Vienna: Day 2... last day

  We got out and going pretty early since we'll need to pack up and turn in early tonight.

The girls in front of Karlskirche on our way to grab some coffee and breakfast. A swing and a miss on the first try, but we found an Aida to eat and warm up in.

 The Vienna Opera House... no Tom Cruise hanging from the roof today.

The Domkirche St. Stephan. The Roman Catholic church of the archdiocese in Vienna. I think this spot had the most tourists around it. It was beautiful, but you must get a few bonus points for being a religious point too. Rathaus was architecturally just as impressive.

   We walked all the way to the Danube Canal and followed it to Prater with the Wiener Riesenrad, German for Vienna's giant wheel. Cindy rode it with Abigail and Bailley, while Madison and I waited.

A brutally cold, but scenic walk back to the apartment...

  for a game of home-made pictionary and then a puzzle.

  Everyone is tired and starting to want to be home... so it seems we are ending about on time. It has been a fun trip. I hope everyone enjoyed playing along and seeing the pictures.

Jim

Vienna: Day 1

  We got a late start, as everyone is still recovering from the long train ride. We rolled out close to 10 and decide to stop at a little coffee shop the apartment owner recommended. Little coffee shop?!?

  Check out the china set for my coffee. And I'm not trying to get a shot up Bailley and Abigail's noses, look at the walls and ceiling. The entire ceiling is small, oddly-shaped tiles. I have a new appreciation for apricot preserves after this sitting.

  And we're off... after a picture with Karlskirche way in the background.

   We just start a slow walk around the 'ring' street. It used to be the wall around Vienna, but 150 years ago they tore down the wall and made it a street. Here's the girls in front of Hofburg, which is evidently just a huge event center.

  Madison in front of one of Austria's favorite sons, Mozart.

 

   Hey look, another Christmas market.  Right in the middle between two beautiful and identical buildings. The Vienna Antiquities and Vienna Natural History museums.

  Pretty funny, you get to see the movie stars in the advertisements that they shun in the US. Here is George Clooney in a coffee ad. That's Clooney on the right  :)

  Austria's parliament building.

  Rathaus... a town hall. _That_ is a town hall... just unbelievable.

  Votovkirche, our last stop on our chilly little walk. Everyone is cold and we seem to be most of the way around the ring street, so we decide to cut back straight through the city to head back to the apartment.

  And as usual, turn any corner and it looks like this picture above. St. Michael's right off of aptly named Michaelerplatz.

   Even the libraries are pretty nice... this is the Austrian National Library.

   Back at the apartment for a dinner of reheated schnitzel. Another great day in the book.

Jim

Travel Day

  OK... so now that 6:40am train ride _doesn't_ sound like such a good idea. But, we get packed and out the door before 6:00am. 

The well worn trek to the tram.

 Then on the train. As soon as the sun rose, the scenery was spectacular.

  As expected, around Innsbruck the mountains and snow was just beautiful. In fact, the biggest problem was that it was snowing so hard that you could barely see the mountain peaks. It was their first big snow of the winter... seems like we brought it with us.

   We made it to Vienna, all really tired. The train ride was loooooonnnggg. I guess no matter what it looks like outside or what you can do, when you are tied to a small area, 7 hours is a long time to do anything.

   We get to the apartment with just a little light of the day left. The apartment is nicer than even the VRBO pictures. We also get advice on local places to shop and eat. So one last push before some much needed rest.

  A Thanksgiving dinner of wienerschnitzel and potatoes. Yep, we all have a lot to be thankful for. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day.

Jim

Zurich: Day 5

  Well, as promised, today was pretty low key... well, sort of. We got up late and eventually head out for a late breakfast/lunch. We went to a place down the street that was always just slam packed with people. Turns out it was all vegan. I followed my southern instinct and abstained. I slipped off during one of the extended souvenir viewing sessions to get a bratwurst and fries at Sternen Grill... quite the little find. Daddy 1, vegans 0.

  One last snap of Abigail and Bailley before I turned them lose on the little holiday shops again... while Cindy was with Madison picking something out.

Abigail took a good daytime picture of Cindy and Bailley with the tree while I scarfed down my lunch. We finally all link back up before the final push to finish things off.

  The day was cold and dreary, but a great last day walk past all the sights one last time getting to the shops.

   Bailley acting like... Bailley. I tried to muffle her, but you can only contain it for so long.

  Me and Cindy with Grossmünster as a background. Zurich is so picturesque and clean, me and the girls actually debated whether Venice or Zurich had more random postcard picture shots. Tough call.

  And last good pic of the girls beside the Limmat river. Before we split up yet again. Evidently this souvenir stuff is like the trickiest thing ever. Madison and I go back to do an exchange and Cindy, Bailley, and Abigail go to the train station shops. But... in a few hours, everyone if finally satisfied and done, or at least too tired to care. We try to hit another fondue place for dinner, but two close places are completely booked. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to try and come back one day. We eat dinner and stroll back to the apartment... after a stop by the Co-op grocery for a dessert of Swiss chocolates of course. So tonight we just clean the apartment a little and pack up for an early train ride to Vienna.

Jim

Zurich: Day 4... Day trip to Meiringen and Lucerne

  Well... today was field trip day :)  We got out early and got to the train station and bought tickets to Meiringen via Lucerne. 

Here are the girls with their train station breakfast waiting on our train at the Zurich HB station. We leave Zurich and the train hugs the lake and we start seeing more snowy mountains... every turn gets prettier and prettier. I will say, I usually have to make the kids stop staring at phones and look around, well, I didn't have to do that much today. The two words for today were "look" and "wow". And they were apropos.

 So I will spare you the roughly 8,000 pictures Abigail and I took. But here are just three snaps of many that look roughly all the same. Hey look... a rocky snow capped alpine mountain, with a bucolic little valley, with beautiful wooden alpine houses, usually an old pretty church spier, and typically beside a lake so clear you could see the bottom. OK, I'm going to just say it... they won.

   Nice train ride and we stop in Meiringen. Why you ask? Madison's quest to see Reichenbach Falls... where Sherlock Holmes fakes his death.

 Here's the kids with the man himself. We wander around and find the entrance to the trail up the falls. And so begins a nice three hour hike (up and back) along the sheer mountain face with the falls.

  Here's one of the many (I mean *many*) overlooks where we took pictures. So it's me taking a picture of the girls taking a selfie. I think I may do more of this. It turned out nice plus I don't have to wait on them. You can see the town we climbed out of below. 

  The trail had a few paths up. We took the 'moderate' one. Ha... moderate if you live in Switzerland and climb mountains. One section that branched off was closed, but Madison and I took it and got as far as we could before joining back up with the others to continue up.

 You can see the cable you hold on to beside the sheer cliff... I'm guessing about 600 feet up as the total falls is 820 feet. This was _not_ my favorite part. Kind of like the Eiffel Tower but with no railing... how cool.

   We made it to the top of the falls and the end of the road. The rest period included snow angels, an actual snow man, and some snow ball eating.

I wish the panoramic did it better justice. Here I walked up and looked down on the girls building the snowman. It was just phenomenal.

Oh yeah... what we came fore :) Here's Madison at the top of the falls.

 And from the bottom once we made it back down.
  We ate a nice lunch and made our way to the train station for a ride back to Lucerne.

Lucerne was pretty, and I'm glad we stopped to check it out, but I think Zurich was the right place to stay as a home base.
  Pretty early night, but everyone is tired. Probably some Netflix and much needed rest. Tomorrow should be a low key day as we just try to finish a few things up before leaving.

Jim

Zurich: Day 3

  OK... day three starts with the usual family fun... finding a pharmacy. Bailley has come down with a cold and is getting worse. We get medicine and start it immediately... hoping that will help her feel better.

  Next step... get comfortable with the tram system so we can go farther and quicker.

 

  Check... done. I guess Zurich is so small and there's such a good, huge landmark with the lake, it's really simple. 

  So the plan is to take the tram to the Swatch store for Cindy's souvenir and stop at a few chocolate stores.

 

  Well... I guess technically Cindy got a Swiss watch on our trip :)  Plastic or not, it _is_ Swiss. 

  Bailley was not feeling better, so we dropped her by the apartment to sleep while we explored on.

  We took the tram as far south as our zone 110 tickets allowed. There was a small park by the lake and we just took pictures and sat and peered out over the water for a bit. So serene and beautiful. In the distance, further south, you can see the snow covered Swiss Alps.

  Enough beautiful nature... mommy needs some chocolate.  On the way, we had the way-too-many-photo-ops problem we've been running into. To save everyone I chose just this one. Here's me, Madison and Abigail with Grossmünster in the background. Not too shabby for a cathedral started in 1100. It was inaugurated in 1220, so basically six generations of workers built that church.

  We made our way to Max Chocolatier... closed... so denied again. I understand why Europeans think we work all the time... because we do, and they don't. We left there and found Teuscher purely by accident. Bought some to sample and moved on. 

On the way to the next store, we passed directly under one of the pretty clock towers. The sides are all parallel so I stepped it off... ten meters on a side. The clock face is about 30 feet across. More impressive than even imagined from ground level. 

We made our way down Bahnhofstrasse until we found Sprungli. This seems to be the largest chain of chocolate shop. The shop was overwhelming which made it even more difficult to choose, but we did. Then we walked back and grabbed some samples from Läderach which is close to our apartment. 

   OK, so lunch done... now time to try all the chocolate. The Swiss do indeed seem to know what they are doing with chocolate and milk that's for sure.

  After a short break all the girls went out to look at some clothes shops. I went the opposite direction and went to ask about train tickets. On my way back, the tram was crowded, so I decided just to walk back to the festival where we said we would all meet up.

Which allowed me to get this picture... not sure you can sum up Zurich any better than that.

Jim