Our trip

So, it's been nearly two weeks since we returned from our trip abroad. We had a really great time; walked for miles and miles and saw just about as many sights as we possibly could in the amount of time we had.

It started off rather badly though, as about an hour before we were due to leave the house, I did a "final" email check and got one from Rail Europe warning that there may be disruptions in France due to their strike. That immediately set off warning bells for us because in a few days time, we were planning to take the train from Antwerp to Paris and then take a night train (complete with sleeper compartment) down to Barcelona - which was one of the highlights of our trip as none of us have slept overnight on a train before! We checked the Elipsos website (the train company we'd booked with) and though the Sunday departure from Paris to Barcelona had not been cancelled, it was pending. The Saturday night one had already been cancelled. We phoned Rail Europe and explained our situation and we were strongly advised to "avoid travelling through France", which was really not what we wanted to hear. After Barcelona, our plan was to travel on to France and then we had a flight from Nice to Rome. But, as we were advised to avoid France, that meant that we would miss our flight and we now had to figure out how we were going to get from Antwerp to Rome. We very quickly decided to travel through Germany and that we would overnight in Cologne and then go to Munich for two nights before an all-day travel day down to Rome. We booked our accommodation online and finally (2 hours later than planned) left the house. Before I left, I emailed the hotel in Barcelona to inform them we would not be arriving due to the strike, but as it was a non-refundable payment, we have lost our money. I was able to cancel the hotel in Avignon without a penalty, but we also lost out on the flights from Nice to Rome (which actually cost less than the hotel in Barcelona). We are currently waiting to be reimbursed for the night train as it was in fact cancelled - thank God for that too, since we would have lost out on that if it had gone ahead! Live and learn, eh..... I will definitely check out the cancellation policy before booking anywhere now!

I'm not going to go into too much detail about what we did and saw, but I will tell you that we flew to Amsterdam where we had a few hours to sightsee ..... in the cold rain.... which meant that we actually left Amsterdam earlier than planned. Antwerp was next on the stop and was the biggest casualty of the revised trip. We had planned to sightsee the next day before travelling to Paris, but because of the new plans we had to leave by around 10:30 am, which didn't leave any time for sightseeing. We really only saw the train station (which was lovely) and we stayed in the Jewish Quarter where we passed by many Hasidic Jews with their fantastic topiary fur hats.

This is not my own photo - I was not brave enough to take a photo!

Antwerp Train Station

Cologne was the next stop and was a nice surprise. We nearly stopped there last year when we drove to visit Martin's family in Germany, but had decided not to. We all like it very much and it's somewhere I'd definitely go back to - shame Easy Jet doesn't fly there from Liverpool.

Kölner Dom - Cologne Cathedral

Munich was the next stop - we had a full day of sight seeing here and we walked for miles and miles and miles and took loads of photos. My biggest regret here was not getting a photo of the bicyclists; they have bicycle lanes everywhere and people use bicycles as a means of transportation; not just a method to keep fit like they do here. I saw men in business suits, women in dresses and fur coats (!) dressed to the nines, smoking (??) while riding their bikes and they were of ALL ages. You would never see that here. I probably saw more bicycles in Amsterdam, but certainly more cyclists in Munich.

Theatine Church, Munich

Rome was next, and it was brilliant! Again, another mammoth day of sightseeing but we didn't get bored, the weather was lovely and though the hotel rooms in Rome were amongst the priciest, other aspects (like eating out) wasn't nearly as expensive as I'd imagined it would be. Apart from soft drinks and coffee. They cost a fortune - at least double the price we pay here, but that was everywhere, not just Rome. Surprisingly, ice cream is really cheap - especially in Germany! (???) Anyway..... we did loads of sightseeing and since we had a day and a half to sightsee, we decided to go to the coliseum & ruins on the second day when we had less time, but we reckoned just enough since our hotel was quite close by. The kids were really looking forward to seeing the coliseum, especially Katia, she could hardly contain herself. We got there early and walked all the way around it, looking for the entrance... which we couldn't find. Eventually, I went to a gate which looked like it could be an entrance and found this posted to it.

This was really, really bad news because it meant that we wouldn't have enough time to see it. :( The kids were terribly disappointed but we thought we'd spend more time walking around the ruins instead.. but guess what?? Yep - also closed due to the Trade Union Assembly. Argh! So... we walked around a bit aimlessly at first, but then purposefully as I needed to find a toilet! We went into The Vittorio Emanuele II Monument which we'd been in front of the evening before. There is a museum inside and a cafe up on the terrace .... so there MUST be toilets! While looking for the loos, I found another attraction; a "Sky Elevator" which takes you to the top of the monument and has the most stunning views of Rome. Who knew that my weak bladder would find such a gem! It wasn't the coliseum, but it was a good compromise!

Vatican City Palace

That afternoon we travelled to Padova where we orignally booked to stay because of it's proximity to Venice, and because hotels in Padova are much cheaper than in Venice! We were nicely surprised to find that our hotel was situated in the quaint, old part of town and very near to the Basilica. We hadn't planned on doing much in Padova, but we were able to visit the Basilica and to walk around the town after dinner.

Palazzo del Capitanio, Padova

The next day we travelled to Venice. The first time I travelled to Europe (20 years ago), Venice was one of my favourite places. I can't say I felt the same this time. :( It's not that it was particularly bad, but it was really, really crowded in the main tourist areas, plus it was very expensive and maybe we just had bad luck, but the food was the poorest quality we had. Still.... Christian quite liked it - and Katia loved it. I was actually very pleased that we weren't staying overnight.

(view from) Ponte degli Scalzi, Venice

From Venice we travelled to Milan. Although I'd looked at all the places we'd booked to stay on Google Maps, I couldn't exactly remember how close the hotel in Milan was to the train station. We'd already made a mistake in Rome when we got in a taxi at the station, only to find our hotel was around the corner (....ooops) so we didn't want to make that mistake again. We popped into an internet cafe and paid €3.50 for 30 minutes.... of which we used about 2 minutes..... sigh. (By the time we reached our last destination, I realised I had a GPS-type of thingy on my phone which also had Google maps. tsk tsk) The next day we had planned to sightsee for most of the day and then we'd be flying to Paris that evening. Unfortunately, Mother nature was not on our side and it chucked it down with rain all day. We were all very wet and Katia's jeans were soaked half-way up her calves! After a few hours walking around in the rain, it became apparent that no one was having a particularly good time, so I suggested we grab a bite, go back to the hotel and pick up our luggage and head to the airport early, where it was at least DRY. It is a shame that we didn't get to see more of Milan, but I can certainly sympathise with the visitors who come here and find that it rains for the whole week.

This photo gives you some idea of the weather in Milan that day; check out the umbrellas!

The last destination on our trip was Paris. Again, we walked for miles here, and I have to admit that by Paris I was getting a wee bit sightseeing'd out. The highlight of Paris was of course the Eiffel Tower; we got some brilliant photos of it and from it. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Parisians now seem to happily speak in English (if they are able to do so) so our rusty French wasn't an issue.

Notre Dame

I think we're all pleased with the trip - it was a bit of an educational trip really, and the kids really only got a taster of the places we saw, but maybe in 20 years time they'll return to some of these places they'll remember visiting with us.

PS - I took MANY photos on this trip but have not got round to uploading them into an album yet - but will let you know when I do!