Switzerland and SNOW! And Liechtenstein

We are in Switzerland. We are staying in an apartment in Lucerne, which is a small city near Zurich. Lots of Swiss people speak German, French, Italian AND English. They also have their own money - the franc. Which has annoyed our parents a lot.

Switzerland

Switzerland

On our first day in Switzerland we drove to Leichtenstein. Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in the world. We went to Vaduz which is their capital city but it only has 5000 people. Adelaide has like a million. Leichtenstein is pretty but there wasn't much to do there.

The drive to Leichtenstein

The Palace

We drove back to Lucerne and visited the old part of town. Lucerne has a river running through it and has famous bridges. The bridges have old paintings on the rafters. One also had a little chapel. Lucerne also has a very famous carving of a lion. The Lion of Lucerne. He has an arrow or spear in him and he looks so sad.

The old part of Lucerne

The bridge and the water tower

One of the paintings on the bridge

The Lion of Lucerne. He is very sad.

We went to visit Bern because they have bears there. Not even in a zoo! They have built them a pen on the canal so people can look down into their pen from the bridges or walk on the canal path and look at them. There are three bears. When the weather gets cold they go into their dens and don't come out much but these bears don't hibernate. We also visited the old part of Bern and went to look at their clock which has moving figures. Bern is also famous because Albert Einstein lived there and discovered his theory there but we didn't go and visit his house which is a museum now.

The bears

The bears

The clock

The other side of the clock

SNOW DAY! We visited Interlaken and took the rail to Jungfraujoch which is 4500 metres high. The railway is the only one in Europe that goes that high. It was s long trip and we had to change trains three times. When we got up there we went to go and play in the snow but the kids part was closed. They had a little trailer inside filled with snow so we threw snowballs at each other with that. 

Going up the mountain

the view from the train

up at Jungfraujoch

We visited the Ice Palace which is rooms made of ice and ice sculptures.

Us in front of Sherlock Holmes

Bear ice sculpture

We went outside at the top. It was freezing! We threw snowballs at each other and our gloves got wet and our hands froze. We could not stay outside very long because we don't have snow clothes and the temperature was -2c.  The snow was the best part of Switzerland.

Up the top of Jungfrau

Up the top. We were soooo cold.

Strasbourg, France

Strasbourg is in the Alsace region which has been switched between Germany and France for 100s of years. The guides said that Strasbourg always considered themselves French even when they belonged to Germany. They speak both languages and it looks German.

We liked the old part of Strasbourg, it was very pretty and was called Petit France. We took a canal boat tour through Strasbourg where they showed us how the locks worked. Strasbourg is where the Human Rights Court is.

We visited Fleckenstein Castle which is a very old castle that was smashed to the ground in the 1600's. It hasn't been fixed since but still has lots of its old rooms and tunnels.

Fleckenstein

The old courtyard

Inside the rooms

We also visited the Eyrie where they have lots of birds of prey like Eagles, Falcons, Condors, Vultures and lots of different owls. They let them fly over our heads and let kids have them fly to them and sit on their arms but you have to wear heavy gloves. An owl scratched one of the trainers because one of the kids panicked. They have very sharp claws. 

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Owls are beautiful

So are eagles

Vultures, not so much

Some just look scary

We also visited a Monkey sanctuary and fed the monkeys by hand. You have to be really careful not to feed the babies or the mums and dads get really angry and can attack. We were only allowed to feed them popcorn.

Waiting for his popcorn

Cute baby monkey

Normandie and Picardie Regions, France

NORMANDIE

We went to see the Bayeux Tapestry in Bayeux. It is 72 metres long and tells the story of William the Conqueror becoming King of England by beating Harold. It doesn't have words, just pictures. It is 1000 years old and was really cool. We had audioguides that told us what each panel meant.

They didn't let us take photos of it because it is so old and is kept behind glass and in a darkish room.

At the Tapestry Museum, they had a church that was so old only a part of it is left and this was behind glass. 

Tapestry Museum

The last bit of the old church

The Bayeux Cathedral

Bayuex also had a Cathedral which was pretty.

We visited the Cathedral in Chartes. This is famous for having two styles, roman and Gothic. It was so huge we couldnt fit it in one picture. Chartes was a very pretty town with streets and houses from Medievel times.

Chartes

Chartes Cathedral

Honfleur is a beautiful port town. It was very pretty and had very old, very narrow streets and an old wooden church.

Honfleur 

 Mont St Michel is an island fortress with a huge Abbey. It was also used as a prison for many years. The British tried to take Mont St Michel 100's of years ago but failed because the tides come in really quickly and drowned them. It also has quicksand in the bay when the tides are out. We decided not to go out on the bay.

Mont St Michel

The Streets of the Island

Looking over the Bay when the tide was out.

Inside the Abbey, the eating room.

Mont St Michel

PICARDIE

We stayed at Amiens which has another Cathedral and lots of shops. It was mum's birthday so we explored all the shops. Amiens has an ANZAC hotel and in the region of Picardie which includes the SOMME, many villages have Australian names restaurants and streets and really like Australians because we helped them a lot during World War One.

Amiens Cathedral

 We visited the Australian War memorial and the Military Cemetary in Villers-Bretonneux. The memorial has the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers who died but their bodies were never found. There are another 3000 unidentified soldiers and lots of other graves.  There is also an Adelaide Cemetary where more soldiers fromAustralia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain are buried.

One of the Military Cemetaries

The Australian Monument and the Australian Military Cemetary.

The Soldiers graves from the top of the monument.

We visited Samara, the pre-historic village. They have archeologists who talk to you about how we developed from Cro-Magnon man (Neanderthanal man), how we learned to make fire, then agriculture, then metal swords and bowls and things, right up to when the romans came to France. We could also do basket making, weaving and other ancient things like they did before machines. We made lamps. We had a rock and a piece of flint and had to chip at the rock until it was roundish, then make a well in the top to put wax in. It took ages.

Grass huts that people lived in long ago.

Making the lamp from scratch.

Weaving

They had a playground there too.

Disneyland Paris.

Today we went to Disneyland. It had four theme parks in one park and then Walt Disney Studios in another park. We went on lots of rides and had a great time!

Disneyland

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

The Dragon

Alice in Wonderlands labyrinth

Pirates of the Carribean

Swiss Family Robinson

Star Wars ride

Walt Disney