Yesh yesh, I'm finally here to write up on the long road trip we had. Firstly, we drove to Hamburg and spent a night there. You know, we are so used to road trips in Europe when you spent hours and hours in the car. It may be exhausting, especially for the driver, but it's really well worth it when you get to tour so many places and save on airfare. I like the fact also that we can just load our barang barang onto the car and not worry about being overweight. When you have a kid, it's really astonishing how much things you would wanna stuff into your luggage. From pampers, toys, books, baby food to baby pillows and bolsters. Fwahhh.

Anyway, it was raining in Hamburg on the night we arrived. So we took shelter in the main train station and had a Jap/Thai dinner there. After the rain stopped, we took a leisure walk to the town square where we took pics, ate KFC as we walked and visited the swans and ducks. It was relaxed and peaceful. We also checked out the Hamburg casino, haha, what's new though. 

Angel seems to love KFC, just like me, though she doesn't really like the spicy taste in the skin. Anyway I really love to see her smile in the pics and do all kinds of silly poses. Just makes her so endearing. Kawaii ne!

So very soon, it was time to leave Hamburg and make our way to Austria. Our first stop would be Salzburg.

The first place we visited in Salzburg was Schloss Mirabell with all the pretty flowers and landscape. It's probably one of the prettiest places I find around here. 

The most happening place in Salzburg is probably its old town with its array of shops and countless boutiques. Well, I didn't really intend to shop on this trip too. I don't know. I'm not the typical girl girl kind of person. I don't buy bags and I don't dig into branded stuff. They really don't appeal to me much. I'd only buy stuff if I feel they are worth it. So I really don't understand why people would spend thousands on shoes and bags. Neh. I'm weird. I know. 

See the castle on the hill? We decided to walk all the way up instead of taking a tram ride up. Haha. Making things difficult for ourselves yeah. That's the point of it all. Anyway jw was tough and he made it up the endless number of steps and steep slopes along with a pram and Angel in it. Woohoo!!

We tried this roasted pork dish in the castle. Supposed some Austrian food. It's really not bad though the skin wasn't crispy like our Asian kind of roasted pork.

View of Salzburg from the viewing deck at the top of the castle.

We took Angel on a horse carriage ride around the old town too. The carriages could share the main roads along with other cars. Kinda cool.

Then we took a 45min walk (or rather, climb), followed by a bus ride when we realised it was too far to walk on foot, to the Hellbrunn palace. It was quite an achievement though. We are the kind who would try to 'pia' and visit as many places as we could (provided we are not too exhausted and Angel is able to zzzz) when we are in a foreign land. Cos' to us, you might only have one chance and if you don't make full use of it, maybe you won't come back to this country anymore. It probably helps that we used to be sports people, because we tend to like to walk/venture/explore more and don't mind about the fatigue that much. Angel will probably follow in our footsteps. Hehe. The next badminton star!

Hellbrunn was a fun place to be in, with all the unexpected water fountains and spouts. Angel loves playing with water nowadays and I think she had fun too!

To me, there is nothing compared to night scenery. The same place could look so much different at day and at night. Somehow, when the lights lit up, it just makes everything so much more beautiful and elegant. That is why we also like to hang around at night. Hehe. Yar yar. We used to have a happening night life and though now we can't go clubbing and all, we can at least take a night stroll and enjoy the night views. =) But we'll still always go back to our hotel at about 10 plus 11 and let Angel have a good night's sleep. 

Byebye Salzburg! Time for us to go!

On our way to Vienna, we stopped by Kognisee Lake in Germany for half an hour. It was a pretty lake but alas we didn't have time to take a boat ride out.

Then we visited one of the salt mines. After much discussion and consideration, we decided to take a tour into the mine which would take us another couple of hours and thus we will end up late in Vienna. Well, we do think it was worth it though because well, when would you get to visit a salt mine again next time? It's also a been there, done that thing, to me. And once is probably all you need in a lifetime.

The best part of the tour was the slides which was really steep but fun. Angel loves it too! She's really a daring baby who doesn't seem to be scared of new things. So she was sandwiched in between us for the slides but she thoroughly enjoyed it. =) Weeeeee!

Next is Vienna. I love the night view in Vienna though of cos Paris still ranks the first as the city of light. But on our first night out in Vienna, we also saw a number of pretty sights.

The next day, we visited the Schonbrunn Palace and the Vienna Zoo. Yup yup, zoo again. For Angel's sake, mainly. Animals are one of the best things she enjoys looking at and playing with. The Vienna Zoo is really quite big and is modern enough considering it's the oldest public zoo in the world.

We saw many many animals which I've already put up on my fb if you are interested for more pics. =) I put up nearly 800 pics in 4 albums! I wonder if anyone is vaguely interested in them and in my life though. But still, I know my family will wanna see the pics and that's the main motivation of why I bother to upload. 

Next up, we spent a couple of hours visiting the Nasch market though we didn't manage to buy anything. But we did have a superb lunch there at NordSee with a grilled sea bass and spaghetti.

Following lunch, we again took a long walk to Stadtpark, supposedly one of the more famous parks in Vienna but sadly didn't manage to impress us much.

Then we travelled all the way to visit the Belvedere Palace. Well, we did take the metro if not we'll spend hours on the road just walking! Hehe. 

And lastly, we spent our evening in Prater Amusement park. It's a paradise for young kids and people who love carnivals and amusement park rides. We are not fanatics but we do like carnivals and all. Feels happening and exciting to be in a big scale one like this. We took Angel on the ferris wheel!

For our 3rd day, we took a train to Budapest and spent one day there. Yeah. Because we've already seen most things that we wanna see in Vienna and since Budapest is nearby, why not make the most out of the time we had. =) Here's jw and Angel sleeping so sweetly on the journey there.

We took the Hop on Hop off package in Budapest since we only had half a day here. To be frank, since our intent is not to shop nor to watch concerts and visit museums, rather we only wanna visit the place and take a look at the famous sights, half a day was probably adequate for us. We visited the Danube Promenade, Gellert Hill, St Stephen's Basilica, Szechenyi aka Chain Bridge and took a boat ride to enjoy the scenery along the river.

The pretty Parliament House

Having ice cream outside St Stephen's Basilica. Yummy!

In the evening, we took away Mac and had dinner on the train ride home. We shared the carriage with a biker family who rode from Vienna to Budapest using 5 days! Omg! It was nice talking to them but alas the train had technical issues and kept stopping, going backwards and aircon kept turning off. Haha. But well, as long as we got home safely, which we did. =)

The next day, we bidded farewell to Austria and made our way to Italy. =) 

We stopped by Venice for lunch. Yeah. Venezia!! If you remember, the first time I came to Europe in 2007, Venice was one of our stops. Hee. It just felt nice to be stepping right back to this unique water city again, especially since I've already lost ALL the pics that I took here during that trip. It's like, I'm now given a second chance to capture these pretty sights, with Angel by me somemore. =) Haha. Sometimes I think I'm a easily contented girl. I dunno if it's true. But if that's the way I am, I hope I will be like that always because it makes life so much more simple and definitely happier.

The pigeons at Piazza St Marco. Hehe. One was on my head! Ehhh, my hair so smelly mehhh. Keke. Well, it was quite a moment to remember though.. Haha.

Soon, it's time to move on again, this time round to Genova where we would board our MSC cruise. =) Well, I'll write the cruise updates in my next post then. Angel's calling. Till the next time! Tata!