Lord Byron's first trip in Italy

         Our first trip in Italy was Padua. Its over 500 years old! Did you know they have 2 cathedrals in Padua. My favorite is the St. Anthony's cathedral. It's so big and beautiful! I can't wait to go to Venice and Milan.
                       

Disneyland Paris: The Real Magic of Disney

At first our main plan was not to go to Disneyland  Paris because we thought that it would be exactly like the other Disney parks that we had already been to. We couldn't be more wrong. Disneyland Paris was an amazing experience.

We soon found out why most of the rides did not have the option for fastpasses. Most of the rides lines didn't go over 10-15 minutes. Rides like Rockin' Rollercoaster and Space Mountain barely went over 5 minutes.

This was a shock to us as we walked on to all of our favorite rides. And we came on a weekend!

It was also really fun to enjoy the rides in French. Of course, some were translated into English.

Another thing that we enjoyed is that a majority of the rides were a step above their starters in the 
US Disneys. Big Thunder Mountain went in the dark for a little while. Space Mountain: Mission 2 has 360 degree inversions, and the Indiana Jones ride has loop-de-loops.

The unique rides were also fantastic. Ratatouille was a video ride that drives you through chef Gusteaus' kitchen.

Crush Coaster is a rollercoaster that puts you in an East Australian Current, sending you backwards and up and down hills. My mom and I laughed the whole time!

The only things that we did not enjoy was the fact that you could smoke in line, which you can't do in the U.S. In fact, sometimes it seemed like Disney Paris was the place people in Europe go to smoke.

Besides that, however, we loved Disney Paris!

Photobombing the Tower of Terror

Here's a quick preview of an upcoming post about Disney Paris. Proof that the French like photobombs just as much as Americans. Here's a nice one from Disney's Tower of Terror.

Selfies

I invented the selfie. Years ago I was doing selfies in Time Square (with everyone else).  Ok, so maybe I wasn't the first, but why the topic is trending now, when everyone else has been doing them for years, I have no idea. Traveling in a group of 6, we don't often need to do selfies. When Curls and I want a picture, Agent P is our unofficial photographer.

Still, I have caught the kids taking selfies quite a few times....

On the Salzach River in Austria:

In the Salzburg Fortress:

It looked fun, so I decided to give it a go. I had forgotten how fun it was.

The Austrian Alps:

Some tower in France:

And my personal favorite, a selfie with my bestie:

The Salzburg Card: Can you really do it all in 24 hours?

Every big city here in Europe seems to have its own “see-it-all” card, and Salzburg is certainly not out of the loop on having one. We were a little skeptical about the card, primarily because Rick Steves dubbed it “too expensive”. Our opinion—Rick couldn’t be more wrong…and that’s coming from two extremist bargain hunters.  For a 24-hour card, it’s 26 Euros for Adults and 13.50 for Kids. You have exactly 24 hours to use the card (from the time you enter you activate the card by using it) but it gets you into nearly everything you can think of doing in Salzburg. What makes it a good deal is you only have to do two things to get your moneys’ worth out of the card.

So, instead of “Is it worth it?” the question becomes, “Can we do it all in 24 hours?” The simple answer is, No. There’s far too much to do. But if the question is “Can we do all of the stuff that counts in 24 hours,” then the answer is “Most definitely,” but if you want the real experience, you should probably have 2 days in Salzburg, using the Salzburg Card for 1 of those two. Here’s how we did it:

Day 1: Walk around the city, seeing the free sites. The Cathedral is a must-see visit, especially if you have a chance to see it on Sunday morning at 10 AM. I may not be Catholic, but the music reverberating through the cathedral is heavenly. You also get traditional Austrian culture on display. There are a lot of Sound of Music places to visit that are free within walking distance of the town center, including the Mirabell Gardens (Do-Re-Mi), the St. Peters’ Cemetery (the Escape Scene), and a few scenes during the “I Have Confidence in Me” Song. You can also see the Liesl-Rolf Gazeebo outside of the Hellbrunn Palace for free, but that’s a 20 minute bus trip away (Bus #25).

  

Day 2: After you’ve gotten the lay of the land, you can dedicate Day 2 to using the Salzburg Card. Here’s a general schedule:

10:00 AM: Buy Card. Unless you can get it at your hotel (we couldn’t), you have to get one at the Tourist Information office right down the first street of the historic old town. It’s a few doors down from the Mozart Birthplace.

 

10:15 AM: Tour the Mozart Birthplace. Rick Steves recommends skipping it in favor of the Residence House, but we liked it. It’s short and features quite a few unique Mozart items, including scores of music, pianos, and even a lock of his hair. It’s a short visit with kids, about 20-30 minutes.

11:00 AM: Pick up tickets for the Salzach River Boat Tour. The first tour of the day is at noon, and we recommend doing just that. While you’re waiting for the tour, walk across the lock bridge to the Mozart Residence. The attendant will tell you it’s an hour+ experience, but with kids, it’s only about 30-40 minutes. There are only a handful of rooms, and you’ll find yourself skipping through some of the audio content they give you.

11:55 AM: Line-up for the Boat Tour. It’s a 40-minute tour, and well worth it. If you hit it at the Summer season, the skippers do a boat dance where they spin the boat in circles to a waltz. Our kids loved it.

1:00 PM: Get lunch. Because you have to eat too. For bargain hunters, there’s a grocery store across the street from the boat tour and a few doors down from the Burger King, (I know, a sacrilege in and of itself). You can pick up sandwiches and plenty of other goodies for half the price of the food at the cafes and the squares only a street over. If you want the experience, do what we did: Get your lunch and sit on the steps of the Cathedral in Domplatz.

2:00 PM: Catch the #25 Bus to Hellbrunn Palace. You can catch the bus at the Rauthaus stop only a few paces down from the Grocery store. Once you get to Hellbrunn (you can’t miss it), sign up for the…

2:30 PM: Hellbrunn Palace Tour. It’s about 45 minutes, and well worth every minute of it. The Palace was designed to be a Fun House for the melancholic 400 years ago. You’ll probably have heard of the trick fountains, but it’s much more than that. With so many satirical and quirky grottos, statues, and mechanical devices, it’s quite the diversion from the normal “serious” history tours. Definitely worth it. Once your tour is over, check out the inside of the palace. From there, you’re steps away from the…

4:00 PM: Zoo. This was the only part of our trip that we probably could have skipped. The Zoo was a little too under-construction for us, and we spent all of 15 minutes walking up the hill before we exited and waited at the bus stop for #25 to take us back to town. In the end, we decided it would’ve been better to go see the Liesl and Rolf Sound of Music pavilion on the outside corner of the Palace.

5:00 PM: Get Dinner. Salzburg is dead by 6pm (we learned this the hard way on Day 1), so it’s best to get food before everything closes up. We opted for some inexpensive ginormous pretzels next to the cathedral for 2 Euro each. Really, most of the food in Salzburg was very reasonably priced.

6:00 PM: Catch the funicular to the Fortress to make it in time for the…

6:20 PM: Last tour of the day for the Hohensalzburg Fortress. This is a fairly easy audio tour, but worth a trip because it takes you to the top of the fortress where you get an awe-inspiring view of all of Salzburg. The whole thing closes at 7pm, but they tell you that you can stay up as long as you’d like, or at least until the last funicular which is at 9 (otherwise you’re walking down, which isn’t all that bad, actually). Either way, you get the whole area around the fortress pretty much to yourself. Our kids enjoyed the chance to do their own courtyard races.

Day 3

Because you bought the card after 10AM, you still have until 10AM to use the card on the next day. Many options open around 9AM, with others opening at 10, but the option we chose was probably one of the best we found, and it opens at 8:30—The Cable Car. A 10 minute ride up to the top of one of Salzburg’s tallest peaks, the views are spectacular. You have the rest of the morning to roam around at the top of the mountain, where there are plenty of hiking trails, and cafes if you need a bite to eat. Depending on when you bought your card the day before, you’ll want to make sure you check in for the ticket back down before the 24 hours are up. You can check in right when you get up to the peak and then take a later cable car down (or so they told us).

If you’re keeping track at home, that’s 8 of the possible activities done in 24 hours (and we did it with 4 kids!). Of course there are a plethora more things to do, including art museums, etc., but with kids we figured we’d skip those options. Money-wise, that makes the Salzburg Card about 3 Euro per adult per activity, and less than 2 Euro per kid per activity—and we have yet to see such a bargain in Europe!

Venice: Beautiful and Chaotic, the Disney World of Italy

We spent the day in Venice on Saturday, and when all was said and done, it lived up to its expectations, the good and the bad.

Is it crowded? Yes. On a day in the supposed “off-season” it was canal-to-canal tourists. Curls and I noted that it was much like a day at Disney World…you’re constantly surrounded by crowds of people from all different countries, and nearly all of them are carrying a camera.

The hardest part we found while spending the day in Venice wasn’t seeing everything we wanted to see, it was getting past the stress of getting there and getting around. For long periods of time, especially on the walk from the Santa Lucia train station to Saint Mark’s Square (which is a good 30-40 minute walk), you find yourself squeezing by tourists and in between narrow walk ways so much that you forget that you’re actually in Venice. Several times, I had to stop and remind myself that we had made it…we were walking the streets of Venice.

Incidentally, getting there can be a little stressful as well. We opted for the cheaper route, driving to the Venice-Mestre Train Station (not the Mestre Ospedale Station…we made that mistake). Parking across the street is 12 Euro/Day. Taking the train in is 1.25 Euro one-way. As you spill out onto the island from the train station, it’s a bit of a mess as well.  If you like wide-open spaces, you won’t find any in Venice.

We decided in our 6 hours touring around that the most important thing to do is to simply relax and take it all in. Drown out the constant noise of crowds and annoying tour groups and just enjoy the surroundings. Here were some of the sights that made us say, “Ahhhh, Venice”:

The Campanille

 

Piazza di San Marco

 

The Harbor

The Bridges (including the Bridge of Sighs)

Another great thing to do is to get away from the hustle of the crowd and enjoy some of the non-touristy areas. You’ll know you’ve found them when you find yourself among people without cameras around their necks. We found our slice of the real Venice by the Naval History museum. We even found a second hand store (a small corridor attached to a church where nice older Italian women are happy to give you a deal). Your money goes to the children the church supports...though I didn't get pictures of it, it's just down from the Naval History Museum in this area: 

by this Church

Overall, Venice is beautiful and chaotic, and definitely worth another visit!

Proof

Someday, many years from now, we’re going to need proof for our kids. Proof that we actually did all these crazy trips in a 3-month span. Proof that the whole experience was as rewarding as it was challenging. Proof that this world has so much excitement to offer.

What I’m finding though, is a different kind of proof, one that I wasn’t expecting:  Proof that being away from our everyday lives and going on an adventure like this leads to closer family ties.  Now, it’s not totally true that I wasn’t expecting this…I hoped being together in a foreign country would bring us all closer, and, especially, would further build a bond between the brothers. But for all I knew, the extra close, non-stop contact might also burn us all out.

Now, of course there have been battles, and it hasn’t been all roses, and sometimes you need proof that things were hard, people were grumpy, and everything wasn’t perfect:

 

But in spite of the difficulties, every once in a while you see something like this:

or this:

or this: 

And you say to yourself, there’s proof that this was all worth it.