Paris

The girls had so been looking forward to seeing the Eiffel Tower. We waked up to the second level, after queuing for around 45 minutes. Edie had been keen to go right to the top, but the rest of us were feeling a bit shaky!

Della: "It's soooo big and tall! We walked to the second floor and then came back. The top was WAY, WAY TOO HIGH! At each floor we looked around."

With Auntie Becky at the Louvre (we didn't go inside ...)

Cheekiness

 

Checking out the books in the English section of one of the lovely book shops near the Note Dame

 

French chicks

 

Near the Pompidou. Della: "We climbed on a statue of a giant's face!"

 

The Pompidou (modern art) Centre - built with its "insides" on the outside. Even going up the external escalator was an experience, and the views were fantastic. And then there was the art ...

Della: "We saw very different and nice artwork. I liked a girl with flowers."

 

From Basel we took the train to Paris, for a full week of exploring/hanging out - including a few days with Matthew's sister Becky who showed us some of her favourite spots. The Eiffel Tower was a must and we were also keen to take the girls to the Musee D'Orsay (we aborted the first, spontaneous visit due to the long queues, and turned up before opening time another morning for a much better result ...)

A highlight was our time wandering the streets of Montmartre, where we hired a lovely, very Parisian apartment. We overdosed on croissant, smelly cheese and crème brulee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basel (Switzerland)

The eye-catching Rathaus (town hall) in Marktplatz, central Basel 

Overlooking the Rhine River

Passenger ferry across the Rhine - the ferry is attached to a cable and the river current propels the boat across the water. The girls reckon this would be one of the most relaxing jobs around and well-suited to Grandpa Peter. The very chilled, barefooted gentleman operating the ferry whistled all the way through our journey. Reckon his blood pressure would have been pretty good

 

The Tinguely fountain, featuring machine sculptures

 

Our young hostesses, from back - Zara (born a day after Edie, in the same hospital in Sydney); twins Zoe and Sofia; Emma (with Della)

Swiss building regulations dictate that all residential buildings built after 1978 must contain a nuclear shelter able to withstand a blast from a 12 megaton explosion at a distance of 700 metres. Check out the reinforced steel door in our friends' house!

 

Having said auf wiedersehen to our German friends, we took a couple of trains to more friends in Basel, Switzerland. Thanks to our friend Mathias we made the trip without mishap, despite our original train bookings going out the window due to a train strike. The most exciting thing that happened onto the trip was Edie losing a tooth ...

It was great to see our friends Nadia and Jonathan and their four girls Zara, Zoe, Sofia and Emma. We first met N and J through mutual friends when we were all living in London in the early 2000s, and returned to Australia roughly around the same time. Our eldest girls were born a day apart at the same hospitals in Sydney. They are spending a couple of years in Basel for J's work.

Basel is a beautiful city with a wonderfully efficient public tram system. We spent a lovely day wandering around the city and met our friend Melanie for lunch - Melanie had lived with friends in Adelaide while studying there a couple of years ago, and had visited us in Tas. Of course, we also indulged in some Swiss chocolate and delicious Basel Laeckerli (gingerbread) during our stay.

The six young girls got along like a house on fire and a highlight of our time there for our girls was spending a couple of hours at their friends' international school.

 

Munich 2

Our friends' lovely home.
Edie: "Their house is really cool; it has three levels! We are on the very top!"

The world's biggest pretzel?
Edie, soon after our arrival at Mathias and Andi's house: "We had pretzels and white sausages and salami! Yum! I had soooo many pretzels!"



The children are captivated by the 101-year-old carousel near the Chinese Tower nine he English Garden

 

Edie, 18 October: "We went for a walk to the English Garden today. It is a pretty park with a beer garden and in the winter you can ice skate on all the lakes!"
The English Garden is one of the biggest urban public parks into the world - bigger than New York's Central Park - and has several beer gardens, bridle paths and a nudist area. Rumour has it that the Government pays nudists to hang out there, for the tourists - but we didn't see any nudies when we were there ...

 

A multitude of lady bugs covered the pillars of the Monopteros

An artificial stream in the English Garden
Edie: "We saw people surfing in the river! If I had been in there, I would have been down the second I tried to surf! The waves were huge!"

 

 

 

 

Munich (Germany)

Munich

Marienplatz

Christmas decorations on sale at the market

 

And mushrooms!

Lunch at the Hofbrauhaus. Della: "We went to a café with lots of beer. We had a yummy lunch there."

Watching the Rathaus-Glockenspiel in Marienplatz. I lost that earring's mate on the rush to get to the clock before its little show began on the hour!



The Glockenspiel.
Edie: "There were little figures of wooden people jousting on horses and stuff. One of the knights fell off his horse!"
Della: "It was very clever. Mini figures started dancing and one figure on a horse charged into another!"

Cigarette vending machine attached to a fence down the road from our friends' home in suburban Munich!

 

Jen:
After Santorini in Greece we flew via Athens to Munich, where we stayed with our wonderful friends Mathias, Andi, Constantin, Antonia and Louise. We met Mathias and Andi in 2000, when the four of us were backpacking in southern Laos. We last saw them in September this year, when we shared a house in southern France for a week.
Matthew and I loved revisiting Munich and our friends. It's a beautiful city offering a great lifestyle. It was fantastic to stay with and be shown around by locals - especially for the girls, who LOVED staying in a three storey house (four, if you count the basement!).
Edie was very lucky to be able to join Constantin and Antonia at a special evening at the kids' after school care service - she had a ball, despite knowing only a couple of words in German (see Edie's comments, below).
Our friends looked after us incredibly well; the kids again got along like a house on fire and were sad to part ways. But we will meet again ...

Edie:
Andi drove me, Constantin and Antonia to the kindergarten. We met Chris, the carer, and Yasmin. Then we went to the gym, and played some crazy German games, came back to the classroom, and ate pepperoni pizza and drank tea and water. Then we put jumpers on, grabbed our torches, and ran outside into the dark playground. Me, Constantin, Greta and one of Constantin's other friends (who called himself Blue Monkey and Elephant), all played on a tire swing together. Then we came inside and watched two movies! Then Andi and mum picked us up. When we were watching the movie, me and Constantin ate chips, popcorn and pretzels!"

Santorini 2 (Greece)

 

 

Della, 13 October: "Today we had another big sleep-in, and then set off on the journey down the edge of the volcano. If you're thinking 'how on earth is she on the edge of the volcano', then I will tell you ... the volcano erupted and it caused the edges to collapse, that let all the water in. Then years later people made houses on the edge."

 

Edie, 13 October: "We walked to a rocky path and followed it all the way to a rocky beach. We changed into our bathing suits and tested the water. It was freezing! I popped in anyway! Once you moved around it was fine. I had heaps of fun."