Budapest, Hungary

We only spent a couple of nights in Budapest which is the capital of Hungary. Hungary was part of the Soviet Union until 1989. Hungary was also under Nazi control during the war. We visited the Terror Museum which shows how the Nazi's treated people and then how Hungary became communist and how the Communists treated people.  It has cells under the building which is where they kept people and you can visit the cells. They have photos of the people who were kept there.
Budapest has lots of churches and bridges and the Danube River runs through the middle of the city. the Buda half is the oldest part of the city, and the Pest part is newer but it still looked pretty old to us. A lot of the buildings look ruined but some are very pretty. There are lots of statues here too.

Shopping area

A theatre

Parliament

Orlando loves the huge escalators

St Stephens Basilica

The Chain Bridge

a statue

Vienna, Austria

We stayed in a motorhome camp site in the city of Vienna. It was very wet and a bit cold in Vienna.
There was a buskers festival on when we were there which was lucky because it was Sunday and most things were shut. Some of the buskers were really good. There were clowns and musicians and dancers.
We visited the Butterfly house at the Hofburg Palace and walked the streets to look at all the statues. A lot of musicians came from Vienna. The most famous was Mozart.

Mozart

We also visited a cathedral at Karlplatz. This is where they had the Busker's festival. Outside the church is a huge square.

Cathedral

One of the buskers. He was pretty funny.

The Bubble makers

We also went to see Shonbrunn Palace where the Austrian royal family lived. They also lived at Hofburg Palace.  Shonbrunn was huge but they wouldn't let us take photos inside it. It had huge gardens and fountains and had a zoo and some mazes.  We were not allowed to go to the zoo but we went through the Mazes. Some had things to do in them like trying to spray water over people walking over the bridge or a xylophone in the ground you could jump on. They also had a mirror maze and a pretty large playground.

Shonbrunn

One of the garden areas.

The Gloriette - you can see all of the Palace and most of the city from the top.

One of the mazes

The xylophone

Prague, Czech Republic

We arrived in Prague last night. We didn't have a map and could not find our way to where we were staying. We came across a mega shopping mall and mum ran in and bought the first GPS she saw. By this time we had been driving all day and it was very dark and rainy and cold. We didn't think we would like Prague.
Today it was nice and we took the train to the city. The city was really pretty. They had lots of markets and street performers and hip hop dancers. They had lots of statues and bridges and churches.
Prague is the Capital of the Czech Republic which used to be Czecheslovakia but broke into to two countries. It used to be under the communists and wasn't free. Now it is.
Czechs have lots of puppet shops. They make puppets from wood, hand carved. They also have a lot of crystal and lots of souvenir shops.

inside a church

Most churches are really decorated

Most of the streets look like this but with lots more people and less cars

Street performers

Berlin, Germany

We travelled from Norway, through Sweden and Denmark to Berlin in two days. It was a long time spent in the camper watching The Simpsons and doing homework.
In Berlin we went on a tour bus and saw lots of sights. 3/4's of Berlin was destroyed in the war and they have fixed up a lot of it. Some of the building had bullet holes all over them, which had been patched up. Then after the war it was split between the east and the west and they built a wall in the 1960's to separate the areas and when they built the wall, they built right through houses and whatever side you were on you couldn't see people on the other side. The wall came down in 1989.
Berlin has lots of shops and music. It has lots of museums too. We visited the Jewish Museum which tells the history of the Jewish people. We also visited the Greek Antiquities Museum which has statues and vases and stuff going back 3000 years. It was really interesting. The Germans don't like people to wear coats and take bags in the museums, you have to leave them in the coatroom, and in the Jewish Museum we also had to go through a metal detector like they have at airports.
When we were travelling on the tour bus, it dropped us off far away from where we got on, in the middle of the rain, saying the tour was finished, even though we hadn't gone to all the stops, because it was 6.00. Dad was really annoyed. Mum thought it was funny. We had to take a taxi back to the centre of the city. Then we had to buy parka's because we didn't have any warm jackets. Berlin is cold.
None of us really liked Berlin much. Mum liked the shops.

A Museum

The sign at Checkpoint Charlie

The Berlin Wall

Brandenburg Gate

Norway - The Fjords and the Glacier

After Oslo, we went to Sogndalfjord which is one of the largest fjords in Norway. We camped on the fjord and saw some of the tiny fish in the rocks.
We drove to Trondheim the next day but we drove up through the mountains. The drive was really long (seven hours) and really steep up the mountains. At the top we got out and touched a glacier. Glaciers are basically ice. We took loads of photos. The drive down was not as steep as going up and the road was nicer. Driving up the roads are narrow and you can look out of the camper window straight down. We were up 1500 metres and it was raining.

This is where we camped

A waterfall

One of the largest glaciers in Norway. We didn't touch this one.

Up the mountain

Oslo, Norway

We drove to Norway yesterday and are staying in a caravan park in Oslo which is the capital of Norway. Again, the Norwegians use Kroner but they use different Kroner than Denmark and Sweden. We don't bother to change money anymore.
Norway has a royal family too. Oslo is very pretty, lots of trees and the sea and lakes.
Today we shopped a bit and went to the old part of town and explored the Fortress and palace. There was a changing of the guard there too.
We go to the Fjords tomorrow. We won't get to see the Northern lights because it isn't winter here but we looked at lots of pictures of them and they are really pretty.

Trolls are really big in the Northern countries

So are statues

The Guard at the Palace

View across the harbour

The Fortress

The Fortress

Sweden - Helsingborg, Gothenborg and Stockholm

We drove to Sweden from Denmark through a tunnel then over a huge bridge, over the sea.
Sweden also uses Kroner for money but it is different from Denmark's so we have to change our money again.
We drove to Helsingborg and stayed in a caravan park where we rented a Segway, a motorised scooter that is easy for kids to use but adults can do it very well. Mum and dad kept turning in circles and falling off.
We didn't see much in Helsingborg so we drove to Gothenborg where they have the remains of a viking ship over 2500 years old and lots of old viking artifacts.

Then we went to Stockholm which is the capital of Sweden. People in Sweden live in apartments and they have schools down the bottom of the apartment and there are lots of playgrounds. Kids are allowed to play down on the streets by themselves.
In Stockholm we went to the Abba Museum for Father's Day. Abba was a band in the 70's who wore really horrendous clothes. The music was OK. At the Abba museum, you can be filmed singing with them, dancing dressed as them and all sorts of things.

We also went to see a 400 year old ship - the Vasa, that was a warship that sunk before it even left the Harbour. It was under water for hundreds of years and then they brought it up and now it is a museum. It was almost perfectly preserved. It had 500 sculptures on it and most of them are still there but the paint washed away.

We travelled by ferry to the different parts of Stockholm.
The food in Sweden can be pretty gross. The Swedish people like their trolls and have stories about them.

Sweden has a royal family. We visited the Palace and they have a changing of the guards like in England.