the river flowing through Florence.
We walked everywhere around Florence and did a bit of shopping while there.
We continued on to Rome where we spent a few days exploring both Rome and Vatican City.
Again as usual, we walked everywhere and visited the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Roman Forum, the Colesseum and other points of interest. We spent a day walking around Vatican City and joined a tour through the St Peters Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.
As fascinating as Rome was, we had one more stop on our itinerary and that was the Amalfi Coast. We hired a car and drove out of Rome and down to Sorrento for our final few days.
The Amalfi coast is a spectacular part of mainland Italy and you need to be fit to tackle all the hills and steps.
Driving around Italy is interesting, though there are road rules, nobody seems to follow them - people even pass on narrow blind corners!
Our hotel was right on the cliff edge overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The view below is shown in the photos above.
At the end of our stay on the Amalfi Coast, we headed back to Rome to catch our flight back to Sydney. It was a fun trip with lots of different experiences.
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