The Year Trip

Eurail Pass

bombardo-family — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 19:08:00 GMT

Moving around in Europe we used the Eurail Pass. Eurail is actually a travel company with agreements with the rail companies to sell a special pass to non-EU residents, it covers the cost of the ticket not reservation cost, if a reservation is necessary. I originally thought it was a pass from the rail company, but it is not. I cannot say I completely understand all the rules for all the different countries we visited with it, but I learn enough to give a couple of tips. We purchased the Eurail Pass when it was on sale, which included kids free at the time. I am pretty sure it was a good deal for us. The rail pass was actually the first thing we purchased, it is what locked us into the trip, so it will always be a good deal for us. Depending on how many countries, which countries, and how much you will travel needs to be considered when deciding if the Eurail Pass is worth it. This was a bit difficult trying to figure out what countries we would go through, what trains we needed, or how to figure out cost of train tickets. When we did purchase, I knew we would be doing a lot of train travel for three months and over several countries, so without fully comparing, we purchased the rail pass.

I think I would come to the same decision if I took more time to figure out, but it would have cost a lot of time. I think now I could do it pretty quickly. I would plan out the basic route then add the link between each route as a line on the spread sheet. So, our first line would have been Madrid to Barcelona. Second line would be Barcelona to Saint Raphael. There is two costs for each trip, the ticket cost and the reservation cost, at times the different cost can be difficult to distinguish. Next, find the website to make reservations – I usually would search on google.com “Spain Train Reservations” using the starting country. I would follow the site to get an approximate cost, I say approximate because most reservations can only be made 3 months out, we did cost analysis well over 3 months. I would pick similar day and times to get a good approximate value. In this example, I would need to do it twice for Madrid to Barcelona one for ticket and reservation and once for just reservation. The reason you need to separate these is you still need to pay reservation cost for tickets. Then I would add the ticket cost to my spreadsheet row and reservation (reservation just so I know the total cost, you have to pay this either way). Once you work through all your train rides, compare the total ticket cost to the rail pass cost. One day I may sit down and check the difference. I can tell you we paid about $2500 for our Eurail and the cheapest ride just between Madrid and Barcelona, minus reservation, is about $250. We had many more than 10 rides and much longer, so I think we are in good shape. Also, since our pass was with kids we got first class tickets, if we wanted to pay the increased reservation.

Our decision was pretty easy, unfortunately, if your travels are short, only involve one or two countries, or include countries like Germany it may be a hard decision. If you are on a tight budget I would take the time to plan out the train rides using their local website to determine if it is cheaper buying individual tickets or the Eurail Pass.

If you decide to purchase the Eurail Pass there are a couple things to keep in mind. Almost every non-local train needs a reservation. Eurail recommends making reservations through them as soon as possible, which is about 60 days prior to the ride. We did most of our original reservations through Eurail. It was easy, plus at the time we had no idea how to make reservations, which trains, or if they would be available later. Eurail charges the reservation cost plus $8 per reservation (a reservation includes everyone in your party, so even if you have 4 people the reservation is still $8 on top of the reservation cost). The first time using Eurail and learning the European rails the additional $8 per reservation was worth it. Now, we understand how it works and know there is almost always a seat I would make my own reservations. I will note, at least one of the last-minute reservation we did not get to sit together.

If you are making a reservation yourself, it can be really easy. If you are in a big city just go to the rail station and use customer service to make a reservation. Make sure you show them the Eurail and they understand it is your ticket. The only place we had trouble was in Poland, who often seemed confused with the Eurail pass. They would need to speak to a manager. We even had to explain it to some of the conductors. Anyways, if you are not in a big city or rail station, first check if there is an app. Many of the rails allow you to make reservations with an app, they have an option to select Eurail. Next, is their website and final is the phone. At least, this is the order I tried. As I stated above we never found a train we could not get a reservation, but we did have one or two we did not sit together. However, most of our major trains were booked well ahead of time.

The one thing I still could not tell you is what trains require reservations. The Eurail app seemed to provide pretty accurate information, but I wanted to be able to tell locally. I never figured it out. If the train does not require a reservation, you just get on and find a seat. If the train is optional reservations you can reserve a seat (pay reservation) or just find an empty seat. There are two ways to find an empty seat, there may be carts with no reservation or there may be reservation carts you find an empty seat until someone comes with that reservation. Just make sure you are in the correct class.

The first train we boarded we had no idea what to do or where to go on the train. Lucky, after someone claimed the seat we just sat in, another couple explained trains. If you have a reservation it means you have a reserved seat in a specific cart on the train. The first thing to do is find your cart to board the train, once you are on the right cart find your seat. Seat numbers and cart numbers at times can be a challenge to find, each company - even train does it different. It will not take long to figure out the pattern. When you board the train do not be shocked to find people sitting in your seat. It is fine to show them the reservation and seat number. As mentioned above, if reservations are not required they may not have an assigned seat. Additionally, others may just not like their seat and sit somewhere until the seat is taken. The train conductor does not check seat assignments, they just check to make sure you have a ticket for the class you are sitting. Once you are in your seat enjoy the ride.

We read plenty about locking your luggage and all the theft on trains. We did not see this problem at all. We never locked down our luggage. We usually tried to place it were we could see it, but that was it. We would also carry our main bag with important information. We saw plenty of people place their luggage in different carts and didn’t have a worry at all. I think most of the fear has come from years ago, most trains are pretty safe now. However, do what makes you feel comfortable.

The most important things to know to find your train. First, use the train number. If you know the train number it is usually pretty easy. I would use the train number and verify with the ending destination of the train. Second, if you are not sure about the train number look for the final destination. Trains are often listed with the last destination of the train, so it makes it a little easier to identify if you have it. Finally, the time the train departs. Usually, not always, only one train leaves at an exact time, so you can usually easily find the train solely based on departure time. Even if the train is going to be late the original departure time is listed.

Transfers between trains. It is easy to transfer between trains. Our shortest trans was 8 minutes and we had plenty of time. If you have a short transfer just be ready to get off the train when you approach the station. The trains are planned out very well and expect transfers, so short transfers are usually close. You are not likely the only one transferring, there will be a good crowd. I was nervous about our first short transfers, but I would not be now.

The European train system is really easy to ride and move around almost anywhere. If you use the rail, subways, and busses you can get about anywhere in Europe. The only place we rented a car was southern France, because we drove up into the mountains. Everywhere else we traveled through Europe we did on public transportation.

Stockholm, Sweden

bombardo-family — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:19:00 GMT

We had a very short stay in Stockholm, because we had decided to go and see the Northern Lights. Since we had such good luck with hostels we found one in Stockholm, plus Sweden was expensive and hostels were by far the cheapest method. Anyways, we found an old prison, 1700s, that was converted into hostel! It was neat little place that prison rooms converted into small hostels with a small bathroom. We had 2 rooms, each room had a bunk bed and its own bathroom. There was a shared kitchen and laundry.

Kaleigh and I were taking showers while Chris and Brooklyn went looking for some laundry detergent. She was a little creeped out from staying at an old prison. So, while Kaleigh was in the shower she insisted that I let her keep the door open. It was my turn in the shower and she convinced me to leave door open while I showered. Towards the end of my shower I heard the fire alarm go off, I quickly got out and threw on some clothes. Kaleigh and I headed out into the hallway and attempted to leave the building, but before we even hit the stairs a housekeeper told us to wait just a minute. She asked if it was ok to go into our hotel room, that is when I noticed that the alarm was only going off in our room. She had Kaleigh and I wait in the hallway while another hotel staff came to the room. Apparently, if you keep the bathroom door open the steam from the shower causes the fire alarm to go off. So, we learned to keep that door closed while showering.

I would have been happy just relaxing in the hotel, but Chris planned and we agreed to head out on yet another adventure to find a museum. I think this had to be one of our longest walks in one day. The walk was well worth it! We went to a museum that had a fully built Viking ship. The ship was nearly completed when it was pulled up out of the water. It was amazing! The ship was designed poorly causing it to tip and sink on its first sail, just off the coast. Since this ship was to be the masterpieces of the king’s navy and there was a trail after because of the sinking there is also a rich history that goes with the shop. The museum has several floors to tour around and learn about the construction of the ship, how it sank, and how it was restored. Chris and I couldn’t believe the size of it. It was just like the ships you see in movies and think, “Did these ships really ever exist?” It really reminded me of the pirate ship in the “Goonies” movie from the 1980’s. It was a great day and our last day before we headed to Russia.

Ice Hotel

bombardo-family — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:18:00 GMT

We arrived by bus from Kiruna. Upon checking in, we headed to our guestroom, we stayed in a warm room, and rested for a short while before taking a look at the ice rooms. Wow! I think the girls liked the ice hotel a little more than they expected. We guided ourselves through the ice bar and then to the rooms. All of the ice rooms can be viewed until 6:00 PM, before the guests take over. Each room has its own themed name, like, “Once Upon A time” or “Kiss”. Each room is equipped with a bed with reindeer hide to keep you warm during the night. Brooklyn, as with everything we tour, quickly took a look and was headed onto the next room. Kaleigh took her time, walking to all the areas in each room to get a good view of all the details. After looking at the rooms, we headed back to the ice bar to have a drink. The girls each had cranberry juice, Chris a “Once Upon A Time” and I had something with raspberry vodka and Amarillo. We took our time drinking from the square ice glasses. As a souvenir, we were able to take the glasses with us when we left. The girls didn’t think they would make it home though.

On our first and only night staying at the Ice Hotel, Chris got up shortly after laying down. He thought something was outside, when he looked there was a reindeer standing outside out window! In the morning, we had to check out by 11:00 AM, but we wanted to take the Ice Hotel Tour at noon, so we put our luggage in the hotel storage. The tour was pretty good. We learned where and how they get the large blocks of ice to build the hotel rooms. There is a river directly behind the hotel, which is used to harvest ice in the spring. The ice is then stored through the summer in a large cooled warehouse. The current of the river coupled with the extreme cold causes the ice to freeze clear, with no bubbles, providing clean clear ice. They also make snice blocks, which are ice and snow mixed, to create solid white blocks as part of the room. This March they just opened Ice Hotel 365, which is a hotel basically in a giant freezer. This was the ice rooms we saw, as the others were in the process of building the actual outdoor ice hotel. The true outdoor ice hotel is open December 1 – March, the new Ice Hotel 365 is there all year round.

We had a really nice time at the Ice Hotel and glad we made to trip to see it. Next time we might try to stay in an ice room. At the time, they only had ice rooms for 2. Though, Elizabeth and Brooklyn said they rather just look than sleep in an ice-cold room. It was time to move on. We had just a couple days before we fly to Russia. So, we headed to Stockholm.

A little thought share, by Elizabeth…

Today, I noticed something about Chris during breakfast. Every time we have breakfast included in our stay, he ends up with like five or more empty cups in front of him. I called him out on it today. He had a couple of cups of juice, coffee, and hot chocolate.

Kiruna, Sweden

bombardo-family — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:16:00 GMT

We had several reasons for staying in Kiruna. First, it was close to the famous Ice Hotel. Second, it is a town that will be moved, because it is sinking from mining. Third, it is a popular place to see the northern lights. Finally, it had a mine tour of one of Sweden’s largest iron-ore mines.

We stayed in another hostel in Kiruna. It was similar to the one we stayed at in Abisko, just not as nice. We had a private bunkbed sleeping room, with community bathroom, showers, and kitchen. On the first night, we gave it go to try to see Northern Lights, but the sky was cloudy, so no luck. Chris was very good at researching the conditions, so he had us get up around 2:00 AM to go out again. Well it was again cloudy, so we decided not to get the girls up and wait a little while to see if the sky would clear. Chris was up again looking out our window around 3:00 AM, this time he saw the Northern Lights move across the sky. He was very excited, he immediately woke us up.

This is one of the most excited times I have seen Chris get. The sky was clear, we could see stars, and Chris believed he had seen the lights, so we got dressed up in our warm clothes. Outside the hostel had a lot of man-made light, so we started walking to an area that was not polluted by lights. As we got closer to our destination, the city lights were fading and we all began to see the lights. It was amazing. I don’t know how long we stayed out, but we were all in awe from the light show. As the clouds moved in the lights slowly faded, so we headed back to the hostel. Along the way, we would stop and look up at the sky, because Chris and I did not want to miss anything. Not far along our way back, we saw another streak come across the sky, not only was it the beautiful green we had seen, but a rainbow of colors like you see in pictures. It took us a long time to walk back, but it was worth it. We later found out that night was one of the biggest light shows the Northern Lights put on in years.

The next morning, we slept in a bit, but we still got up before noon. We had plans to do a mine tour. We got on a bus that took us close to a kilometer underground. Once underground we received a tour that Kaleigh just loved, she was right up front the entire time. We got to see how Sweden mines iron-ore, climb on the equipment used, and explore a history of mining in the area. It was recently determined the mining had started to go under Kiruna creating unstable ground below the city. They now have an entire plan to move the town just over a kilometer up the road. The process will take several decades, but they have started. Currently, the actual mining was another ½ kilometer deeper than where we toured.

After the mine tour, we head back to the room to rest and pack-up, the next day we were moving on to the Ice Hotel.

Abisko, Sweden

bombardo-family — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:14:00 GMT

We are very happy we selected Abisko. It was an awesome stop. The Northern Lights have been on mine and Chris’s bucket list for a long time, so we decided this was the place we could give it a go. Let’s start out with the bad news, during our three nights in Abisko we did not see the Northern Lights. Though, we did enjoy our stay very much.

The train dropped us off at the smallest train stop. It was a little building in the middle of nowhere. We had a short little walk to hostel we booked. This was our first real hostel, sleeping rooms with a shared bathroom and kitchen. We stayed in a hostel in Spain, but it was a family room, which was more like an apartment. This hostel was fairly new or at least redone, it was nice, and there was only a small number of guests. As a true hostel experience we met our fellow hostel guests, which made it nice to have an adult conversation. On our first day, we met the Johnson family from the UK, and guess what? They had read our blog, we were shocked! It was such a surprise and crazy experience.

On night one, we took a walk around seven to see if we could see some lights. We took a snowmobile path to a walking trail until we found an opening to look up into the sky. It was a beautiful, clear sky, but the moon was bright. Great night, but no lights. Chris was up and down all night trying to view the lights from our room.

Kaleigh’s actual birthday was on our second day. She wanted to hike up one of the mountains, so she could play in the snow. There was some snow on the ground, but not much to play with for the girls, and she could see more up the mountain. It was a workout getting up to the top of the mountain. It took us two hours with the few breaks Chris let us have. We went off the trail a tiny bit towards the top, it got a little steep, but we made it by helping each other out with a little push, hand grab, or throw (Chris picked Kaleigh up to try and get her higher up without slipping). We enjoyed the view, had some water, dried fruit and beef jerky, then headed back down the mountain. It only took 40 minutes to get to the bottom! On the way down, I would get a head of the girls and slide down on my bottom, smoothing path so they could slide down on their bottom. We all had a few slips and falls during the trip, some of us even came out with a bruise or two.

In the kitchen, during lunch, we chatted with a guy from Singapore, who had some extra cake. He thought it was only proper to give the extra cake to Kaleigh for her birthday. We have come across so many nice and generous people on our journey. We didn’t get a chance to go out on this night to see the lights. It was a cloudy night, making it not a good viewing night, and we were all exhausted from our fun day.

The next day we decided to head to take the train to Narvik, Norway. Sweden claims it to be the most beautiful train ride and Chris had read about the clear water in the bay, so we decided it was something we should do! We used the Swedish train app and book tickets that night. The next morning, we were on the train! On the train Kaleigh and Chris were having a conversation about the amount of daylight Abisko received each day because at the time we were visiting the days were very short, it was complete dark by 2:30 pm. Kaleigh asked, “Why does Sweden get less sun?” Chris proceeded to explain the rotation of the earth, position of the sun and moon, and the seasons. During his explanation, he mentioned New Zealand getting longer days right now. Then Kaleigh proceeded to ask, “I wonder how many hours they get, we have 24?” Needless to say, after a quick reminder about the hours of a day, she realized what she had asked. We spent a couple of hours walking around and having lunch in Narvik, before catching the return train.

We stayed one more night in Akisko before heading south to Kiruna.

Jonkoping, Sweden

bombardo-family — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 10:32:00 GMT

Arriving in Sweden our planned stop was in Jonkoping, Sweden. Chris’s family hosted our host about 20 years ago as a foreign exchange student, Maria. I had also met Maria once at Chris’s sister’s wedding. Maria was worried her apartment was not large enough for us and her 2 children. It turned out her children were staying elsewhere for the week and Maria decided she would still stay with her boyfriend for the week, so we had the place to ourselves. It was very kind of her to let us take over her apartment for a week. The week was a great time to slow down and relax. That is what we did! We ventured to the grocery store a couple of times, a candy store, shopped for winter clothing at consignment stores, played outside at the park, washed laundry, cooked dinner, and went to the city shopping area once. We really slowed down, it was nice.

We did do a couple of things, along with the apartment we took care of two cats. The girls didn’t mind at all, since they are both missing their two cats at home. The cats were a bit skittish and shy with us the first day, but when it came to the night when we were sleeping, they wanted their attention. They would wake us up either wanting to be petted or to attack our feet! I think we all enjoyed the cats.

The girls have been wanting to try the back facial mask that is all over YouTube. After searching and trying to communicate at the stores, we found a tube and bought it. It only took about 2 miles of walking! We couldn’t get Chris to try it, so it was just us three. Our experiences:

Brooklyn said, “not painful at all” and “it was fun pealing it too”

Kaleigh said, “good, felt tight, it was weird, exciting and different, it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would”

Myself “I don’t think it hurt very bad, I think some people are just exaggerating”

We went to a park and the girls played on the equipment for a little while. There was an obstacle course the girls played on for a while. They decided to compete against each other based on time. However, if you touched the ground 30 seconds was added. Kaleigh was having one of her fastest rounds, all of sudden she missed a stop and took a nose dive into the dirt, she got right back up and finished her run. It was awesome! Defiantly ‘Bombardo Tough’.

We also had dinner with Maria’s parents. They lived a bit more in the country, Chris drove Maria’s car, Maria had another ride. Maria’s parent stabled several horses the girls fed carrots too. Kaleigh really loved the opportunity to interact with horses again. The dinner was traditional Swedish meal of moose and local greens. Chris liked it the best. There was also a really good Swedish dessert. After the meal Chris and Maria’s dad made plans to meet up to tour a court house and sit in on a trial. Maria’s dad is a retired judge. Maria and decided we would get all the kids together to play when they were gone.

Chris said the court system was really different and really neat to see. He sat in on a shoplifting case, which would have likely been settled and pleaded in the US. In Sweden, all “major” cases get a trial, shoplifting is major. There is not a so-called jury, but instead a judge, 3 members of the community who serve a term, and a recorder or assistant to the judge. The judge asks most the questions to both the defendant and the witnesses, if any. Everyone stays seated in more of a triangle setup. After all questions are answered and witness called, the judge and community individual have a verdict and sentence. Chris said the case load in the US would never handle this type of setting.

While Chris was at court Maria and I watched the kids play at the park. Kaleigh and Maria’s daughter Hedvig got along great. Once Chris was back we all walked up to a park to play, have some hot chocolate, and just play. It was very nice.

It was getting close to Kaleigh’s birthday, so one day Brooklyn and I made a cake for her. Brooklyn is a fan of Nerdy Nummies on YouTube. She had seen a unicorn on one of the episodes and really wanted to make it for Kaleigh. Chris found a place to take Kaleigh ice skating, while Brooklyn and I worked on the cake.

The first item was hunting for ingredients. Have you ever tried to get all the ingredients to bake and decorate a cake not speaking the language in small Swedish grocery stories, it is a challenge? The one thing that did help was Google Translate. Earlier in our travels, we downloaded the Google Translate app to help with language barrier. It has been very helpful when shopping or really anytime trying to translate language. The image translation is easy to use, select your language, choose camera mode, snap a picture, and then wait for it to be translated. This was helpful, but Brooklyn and I still had all kinds of difficulties finding ingredients. We found cake mix, which made me very happy, I’m not good at making cakes from scratch. The biggest problem was finding frosting. We couldn’t find confectioners’ sugar or fondant, which the cake required both. We thought we had found the fondant and used it as fondant. Later after we had the cake, Chris told me that it was actually marzipan. One is almond based and one is sugar. I had never heard of marzipan, almond based one, but it worked good enough. With all the improvising, we made it and everyone thought it was great, especially the birthday girl. Maria and her daughter came over and celebrated with us too! It was a special day for Kaleigh.

After the surprise birthday party, we decided it was time to close our resting period and do something, after much debate of going to Norway or going to Abisko, Sweden to try and see the Northing Lights we decided on Abisko, with an extra stop in Kurina to see the famous Ice Hotel. That night we made reservations at a hostel in Abisko and book train tickets for the next day. We spent the evening packing, saying good byes, and preparing to travel again. This included a grocery stop – the nearest store or food in Abisko was a 2 km walk!

Copenhagen, Denmark

bombardo-family — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 10:30:00 GMT

Our ride to Copenhagen was another first for us. It started out with a broken train engine, it would only go in one direction and it happened to be the wrong direction. It took nearly 2-hours, but we did a giant turn around somehow. Next, we had no idea the train crosses the Baltic Sea on a boat ferry. That’s right, the train drives right on the boat. Once on the boat the passengers get off the train, go upstairs to restaurants and stores. After about 30 minutes, it was announced to return to the train! A couple minutes after boarding the train, the train pulled off the boat. We are in Denmark! It was still a bit more of a ride before we arrived in Copenhagen.

At the train station, we had a friend pick us up, a foreign exchange student that stayed with my family 20 years ago. He is now an elected official in Denmark and owns a Copenhagen tour company. His tour company is Hamlett Tours, http://hamlettours.com, provides sightseeing in and around Copenhagen. Let them know Chris and Elizabeth sent you! We received a special offer to stay with Rasmus at his house. The timing was great, he had the week off, Denmark Potato Harvest holiday, so he offered to personally provide us with tours of the area.

After a day of rest, we decided to go to the Zealand region. After getting up and lounging around for a while, we slowly made our way to the car and to make the hour drive to Mos Klint. The region is known for its large cliffs of chalk. Yeah, it is the same chalk that teachers use to write on chalkboards. I actually never knew there were cliffs made of chalk. We started our exploration to the tops of the cliffs to oversee the sea below. Following a short walk along the cliffs, we were all ready to make our way down the many stairs to the bottom. The girls were in a rush to get to the bottom, because on the drive Rasmus explain there are three things to look for, chalk (which is everywhere), ancient fossilized squid, and ancient fossilized shark teeth. The girls really wanted to find squid and shark teeth. We obviously found plenty of chalk. We did find several squid fossils, but struck out on the shark teeth. The girls were not ready to give up looking, but we had to call it day. They even got over the smell of the seaweed to dig right in looking for shark teeth

The next day we made our way around the city of Copenhagen, we visited the homes of the royal family, witnessed another changing of guards, and visited the famous little mermaid statue. I think the girls were a bit disappointed by the statue. Kaleigh even said, “It doesn’t look like the Little Mermaid to me.” Though they both enjoyed seeing it. Exploring further into the city, we happened to be at the royal families’ homes when the changing of the guards started. We had to stay and watch the process, there was a bit less people than in London! Elizabeth thought the royal families’ square was pretty cool with houses facing each other. I don’t think it would work out, our kids need to move a bit further away!

As the girls would say, “Another museum……”, however, I think the girls enjoyed this one more than many previous. The Castle Museum housed many of the crown jewels, at least those that did not get sold by Christian II and Christian IV. You can see many of the items they sold at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg! After the museum, it was time to head back to make dinner and rest.

While we were in Denmark, it rained a lot! One particular evening, Rasmus, took us to the harbor in Copenhagen because there was a reenacted navy battle between Denmark and Sweden. Can you guess who will win? It was one of many battles between the Danes and Swedes in history, and of course, this one Denmark wins. I think now the two countries battle it out on the sports field in place of battleships! The reenactment we watched was two replicated battleships, canons and all, it was pretty neat. They fired muzzle loaders and canons without balls, and fireworks at each other. I mentioned it rained a lot while we were there, well it poured during the battle, and poured, needless to say we were soaked, but it was fun.

The next day, we got a special treat, since our host is a member of The Folketing “Danish Parliament”, we received a quick private tour of the Christiansborg Palace. Elizabeth thought it was special to go inside the Folketing Chamber, “Parliament Floor”, when it was empty, except us. We have now visited both Germany’s and Denmark’s Parliament Floors. Plus, the main reason we stopped by, we got a to see Rasmus’s office. He has a pretty nice view!

After leaving the Parliament building we headed to the Roskilde Cathedral. This cathedral had hundreds of people buried inside of it, including all the kings and queens of Denmark. The current queen has already picked out her resting spot and it is underway of being decorated. As we walked through the cathedral Rasmus talked about the history of the church and many of its unique features. The girls have three favorite spots. First, upstairs you can find the imprint of a fox footprint on a brick. During construction, the bricks would be molded and air dried to harden. During the drying process, one night a fox walked across the bricks leaving a footprint in one of the soft bricks. It hardened leaving a permanent fox footprint in the brick. The 12^th Century fox footprint can still be seen in one of the bricks. The second is the black tomb. It is believed to be an evil spirit and you can spit on it. The girls got a laugh. The final is King Harold Bluetooth. Yes, he is where you get the name Bluetooth. Though they have no idea what Bluetooth looks like there was a very colorful painting with blue pants. The girls seemed to like him!

After the cathedral, we visited a Viking museum. Of course, the girls by this time were through with museums. However, it was interactive for the girls, they got to make flat bread over an open fire, try on Viking clothing, climb on model boats, and practice weapon throwing skills. The museum had several partial Viking ships, built from pieces they had found in the area. It was pretty neat to see what an actual Viking ship looked like.

We still had several days not planned between Denmark and Sweden. It was short debate on what to do after we learned of LEGOLAND. The next day we boarded another train and headed to the original LEGOLAND. We booked two nights in a LEGOLAND associated hotel just a couple of hundred feet from the entrance. Along with our hotel reservations we received 2 day tickets for LEGOLAND.

On the day we arrived, we checked in our room and headed straight to the park before it closed. The first thing Brooklyn wanted to do is find all the roller coasters and ride them. Kaleigh wanted to ride rides, but not the big ones. Elizabeth and I just wanted to explore the park. We let in to the girls’ impulse, since they have been good at all the recent museums and headed to rides. We quickly found the one of the largest rollercoasters and headed to ride it. As expected, they were too scary for Kaleigh, but we convinced her to ride on one. She screamed and repeated yelled “I don’t like it”, but she survived. We nearly had her convinced to ride one more, but she got lucky and got her way on the next one, they said she was too short. We spend our last hour of the park wondering planning for the entire next day. The next day it did not take long to cover the rest of the park. We walked through the Lego towns, I think we were all in awe at the all of the items built out of Legos. The day was a bit cold and rainy and the park was empty, but we had fun anyway. In fact, Brooklyn and I rode the fast rollercoaster over and over, not even having to get off, since no one was in line. Elizabeth and Kaleigh did the same thing on one of the smaller rollercoasters they both enjoyed. We didn’t even have to get off the ride!

Brooklyn and I also found one of our favorite Lego sections, Star Wars. There are small scenes to nearly fully size ships built out of Legos. It was pretty cool. It did not take us long with so little people in the park to ride all the rides and feel we covered almost all the park. We felt two days was plenty at the park.

The next morning, we had our train booked and ready to jump on the bus, when we realized we needed to get bus tickets. Originally, we thought we might be able to purchase them from the hotel or LEGOLAND like we did at the train station going to LEGOLAND, but nothing. The only way to get a ticket was purchase it from the bus driver. We thought no problem, but as I researched it many people was reporting it was cash only. We had no Danish cash, we had used credit card throughout Denmark. We had a slight panic, we only had like 30 minutes before the bus we needed to make in order to board our to train on time, and we needed to figure out how to get enough cash for the tickets. Luckily, it only took a few minutes to find an ATM outside LEGOLAND. We nearly sprinted there to get cash. Just to be safe, I took the cash and did run to a coffee shop across the street to make sure we had exact change. The girls headed straight to the bus stop. After getting change I made it to the bus stop about 7 minutes before the bus arrived. We made it. We still are not sure if the bus excepts credit cards or not, but we did not have the time to take the chance.

That night we made it back to Copenhagen to spend one last night with Rasmus, before moving on to Sweden. We really enjoyed out stay in Copenhagen and would like to return one day.

Berlin, Germany

bombardo-family — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 20:35:00 GMT

I have always wanted to visit Germany, especially Munich and Berlin. Berlin was everything I expected and I would love to go back again. I have always remembered watching the TV coverages of the Berlin Wall coming down. There is so much history in the city that we were not able to see as much as I would have liked. The cool thing is we happened to visit during Festival of Lights the happens once each year. In October for 10 days the city illuminates many buildings throughout the city with different themes with giant projectors. The building are spectacular displays of art at night. It was pretty neat and we discovered it our first night as we were walking around looking for a restaurant for dinner.

Then next day we purchased a 3-day Hop-on Hop-off Bus tour, which we have become fond of, to get a good overview tour of the city, us for transportation to locations, and so girls don’t complain we walk everywhere! We started the day just riding the bus. We usually made one loop and marked locations where to get off on the second loop. The problem, we bought three loops and there was not enough time to do everything we planned, so when we hit a location we liked we jumped off the bus. The first place we got off was Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which is a church that was bombed during WWII.

The stop provided a perspective to what the ally forces bombing had done to Berlin. The church was supposed to torn down, but instead they decided to stabilize it and leave it as it as a reminder to the destruction of war. The area also had plenty of places to eat so we grabbed lunch. After lunch, it was a short walk to Check Point Charlie and the Berlin Wall monument.

The Wall monument was the one thing in Berlin I really wanted to see. I remember watching the news coverage. I remember people even purchasing small pieces of the wall to keep as keepsakes. It is the history of Germany in my time, I remember. Now it was in front of me. As I stare at it I do not see the separation, I see the people standing on it with sledgehammers to bring it down. All the people yell and celebrating, I could see the news reports as I stared at the wall. There was the celebration of the wall coming down, but you have to remember, the wall separate people and families (who would want a wall to separate people J). The Wall was surrounded by a death zone if you entered you would be shot. It is sad, but I smile because the Wall came down and that is what I see and remember when I stare at the wall.

After finishing up with the Wall and Check Point Charlie, we had to head back to our hotel to get ready for our elven tour. We happened to purchase tickets for a night boat tour of the Festival of Lights. The boat tour was nice, but probably not worth the cost. We saw more buildings illuminated and enjoyed it more just walking around the city. I am glad we did the boat to experience it, but I probably would not recommend it or ever go again. There is more buildings illuminated and you can stop and look as long as you want just walking around the city.

Then next day, we started early on the bus to get tickets to visit the dome on the Parliament building. The tickets are first come first server, but we needed our passports to get the tickets. The passports were back in the room. So, Chris headed back to the hotel to get our passports while I took the girls to a park to play that we had seen on the Hop-on Hop-off Bus. He took the bus to the hotel, but walked all the way back. It gave the girls a good 2-3 hours of play time! Once we received our tickets we had a long day ahead of us because our entrance time was at 10:00 PM.

Since we had plenty of time we decided to walk to a couple of places. We walked through the Pariser Platz and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Then we slowly wondered up the main towards Bebelplatz visiting the Book burning memorial, where Nazis burned many books. We slowly walked until we made it back to hotel for bit for dinner and break before heading to the Parliament or Reichstag Building dome.

Before we left we were a bit worried walking nearly kilometer to the Reichstag Building at before 10 PM and close to 11 PM on the way back. We decided we would start and if we did not feel comfortable we would get a taxi. However, the walk was really neat. There was people everywhere, it was the last night Festival of Lights and our walk was up the main strip of illuminated buildings. It was an entertaining walk both ways!

At the Reichstag, we got to walk up to the dome and oversee the city at night. It is an awesome view, especially at night. If you are going to Berlin, I would highly recommend getting tickets. If you do it online you need several weeks of lead time. There are almost always left-over tickets on first come first service bases outside the building. Remember you need your passport!

The next day we took a train to Magdeburg. It is on old town about an hour train ride outside of Berlin. It was not on our schedule, but in Prague we met a wonderful family who lived there. We decided we would go spend the day to see their town and have dinner with them for our last night in Berlin. We met the family at the train station and received a small tour of the town before their son got out of school. We finally got to go into a school! As we picked up their son and we received a tour of their school. His classroom was amazing clean.

We spent the rest of the day chatting at their house with a couple of drinks. It was a wonderful visit and we always enjoy making new friends. It seemed to come quick, but it was time to head back to the train to catch our ride back to Berlin. We had an early train the next morning to Copenhagen, Denmark.

Krakow and Auschwitz

bombardo-family — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 20:34:00 GMT

As part of our visit to Poland we took an overnight trip to Krakow to visit Auschwitz. We debated if we should go, Elizabeth and I wanted to, but we weren’t sure about taking the girls. We went back and forth if the girls were too young. The Auschwitz visitor page did not recommend taking children till the age of 13. After several days of Elizabeth and I discussing back and forth we decided we would go. If we thought it was too intense or we needed to take the girls out of the museum we could.

Since we did not have Auschwitz planned at all we had to figure out how to get there, how long it would take, and reserve tickets. After reading several articles about going from Warsaw to Auschwitz we determined it could be done in a day trip, but seemed much less rushed if we stayed a night. So, we decided to take the train from Warsaw to Krakow stay the night, the next morning take the bus from Krakow to Auschwitz. We would spend most of the day at Auschwitz, take the bus back to Krakow and catch a late train back to the Warsaw.

The trip started out good. We made our reservation to and from Krakow on the train. Using the Eurail pass the reservation cost about $80, which was not too bad. It was a bit higher than most regional trains. Anyways, it was done and we were on our way. We made it Krakow in late afternoon and check into a cute little single bedroom apartment. It was a couple hundred yards from the train and bus station, and only cost $40 for the night. The manager was from Krakow, but lived in Chicago for some time, so his English was really good. He was also chatty, which was actually really nice. He provided us with a quick history and recommendation of Krakow.

There was a little drizzle, but we still decided to take the manager suggestion and walk to the main square to check out the town. It was a lively square, even with the drizzle, people were walking around admiring the what was left of the old castle, a church and bell tower, a market place and some art. The one thing that caught Kaleigh’s eye was the horse drawn buggies. There was an entire line of them. Since Morocco she has wanted a ride in one. I made a deal with her if we had a ride in Krakow she would not pressure us to ride in everyone we seen after that point. She agreed. Besides, I thought the covered buggy was a good way to see the square, since there was a slight drizzle. It was a pleasant ride and gave us a quick over view of the area. The quick over view allowed us to select several items where we wanted to explore before heading back for the night. It was getting late and we had an early bus in the morning. We actually would have liked more time to spend in Krakow area.

When we arrived on the train the day before we were not 100% sure how the buses tickets worked. We read several conflicting articles about buying tickets from the driver or from the station. So, right after we arrived we walk to the bus station and talked to the ticket office. We were able to get the schedule for the buses to stopped at Auschwitz and purchase Elizabeth’s and my ticket there. The ticket office let us know the children’s tickets should be bought on the bus and the return tickets could be purchased on the bus when we were ready to return. Our tickets were for a specific time, which actually made no difference to the driver, but we loaded on the 9:00 AM bus.

The bus ride from Krakow to the Auschwitz stop was over an hour ride. It was a small regional route bus, so it had plenty of stops. There was no stop guide, but there were several others on the bus going to Auschwitz, so I figured between us all we would figure out what stop. However, the bus driver helped us out. It did not seem to be an actual stop, he just pulled off on a curb, said Auschwitz and pointed across a small park. I think we were all a bit confused at first but we still all got off and started walking and it was there. We crossed the park and arrived at Auschwitz. Of course, in my mind the first thing I started to wonder was then how do we get the bus, we did not seem to get off at stop, so as we walked I immediately started looking and searching on the phone for bus stops. This is one thing extremely different about Elizabeth and me; I want to have a plan or at least an idea. She would worry about the bus we left the museum and figured it then. I really wanted to know before entering the museum where our stop was, what was the bus schedule, and how much was the ticket. As we walked to the gate, I seen there looked to be a bus stop in the parking lot and Taxi’s, so at least I know we had something to go on.

Tickets to Auschwitz are free, but if you want a guided tour, which they recommend, you have to pay. Though they are free you still need to either register online or go to the ticket office. So, the first thing we did when we arrived was head to the ticket office. We got our free tickets, we thought it was best not to do a guide with the girls, then headed into the museum.

We walked through the turn stiles we actually had no idea what to expect or what the Auschwitz museum actually consist of. We read about some of the exhibits, but in my mind, it was a large building with exhibits, maps, images, and remains of the Auschwitz camp. I was wrong, it is the Auschwitz camp. Auschwitz was one of the few concentration camps that was not destroyed at the end of the war or after. The exhibits of the museum reside in the building that exist in the camp, many of them housing (cell) units. Most building have a specific designation, such as way of life, housing, torture or the building has a specific geographical location the exhibit refers. When you arrive you first walk through the gate in the double fences, death zone, before entering the camp. Then you are able to freely walk around building to building.

The first set of buildings we visited were geographical, so they were emotional but more informative. They would explain the number of people from that area, such as Finland, that were sent to Auschwitz, what their route was, what type of people (mainly Jewish or soldiers), how they were treated, and outcomes. The displays were mainly written, images of newspapers, and maps so it was not bad for the girls.

As we moved through the buildings they started to change from wall displays of information to actual images, physical display, and material articles left at the site. The emotional impact substantially changed. We would stop and have conversations with the girls about what happened, when it happened, and why it is important for us to know it happened. We would also remind them that both of that their grandfathers went to war to help stop it from happening. Oddly enough, their grandfathers gave them something to positive to think about. They would ask did one of camps help save this camp or do you think our grandpas know anyone that was here. I think using their grandfathers we one of the best way to assist with the emotional impact the museum presents.

We made it through most of the buildings, not all, but most. We missed some of the geographical areas. However, we came to the point that it was enough for both us and girls for the day. There are several parts of the museum that took the biggest emotional toll on me and I was not sure how to explain it to our girls, at least not at their age.

One of the first times I did not know what to say to my girls and was debating if we made the wrong choice to bring the girls was the cremator. How do you explain something to a child that you cannot comprehend how people can do such things and you have a hard time yourself emotionally accepting? It is one of the building we probably did not need to go in, but was just moving through the camp. We opted not to explain it fully and left it as we can talk about it when you get older.

The second was a combination of walking through the torture building, which was very emotional for Elizabeth and me, but less for the girls. They could really see and understand they were rooms for holding people. They did not read the information or see the rooms were only couple feet wide, so people had to stand days on end or gas was dropped in the room to test the results or they tested the limits of starvation in certain rooms. What they did is really hard to conceive. The part hit us all was upon walking out of the torture building to the right was the wall. The wall was actually torn down, but pieces left so the museum has rebuilt a portion as a reminder. Why a wall, because it was the execution wall. The bullet holes, the shrine of flowers and candles, the look of it just hits you. Even the girls knew. It was the second time I questioned if we made the right the decision with the girls.

The third time was the building of children. It was probably the worst for the girls and we left shortly after. I think the hard part for the girls was it meant it could be them. That it was not a grown-up thing. The extreme emotional part was not the sadistic torture and killing that experiences, it was that it happened to children. The images of the children in the Auschwitz clothing had more of an impact on our girls than most of the museum. The children’s exhibit was the last one we visited.

It was a quiet walk from the museum. Luckily, we were hungry which gave us something to think about besides the museum for the time being. We grabbed a small lunch and the bus happened to be right next door as we walked out. The bus was really easy to find and it cost several dollars each to the driver and we were on our way back to Krakow. It was an emotional day, I think we all caught a bit of a nap before arriving back at the bus station.

We still had 4-5 hours before our train, so we decided to see if we could catch an earlier one. The ticket lady in Krakow was extremely nice and let us know we should not have been charged for the original reservations with the Eurail Pass, though there was no way to refund. We did determine Poland was not informed about the Eurail Pass. The conductors on the train were often confused, asked a lot of questions, and just didn’t seem to know what it was. It is the only place we encounter that with the pass. Anyways, we rescheduled and headed back earlier.

The walk from the train to our Warsaw accommodations was just over a mile. Though none of us, especially the girls, was in the mood to walk, I think it was good for us. Both the bus ride and train ride was quiet and I think everyone was reflecting or trying to forget the museum. On the walk we all got to stretch our legs and enough time had passed, the girls felt comfortable asking some questions. Also, they complained so much about walking it moved us on from the museum.

In the end, I am glad we went and took the girls. I do not regret taking them into any the exhibits now. Kaleigh does not like talking about it and things that remind her of it. However, she is the same was about Bloody Tower and its story in London Tower. I am not sure how much of Auschwitz the girls will remember as they get older, since it’s probably not an item we will reinforce into memory and probably not one they will ponder about, but time will tell.

Warsaw, Poland

bombardo-family — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 20:32:00 GMT

The ride into Warsaw was our first overnight train. The girls were really excited, as were we. Most of the train rides have been 3-6 hours during the day. The lead up to Warsaw was almost entirely about the train ride and nothing about Warsaw. Elizabeth and I were having a separate quiet debate about visiting Auschwitz, but we will do a separate post on our Auschwitz decision later. The train ride finally arrived, we all had a good time. Yes, a good time squeezing in a small berth with all our language and trying to sleep, it was something new! We did get a bit of sleep, but awoke early to arriving in Warsaw.

When we got off the train we first mapped out the nearly mile and half travel to our accommodations. I initially voted to walk, but was immediately overruled to ride the metro. We have been getting pretty good at metros and it did not take long to figure out.

We made it to our accommodation, a bit earlier than planned and worked with our AirBnB contact to get into the apartment. She was still having someone clean it, so we waited down stairs in the hallway of the apartment building while she finished it. It was a bit odd as people walked by trying to figure out why this family of four was standing in the hallway with these huge backpacks! Finally, we got in the apartment settled in and headed to the grocery store.

It was still fairly early, but we did not sleep the best on the train, so we decided to have a rest day. We not only bought stuff for dinner at the grocery store, I also bought a bit of polish beer. So, our first day of five in Warsaw was nothing more than laying around, eating, and starting some laundry (we had a washer). The next morning, we still had more laundry and the girls need to catch up on some journal writing, so again we stayed in. Additionally, we planned for the next two days.

The next day we headed to the train station early. We just took an overnight bag, because we were doing once night in Krakow. We will write a separate posting for our Krakow visit.

When we returned from Krakow, the following day would be our last fully day in Warsaw. We had started to feel a bit guilty, since we had not visited the city at all. We know on that last day we need to get out and walk around. So, we did!

We started early in the morning and headed straight to old town, which our AirBnB contact recommended. We really did not have a destination, we were just wandering around the area to sight see. We did stumble across several pretty neat sites. We found great view of the Poland Nation Stadium, monuments, statutes, an old castle wall, which we followed for a little while, before sitting down to have lunch. The lunch ended up being a several hours sit down as we chatted with a couple from Florida and the bar tender. The day did get away from us.

We started our stroll back to our AirBnB to get packed and ready for our early departure. On the way, back we walked through Saxon Garden, which was really nice. It also includes Poland’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was a pleasant walk back. The next morning, we were off again to the train station. This time it was a metro ride, I was immediately overruled when I mentioned walking to the train station. Next, stop Berlin, Germany.

Prague, Czech Republic

bombardo-family — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 19:01:00 GMT

Since we arrived in Europe we have been traveling on trains with our Europass. The ride to Prague required us to change from the train to a bus, it was still covered with the Europass. We rode a double decker bus from Germany to Prague. We were lucky to reserve early and get the front row on the top! The top front row offered a great view and it was roomy! Arriving in Prague we had another walk over a kilometer, but with everyone a bit more rested it was much better. Plus, we kept encouraging the girls because we picked our accommodations because it was so kid friendly. It had a pool, free putt-putt, free bowling, bike riding, shuttle bus, and included free tickets to the zoo. It was a package deal.

After getting settled into our accommodations we made plans to tour the city the next day. In the morning, our first venture was to see the Astronomical Clock. It was built in the 15^th century and still in use. We arrived just in time to join the crowd to see the clock go off on the hour. The clock goes through a series of chimes and movements. After the clock, we wondered around the city for a bit before heading back to the hotel.

At the hotel, we had dinner followed by our free bowling. We had no idea where the bowling was, so we asked in the restaurant. The waiter point to door in the restaurant! At first, we thought maybe he misunderstood what we were asking, but we still figured we would check it out. So, we peaked through the door to find two bowling alleys. Then next several days we laughed about the alley hidden behind the door. The first couple of balls we (no names) threw were gutters, when we finally hit pins, surprise! We were surprised, because the pins appeared to magically just setup. It took a few throws to see strings connected to each pin! We had never seen a bowling alley like this one, it was a sight to see. I won all the games, of course J.

When we were bowling we were asked if another family could use the other lane. We had no problems and quickly recognize it was a family whose little boy approached the girls to introduce himself earlier at dinner. The family was from Magdeburg, Germany. While we bowled we had a conversation and really enjoyed meeting the family.

The next day, after determining the rain was going to hold off, we decided to use our free tickets to the zoo. The Prague Zoo is really cool, it is a large zoo with many different animals from around the world. We were pleasantly surprised more than we were expecting. Plus, many of the animals we had never seen in a zoo before. It was close call between the swimming polar bear or the cheetah cubs, on which one was everyone’s favorite animal. The polar bear was in the water swimming laps back and forth, right to the glass where we watched. However, the cubs were so cute! While exploring the zoo, we ran into the family we had bowled with the previous night. The kids seemed to get along and we enjoyed chatting, so we arranged to take the kids to the pool later in the evening.

We finished the zoo, ate dinner, and headed to the pool. The girls were wound up, I think the pool was their release and they loved it. They swam, we chatted with the family we met and learned more about the German spa! One of the nice things about meeting people and spending time with them is it takes you out of the tourist mode. It makes you forget you are thousands of miles away from friends and family. Meeting people and spending more than just a conversation with them is one of my favorite parts of this trip. It is not only we make new friends around the world, but the short time spent makes you feel like you belong. As swimming came to an end we discussed our future trip and determined our later stop in Berlin was only an hour train ride from their residents, so we made plans to stop by!

In Elizabeth’s research of thing to do in Prague she came across a park the girls would like. It had a large rose garden, over 200 fruit trees, a mirror maze, and a mini Eiffel Tower. Obviously, with Brooklyn’s fascination with the Eiffel tower we headed that way the following day. The trip started with a bus shuttle to the tram at the bottom of the park, a walk to the cable drawn tram, and then the cable drawn tram ride up. Yup, it was just a normal day traveling! We finally made it to the park, it was a windy, and the stairs was the only way up the mini-Eiffel Tower. Elizabeth and Kaleigh had a hard time on the way up. Not only could you feel the wind pushing you, but you could feel it making the tower sway a bit. Kaleigh and Elizabeth decided to take a break on the stairs and sit on a seat in the stairwell, bad decision. The seat was formed out over the edge of the stairwell, so when you sat down you were basically hanging out the stairwell, enclosed of course, but they didn’t like it. They decided it was best to just keep moving quickly up the stairs on the inside. When we finally reached the summit, Elizabeth really started to feel the sway, she turned slight white and quickly announced it was time to go! We think she had a small episode of vertigo. She headed directly to the stairs to walk down. Kaleigh followed, but Brooklyn and I enjoyed the view.

Though Kaleigh and Elizabeth left a bit before us, we caught up to them on the way down. Kaleigh wanted to clench onto the railing slowly making her way down, while Elizabeth was trying to run down! Though I think Elizabeth thought it would never end, we eventually made it down. After all the drama of the tower, we stopped for everyone to calm down and had a small snack. It was probably a good break before heading to the small, but fun mirror maze. We had a good time laughing at the end of the maze, which had a set of distortion mirrors.

After the park, we decided to walk to and cross the historical St. Charles Bridge. It was packed. Once we made it across we debated whether to squeeze in Prague Castle or wait for the following day. The girls were excited to get back to the hotel, we still had putt-putt on our list of things to do. So, after they pleaded their case we headed back. We did play putt-putt, the girls had great time, well I think we all did. The course has a beautiful view overlooking the city. It not only had a view, but it was also fun to play. It was setup more like a real golf course with bunkers, water hazards, rough (thicker artificial turf), and dead grass, it was unique.

The following day we had one goal, Prague Castle. It was the last thing we did in the city before heading to Poland. The Castle is more of a walled city with a complex of buildings. You purchase tickets based on what buildings to tour. We purchased a ticket to enter several of the buildings. Ironically, the first building we thought was the cathedral, was not included with our ticket, so we purchased an individual ticket. We were directed to go up a spiral staircase, we thought was never going to end. Finally, reaching the top we realized it was bell tower, not the cathedral. The clock (bells) go off on the top of the hour and when we arrived at the top it was ten minutes before the top of the hour, so we stayed to watch the clock. After watching the clock, we had thought there must be something else or a path we missed into the cathedral, but that was it.

So, instead of just going to the building we decided to match our ticket and hit those attraction. Each attraction has a letter and you ticket say you can visit A, C, D… So, we just followed the letters in order. After a couple of buildings, we found our ticket did include the cathedral, the entrance was just on the other side of the clock tower. Elizabeth was relieved, because she picked that ticket based on the visiting the cathedral and thought she selected the wrong one. In the cathedral, I realize the girls were done with churches. Though each one is unique, after so many in a short period, the girls started saying same as the last one and I had to start agreeing. We still enjoyed it, along with the other exhibits at the castle we visited.

We had a good time in Prague, but it was time to move on.

Brussels, Belgium

bombardo-family — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 18:44:00 GMT

We were worn out when we arrived in Brussels. We really did a lot of walking in London. When we got off the train and I announced to the girls we only have a 1.4 km walk with our backpacks I thought we had a munity on our hands. When I planned the accommodations, there was several things I weighed: 1. Cost, 2. Transportation, 3. Ratings, and 4. Kitchenette. I had some scale in my head of total cost, which if we had to pay for transportation is cost more, if it did not have a kitchenette it cost a lot more, but it still had to be reasonable. Most of our accommodations ended up being a bit out of the tourist district, but close enough we could either walk or have a short bus ride. Brussels was not our longest walk with our packs, but it was one of the roughest. The girls (including Elizabeth) were tired and hungry. We agreed to walk halfway and stop to eat. It was actually just under a kilometer when we finally found somewhere to eat, this is one of the few times we did not look at prices of menu or if the they had vegetarian for Brooklyn, they were sitting in this restaurant no matter what!

After lunch, it was hard getting the packs back on but we finished our walk and checked into our Aparthotel. We did nothing but school work the rest of the day! On our walk to our Aparthotel, Brooklyn spotted a fabric store. She has been purchasing small amounts of fabric from some of the places we have visited to make a quilt with her grandma when she gets home. She kept a note where it was, so we could go back and buy fabric the next day.

We had no real plans in Brussels. Usually, if we do not have a plan for specific things to do, we make a plan the day we arrive. However, we did not do this here in Brussels, so the next day we awoke with nothing to do, which was unusual. We decide to just head out and walk, we spent most of our time walking around the city. We did come across a famous statue of a boy peeing, Manneken Pis. We also learned there was a museum, called Garderobe MannekenPis, where over 400 outfits are displayed, but the girls wanted a break from museums. Plus, we were a bit jealous of a statue that has more outfits than all four of our clothes put together!

There are a couple things you must do when you visit Brussels., we ate some waffles. I had whipped cream on mine, Brooklyn plain, and Kaleigh and Elizabeth shared one with some ice cream…they were delicious. We had to purchase some chocolate, of course we selected the first store that offered a free taste. Once you taste the chocolate you are hooked! Elizabeth and I also got a chance to try a couple different beers.

When we originally added Brussels to our trip we thought we would do a lot more. We looked at chocolate making schools, visiting comic museums, and visiting the atom structure, but we were ok just walking around. We still put several miles on our shoes and seen a good portion of Brussels, we just did it with no destination in mind.

London, England

bombardo-family — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 05:15:00 GMT

In our original plan London did not make the list, it was just out of the way. However, Elizabeth really wanted to visit Stonehenge, so London was added back to the list. Our new friends we met in Madrid recommended us to visit the Sky Garden, which is free but requires reservation. Reservations slots are release several weeks prior to the date, so we had already made the reservations. So, as we arrived in London the only plan we had was to visit the Sky Garden, have dinner with couple we met in Madrid, and go to Stonehenge.

The day we arrived in London we made our way to our accommodations to settle in and make a plan for the next several days. We know the following day we were headed to see the Sky Garden in the morning and wanted to schedule Stonehenge. Well, this was the first time we did not see something we planned. We did not make it to Stonehenge. Since we just could not fit into the three days reasonably we agreed to skip it. We replace a day going to Stonehenge with a day walking around London, visiting Buckingham Palace and watching the changing of the guard. We had completely forgot about the changing of the guard until we were in London, but we all were excited to see it. We also planned to have dinner with the couple we met in Madrid.

Once we had a basic plan we decided to just relax and catch our breath for the rest of the day. Plus, there was English TV! It was a nice to just relax with a little TV and catch our breaths. We did go out to do a little grocery shopping to cook a meal in our accommodations. One of the ways we keep cost down is booking rooms with kitchenettes whenever possible. When we arrive in town we go to a local grocery store and buy milk, cereal, and dinner for a couple of days. Eating cooked meals in our accommodations is both a money saver and gives a bit of feel of home life. We tend to eat a lot of noodles, pizza, vegetables and other simple meals, but it works. We have been fairly successful to only eat out 1-2 times per town. Anyways, we spent our day off relaxing, watching Big Bang, and cooking dinner. We called it an early night.

The next morning, we headed directly to the Sky Garden. We had reservations, free, at 9:00 am when it opened. It had some nice views of the city and a nice little garden, but it only took up about 30-45 minutes. While we were at the Sky Garden we saw the London Tower. Seeing the tower reminded us one of our friends recommended visiting the tower, it was her top pick in London. So, upon leaving Sky Garden we headed to the London Tower. There was no line to purchase tickets, but always looking for a deal we searched online. The search showed if you pre-purchase tickets online it is about 3 dollars per ticket cheaper. So, we got out of line, bought tickets online, and walked over to Will Call to get the tickets. Every dollar counts!

Everyone enjoyed London Tower. The London Tower has a little bit for everyone a bit of history, jewels, armory, and many interesting stories. Additionally, the museum has a kid’s guided audio tour, so we just followed the kids as they hunted for different objects. Anytime a museum has a kid guided tour or kid’s audio we have a better experience within the museum. The kids stay interested and they are just excited as Elizabeth and me to see everything in the museum.

After the museum, we had several hours before meeting for dinner with our friends, so we walked the river back to our accommodations to take in some of the sights of London. London is a really neat town, because you never know what you are going to see around the next corner. It might a passing view of Big Ben or market place full of people. We slowly made it back to our accommodations just in time to get ready for our dinner. It was wonderful to have dinner with another couple!

The next morning, we woke up and headed straight out to see the changing of the guards. Elizabeth found a great write-up about the best places to stand with kids. It would have been almost impossible to get the kids close enough to see the changing at the palaces with all the people. Following the blogs instructions where to stand, we got to see different parts of the changing of the guards around the palace area, but did not see the changing at the palace. We watched the band practice and march, inspection of the guards, the march to the change, and Cavalry as they came and went during the changing. We think it provided better experience and views for the girls. The gates where the guards change at the palaces is just so crowded, it was likely the girls would have seen very little of the event. I would highly recommend following the website (if you want it let us know) over trying to smash in with the crowd to see one piece of the entire ceremony.

Walking back to our hotel, we stopped at the Household Calvary Museum. It is a small, and relatively new museum, but great for kids. The girls got to do a scavenger hunt through the museum and got to dress up in the guard’s uniforms. One of the items in the scavenger hunt is to count all the medals, the girls were so close to the exact number, they were given a free book about the guards to keep.

We spent the rest of our time in London, just walking the city. We spend of good portion of time in St. James park, it has a large pond with all types of birds. Elizabeth and I liked the pelicans the best. The girls were excited to finally see a swan.

The second to last night in London was Elizabeth and my anniversary. The girls decided to keep us out of the kitchen and make us a dinner. They made us stay in our bedroom, popping in every now and then to make sure we were not peaking. After just over an hour we were finally allowed to come out. They had setup the table and made us pasta for our anniversary. Not only had they made dinner they were the waitresses for the affair and served us well. Kaleigh was a bit hungry during the event and kept wanting to eat, as Brooklyn demanded she had to wait till we were done! The dinner was for sure one of the highlights!

Paris, France

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 20:08:00 GMT

As soon as we arrive to a new destination we almost always head to our accommodations by either walking, bus, subway, or tram. In Paris, we went by subway. It was very crowded and we were up against each other on both subway lines we had to take. It was the second line I got a text from Chase Visa asking me if I made a purchase for $2,200 and I of course, sent a reply of no, this instantly freezes the credit card from any further purchases. Chris instantly reaches for his front pocket where his travel pouch should have been….it was gone. It had all his credit cards, driver’s license, global entry card, scuba diving ID, bank cards and around $200 in cash. In less than 30 minutes our cards were getting hit. It is unbelievable how fast and how much money can be put on multiple credit cards. Within 30 minutes they attempted to charge over $30,000. We immediately began to make calls to get everything straightened out. Chris has had a positive attitude about all of it, the cash was really the only thing we couldn’t recover. Thanks to our renters and neighbors we will have ID’s replaced and sent to us.

Now, the reason we came to Paris is because Brooklyn was so excited to see the city and Eiffel Tower and to visit the Louvre. The next morning, we got up early and headed straight to the Louvre. We had pre-purchased tickets for 9:00 when the Louvre opened. We arrived a bit early, but there was already a line. We had one main destination the Louvre and when we got we headed straight to the Mona Lisa. It is another one of those pieces of art that you have seen in all kinds of books and TV, but to see it in person is just and awe experience. We spent 5-10 minutes there just staring at it and we would catch several more glances as we explored the Louvre. We spent about 3-4 hours just roaming around exploring all the exhibits before we decided it was time to eat.

Chris had a high school friend in Paris he called to see if we could meet up with for lunch. It turned out to be great timing and we met just outside the Louvre. We found a little restaurant open on a Sunday and sat down for a lunch and visited for a while.

The rest of the day went spent at the Eiffel Tower. We were a bit worried because we had heard all these stories of standing in line for hours to get tickets. We thought we might have to come back the next day. However, when we arrived we were pleasantly surprised the lines were short, so we were heading up the Eiffel Tower. We decided to walk the 701 stairs to the highest level allowed and then ride the elevator to the summit. The ticket for the stairs was cheaper and the line was shorter. The tower has three levels, two you can reach by stairs and the summit you have to ride the elevator. We made it to each of the levels, including walking around each level to get the different views. The second level had a macaroon bar, we on this trip our girls have become lovers of macaroons, so we bought the girls macaroons, which they wanted to wait till the summit to eat. Brooklyn was finally satisfied she had reached to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Once we made it back to earth, yay, we found a family fun day festival happening. We walked around and the girls were given free large bags of candy. Once the festival ended, we made our way to the open field where everyone was gathering to watch the towers night light show. We found a good place on the ground and stuck around until the lighting of the tower and the first light show, which happens on the top of each hour after dusk.

Paris gave us our first hiccup, but we made it. We are all excited about our next stop, because we will get a little English TV! Here we come London.

Munich, Germany

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 20:00:00 GMT

Ahh, OKTOBERFEST! We finally made it and little did we know actually how big it was. It is not just a beer fest, it is an entire carnival with all kinds of rides for the kids. It is by far the largest carnival either Chris or I have ever seen. There were stands for pretzels, schnitzel, brats, beer and tents of people from all over the world, beer chugging, and more… We could have, but we didn’t spend all of our time in Munich at the fest, we did go see Sleeping Beauty’s castle, well the castle her castle was inspired by.

Neuschwanstein Castle was a day trip from Munich. We took a train from Munich, a ten-minute bus to the town, and then walked up to the castle for a little hike. We purchased timed tickets, so we took our time and ate some very good fries and sausages. We took our time hiking up to the castle checking out all the views, since we had to burn some time. Once we were at the top we found out there is a bridge on the backside of the castle you can walk across. The bridge is a pedestrian bridge built in 1845 called Marienbrucke. It takes a bit of nerve to walk across it. It is over a huge valley and it sways with lots of people on it. The wood flooring was very shaky, but you got a beautiful view of the castle and a waterfall. We all made it across and back, the girls needed a little encouragement!

The castle was of course beautiful. The furniture was even still in the castle, as expected you couldn’t touch any of it, some was even behind clear glass. I tell you this because I didn’t notice some glass in one area and I got a little too close, and bumped my head. It was really loud, loud enough for everyone to stop and look at me. It hurt, and I was embarrassed, and all I got was weird looks from my family. It still was a good tour of the castle. We learned a lot about the castle and it was a great date trip.

Back to the beer fest! We met a lot of nice people and drank our share of good beer. We saw people chugging liters of beer, drinking beer from their shoe, and just out right have a good time in enormous beer tents. We did not have any reservations, so we would just head into a tent and look around for seats in the non-reserved portions. We never had a problem getting a seat in any of the tents we wanted to attend. We made it to three of the big tents. Each time we left beer fest we allowed the girls to select several rides. Chris would not ride any, but I did with the girls. We did all do the fun-house together. We really had a great time at Oktoberfest. It was probably good the girls were with us or we might have had a couple too many!

Austria

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 19:55:00 GMT

Stefan was friend we had met year back when we lived in Arizona. He lived in an apartment in the same complex and we spent a lot of time hanging out at the pool together. Several years back he moved back to Austria. When we planned the trip, I coordinated with Stefan to spend a couple of days visiting. He was currently working in Switzerland and only home on the weekends, so we arrived Friday and stayed until Monday. It turned out to be a great stop.

Stefan’s girlfriend, Mirina, met us at the train station since Stefan was running a bit late from work. Once he arrived we split between their two cars and headed to the little town of Tyrol. His little home town was about a mile wide with mountains on both sides. The maintains lined the little city of 900 like walls, they were sheer cliff mountain. It was cold and the top of the mountains were covered with snow, there was waterfall everywhere you looked. It was absolutely beautiful.

Stefan and Mirina took us to a local ski resort for the girls could play in the snow and Elizabeth and I got to climb on glacier. They supplied the winter clothing! When we went down the maintain they had a surprise for the girls taking them to a horse farm. Kaleigh was absolute beyond herself, she was never going to leave. The only reason she left without being upset is they promised to bring her back to ride the next day if the weather was nice. That evening Mirina made us a wonderful traditional Austrian schnitzel meal. It was great to have a home cooked meal with friends.

The next day Elizabeth and I decided to separate. Her and Mirina were going to take the girls to the horse farm and playground, while Stefan and I hiked up a little valley trail. The hike was great. We hiked up a trail that lead to a local restaurant on the top. The hike started off like no other, the first several hundred meters we walked with an elder couple walking their sheep down the road to a new field. Stefan, obviously, knew them and had a chat. Further on the way up, we ran into one of his sisters and her family who were hiking up to have a drink. After getting to the top a quarter of the town had the same idea, it is just something they do. The hike up and back was a several mile hike and it felt great. I was a bit winded at points, but the view, the air, feeling, it was somewhere I could have stayed. At one point, you could look down on the town and it looked like a single neighborhood in a tiny little valley.

The girls had a great day too. Kaleigh got to finally ride her horse and Brooklyn played with the animals all day. We arrived back all tired, but Mirina spoiled us to another meal.

I wish we could have stayed longer it was a wonderful stop. We all relaxed and really calmed down from all the traveling. We hope that once we are back to the US that Stefan and Mirina we come stay some time with us for we can repay the favor. It was not only nice to have home cooked meals, see a familiar face, but they also let Elizabeth and I keep the winter jackets…it is starting to get colder.

Note: The town is so small the house numbers are by when the house was built. The third house is the town is address 3, it has nothing to do with any location!

We will be going back to this little town. I fell in love with it.

Venice, Italy

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 19:52:00 GMT

Chris made an arrangement mistake. He scheduled out train stop one stop too early. When we thought we got to Venice we got off the train and brought up directions to our hotel. The hotel was still a long way away, not so far but across the water was the biggest thing. Anyways, after a bit a research we determined we need to stay on the train on for one more stop. This is the benefit of the EuroPass. We just jumped a local train and road to the next station, a 20 minute ride. This time getting of the train we had a 5 minute walk!

Venice is beautiful and crowed with tourists, which we added to! We all kind of agree the tourist has taken over Venice and wondered if there were any locals around. We walked all around getting lost and finding new passages, it was like playing in a maze. On our way back to our hotel, yup we had a hotel in Venice, we found a restaurant that we liked so we decided to give it a try. The owner was very energetic and fun to watch. We only had to buy one alcoholic drink each to get the free buffet for dinner. We did buy a couple extra drinks! The girls split a bowl of pasta, since they could buy alcohol to get the free buffet, the owner ended up giving us the pasta free!

We could not bring ourselves to pay 100+ dollars for a 30-minute gondola ride. So, after some research we found a place to learn how to row a gondola. This was a much better experience. It was a bit rainy, so we almost cancelled, but we decided to take our chances and go. Our guide was very experienced and helped steer the boat for us while we each took turns pushing the boat along. I think Kaleigh liked it the most. It cost a bit more than a gondola ride, but we spent over and hour and learned bunch too. Additionally, the company is solely owned and operated by females. If you are going to Venice I would highly recommend taking the lessons in place of a gondola ride. If want the information feel free to contact us.

Our time in Venice was coming to end. We did one more stroll around the city and headed back to pack out bags.. Our next stop we moved on to see a friend, Chris was really excited.

Rome, Italy

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 19:51:00 GMT

We are getting very good at the trains! I think we have it down now, in fact we are starting to help others find their train and cart! With that said Rome started off with a rough start. We did not exit at the main train station; our accommodations were a bit outside the city center. We decided to stay outside to save on cost. When we got off the train the station was in one of the roughest areas we have encountered thus far. Plus, our directions were guiding us to walk down a highway through some dark underpasses. We walked a little closer to each other and made sure the girls stayed between us. Before we headed next to highway we stepped back in looked at alternative paths, we found one that was a bit longer, but felt more comfortable.

After reaching our apartment, we looked back and realized it probably was not as bad as we first reacted, just a bit dirtier and isolated than anywhere else we had walked. The AirBnB was pretty nice, it was right in a residential complex. It was neat in the fact that it had a court yard in the middle, where all the doors opened to, of the building and each floor had cloth lines across the court yard. Just one of those small things we have only seen in pictures. It really brings home the old saying “hanging out your laundry for everyone to see”.

The next day, our first day in Rome, it rained all day. It was hard rain all day, so we stayed in instead of touring the first day in Rome. The girls did some much-needed school work and we lounged around. It was actually a nice break, since we have been touring and walking nearly every day. Inside the AirBnB was a small two room apartment with a little loft over the main bed. Chris and I took the main bed and the girls slept in the loft, we could not have stood up in the loft!

We made it to the city the next day. We figured out the bus/tram system to the city, since it was too far to walk. As stated above this was planned, because the cost was so much cheaper to stay just outside. The first time heading to the tourist district, we did get on the right bus, but in the wrong directions, which we realized 20 minutes later. It was easy enough to jump off and catch the bus going the other way.

Ever since we arrived in Italy Chris and I had been hyping Brooklyn up that in Rome we would see all kinds of cats. When we were there 17 years ago there were cats everywhere, in fact they had post card booklets and photo booklets of “The Cats of Rome”. She was excited and ready for all the cats, which never came! Rome has cleared the cats. I did a little research and found there was a sanctuary where the cats are now living. Instead of roaming the streets the cats have been spade and neutered and are up for adoption now, so we headed that way to view the cats from afar, but even there was only seen a handful. She was a bit disappointed.

We had three main goals in Rome, the Coliseum, Vatican, and Roman Forum. We decided to head to the Coliseum first. The Coliseum was just as I remembered it 17 years ago when Chris and I visited, although the half-rebuilt floor that exist now, had just begun to be built. The girls were really not that impressed. Chris kept trying to get them to image the Coliseum in all its glory when it was used, but they just wouldn’t go for it. They just say another old building. Chris things there would have had an actual fight to get them interested.

After the Coliseum, we headed to the Roman Forum to walk around for a bit before heading over to the Fountain of Trevi. We strolled through the ruins and the girls interest peaked a little bit more, but not nearly as much as ours. After walking down the main walkway they were finished and ready to move on. We still made them explore a little more before heading to the fountain. They seemed to like the fountain a lot more, though Chris thinks it was because they got to sit down. They might have been tired of walking. We all through a coin in for good luck. We also got a kick out of the guards blowing their whistles at people who were sitting on the fountain where they shouldn’t be, even a father was asked to move his baby!

The next day, we spent the entire day at the Vatican Museum and went on a treasure hunt! One of the options for touring the Vatican was a kid guided treasure hunt. We thought if we did it the girls would be a bit more engaged and last longer, so we did the kids version of the audio guided tour. Additionally, the kid’s version provided audio that was on a kids level and presented some of the interesting articles in a manner to keep their attention. We spent several hours going through the museum, the kid’s version was a good decision. We all had a good time, we got to cover the majority of the museum and nobody really fussed. It ended with the Sistine Chapel, which I could stare at for hours.

We made it just in time to the get into line to go into Saint Peter’s Basilica after the museum. The girls were a bit more excited about this church because Chris had been telling the girl wait to you see the jewels hallway. It never came up in Museum which left us confused, until we did a little research to find out the jewels are in the Saint Peter’s Treasury inside the Basilica. After wading through the line and getting into the church we head directly to the Treasury to find out is closed 5 minutes before we arrived. Chris was quite disappointed. We spent a bit more time in the church, before heading the courtyard and post office. We picked up a couple of postcards and sent them through the Vatican City mail to some friends and family and finally called it a day. It was our last day in Rome and we had a pretty early train to Venice.

Florence, Italy

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 19:49:00 GMT

There is so much to see and do in Florence! There is the Michelangelo statue of David, the museum with replicated inventions from Leonardo da Vinci, the Leaning Tower of Pisa just a train ride away, beautiful scenery, Tuscany, and atmosphere. We really liked Florence.

Plus, to top it off, we met up with our friend Margaret from New Zealand, who was a on holiday in Italy at the same time! It just so happened that we crossed paths in Florence. It was so wonderful to see her and to see a familiar face. Once we met up we walked around the city a bit to find a nice café to sit chat. It was really a nice change to have a conversation in person with someone we knew.

While in Florence, we took a day trip to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was everything that I (Elizabeth) hoped it would be! I kept joking with the girls that I wanted to eat a piece of pizza in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Chris didn’t think it was very funny. We spent a couple of hours in Pisa and then grabbed the train back to Florence.

Our accommodations, another AirBnB, was nice and in a great location. We could walk to everything we wanted to do in the city. We would get up relatively early, our early is starting to be retirement early as in 9 AM, and head out into the city for the day. We would have several stops in mind, but nothing scheduled. We knew we wanted to visit Michelangelo’s statue of David, a Picasso Museum, and Chris wanted to go to a museum that built some of Da Vinci’s machines. We would recommend all of them. In all of the museums we waited in the line and did not do guided tours. None of the waits were over 45 minutes.

What to say about the about the museums, I mean we saw David. These art pieces we have read about and seen in pictures, but to actually see them is just awe. We wondered around the museums for hours, until the girls were pretty much done. They did good, we did not see many other kids their age wondering around. Our last museum was the Leonardo da Vinci museum. It was a bit different in the fact it was about building his drawings and not necessary display his actual work and it was hands on. We spend a couple of hours in the museum, the girls were able to explore and have fun with the inventions. Chris and I spend some of our time watching a video about da Vinci’s life. I may have closed my eyes just for a few seconds. Overall, this was a great choice for the girls.

In Florence, we added a lot of miles to our shoes. We walked all over the city, I think crossing nearly every bridge, finding every overview (including Michelangelo’s Plaza), many churches, and just beautiful buildings everywhere. Though we walked by the Duomo Santa Maria del Flore many times, we never went into. The outside was very impressive and dominated the city block, but the girls wanted a break from churches and we know our next stop was Rome, so we decided it was not worth the line wait. I think Chris and I will one day make it back to Florence to spend some time.

Milan, Italy

bombardo-family — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 19:45:00 GMT

We arrived at the train station and headed to our Airbnb to meet up with our very friendly hosts. They let us in and gave us some suggestions on where to eat and visit during our short stay. After getting settled into the room, we headed to the Duomo Cathedral to tour it. This was one of our few times we used outside vendor to skip the line with a guided tour. In many of tourist areas in Europe you will find you can wait in line to buy tickets (or sometimes you can buy the tickets online), next with the tickets you wait in line to enter the tourist site. If you get there early, as we often do, it is not bad waiting in the lines, sometimes it is only 20 minutes. As an alternative, you can purchase a guided tour which allows you to walk in with your guide through the group line. However, the guided tours cost 2-6X more. We thought it was worth it in Milan and it was a good tour. In most of the guided tours you wear headphones receivers that allow you to hear the guide.

Outside of our tour we also explored the large shopping plaza. Which the girls wanted to buy everything. I continually have to remind them that we are on a budget and everything we purchase we have to carry.

The one thing we wanted to do in Milan, but did not get a chance was to go see the Last Supper painting by Da Vinci. We just spent too much time in the Duomo and we would have had to sprint to see it. The girls were tired and ready for a break, next time.

Our stay was short in Milan, but Brooklyn had one goal. Our room we close to a cat café. It was our last day when we finally made it there. On our way heading to the train we stopped at the Crazy Cat Café. Crazy Cats is a small café that has 9 rescued cats that roam free in the café. They have all kinds of toys and hiding places, but love the attention from the customers. We arrived right after it opened and had all the cats to play with, but it did not take long for a small crowd to arrive wanting to get the cats attention. One of the girl’s favorite was a cat who loved the muffins, soon as he seen someone had one he would head that way. We were warned to watch out for him when we got our muffins, almost instantly he was roaming around our table planning how to get our muffins! The coffee mugs were in the shape of a cat head, which we all got a kick out of. This is still Brooklyn’s favorite things we have done.