Brisvegas Adventurers

So we left Dublin quite a time a go and since then have visited the following places while with my parents:

Paris - France
Vienna - Austria
Prague - Czech Republic
Bratislava - Slovakia
Budapest - Hungary
Salzburg - Austria
Drove through Germany for a day
Innsbruck - Austria
Brig - Switzerland
Lucerne - Switzerland
Montreux - Switzerland
Venice - Italy
Lucca - Italy
Monte Carlo - Monaco
Cannes - France
Several towns of the Provence area in France: Antibes, Biot, Grasse, Gourdon, Tourettes and Saint Paul de Vence
Avignon - France

So lets go over that whole trip a little more!

Spending another few days in Paris was great, we got to see the Eiffel tower at night with its spectacular light show every hour and went to the top again but this time we used the lift the whole way up....

Eiffel Tower by night

The next day we powered over to Versailles and saw the palace that King Luis and Marie Antoinette used to inhabit until they were dragged out of by an angry mob and beheaded in the center of Paris for their poor leadership and whimsical manner towards the people. The size of the palace is outstanding and took us a good 2 hours to only do a small portion of the rooms and another 3 hours to get a paddle boat in the giant canal within the gardens and visit Marie's private estate and village.

All of us standing in the gardens over looking the grand canal

Versailles Villiage

4am the next morning we got up to fly to Vienna for some breakfast and a hot cup of coffee! With breakfast done we set out too see what Vienna had to offer. After brisk walk around the 8km scenic route we head back to the hotel to get changed for a classical music concert. The second day saw us finishing off some off the other sights including a street designed and built by a group of artists, known as the Kunsthaus. Leaving Vienna by car we head off to the Czech Republic and Prague.

Vienna Palace

Mum and Erika having something to eat from a small market stall.

Art house designed and built by a community of artists.

Prague for the second time was much better, the weather was more favourable and we were doing it in more style with a car and in nicer accommodation. Our first visit was very restrained as we knew we were coming back and I am glad we left things to do! We went with a guided day tour which was great, the whole idea behind doing a tour rather than taking yourself is you get a history lesson as you go and get a few glimpses of the city that you would have missed by yourself. We were staying near the Prague castle and Dad even managed to get directions from one of the guards!

City of 1000 Steeples

Astronomical clock, if you can find someone who can read it correctly it should display the time to the exact minute and has been running since the 14th century.

Charles bridge and the Castle

Dad asking for directions, the guy cracked a smile at that one!

Bratislava was very odd place and you could see that is was trying very hard to get itself up-to-date with modern infrastructure and some new building projects but it was still very much a small town, despite it being the capital of an entire country. We only stayed for a few hours and had a giant schnitzel but that was all we could really find to do there....

Budapest! Now this place was amazing, the Danube river flows through the city splitting it into two sides, Buda and Pest. I would have to say that this is one of the most beautiful places I have been to and it is a city - but only at night! The massive floodlights lighting up the cities monuments and buildings reflect off onto the river and the result is spectacular. The stay here was much too short and I did not even get to climb up any stairs!

Budapest by night

Here is some more of Budapest

And more!

Shanty village planted next to the highway just out of Budapest

Now this post is taking a real long time to put together so I am going to have break it up and finish the rest of the details once we reach Spain. To leave you here are a few more photos...

Innsbruck

Venice

Neuschwanstein Castle

Durnbach War Cemetery in Germany from WWII

The trike I rode around Switzerland