Never Ending Winter

The view out of our door into the courtyard has seen a lot of snow this year, much more than last year although I don't think it was as cold as last year.  I shouldn't complain, I am very lucky with no commute and barely ever a reason to drive anywhere but it is almost April!

St. Peter's Cemetary, Salzburg

Not to go too the morbid side of things, but St. Peter's Cemetery and Catacombs is a cool place to visit.  The cemetery goes back to 1627 and is where the Von Trapp's hid in the sound of music. The old headstones and statues are all interesting and add the fact that it is built into the cliff that the Castle over looks makes it even more interesting.

Salzburg Austria

We decided to take a long weekend to Salzburg since it is a nice and easy 5 and half hour train ride.  Well when we left there had been some snow in the area and that short train ride turned into a 13 hour train ride.  There was only one track working between Hungary and Vienna and the highway was closed as well.  It would have been nice to have known this at some point either before or during our during the trip but communicating these details was not a strength of the staff.  I can't complain too much, a group of people got on the train somewhere along the way in Hungary and they had been on a bus headed to Vienna for 20 hours before it decided to turn around and go back to Budapest.

Though it was a terrible trip there, Salzburg was worth it.  With the Salzach River flowing through, the Alps in the background, great food and one of the largest castles in Europe looking over the city it really is great place to visit.  It's also the birth place of Mozart and where the Sound of Music was filmed. More from Salzburg later.

Things seen in Budapest

Apologies for the poor picture a moving Metro car and my phone do not make the best combination,  but if you look at the guys lap on left, that is a some sort of attack falcon or some other such bird of prey. I'm so glad we were not taking Midnight on the Metro to bring her to one of the parks, it could have gotten really ugly.

The Louvre - Paris

We feel really luck to have been able to go to the Vatican see the museum there, the Sistine Chapel and everything else there and and now to follow that up by seeing the Louvre in Paris is amazing.  I know I must sound like a broken record but go for the tour on this one as well.  If you are like me you probably do not really know what you are looking at, and if you know what you want to see finding it is another story.  Our guide was great, she kept us moving along and got us to all of the highlights.  Some of the highlights pictured below that we saw included, the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, and Venus de Milo.

There she is, it's good to be tall  if you want to get a look at her.

The Mona Lisa is there somewhere.

The Winged Victory

Venus de Milo - Even she has to look out for pickpokets!

 The treasures in the Louvre aren't the only things to look at, the building itself is amazing. 

Eiffel Tower - Paris

 

The Eiffel tower has to be one of the most famous landmarks in Paris if not the world and I can see why.  It is completely mesmerizing, particularly at night when it is all lit up.  Almost anywhere we were in the city I'd find myself drawn to it.  

The first thing we did when we got to Paris was take a tour of the Eiffel Tower which I would highly recommend.  If you've been reading along this will not come as a surprise but make sure to do a skip the line tour, there is so much to do and see it's so worth it.  The great thing about the tour or our tour guide specifically is that she took us up to the second deck and not only told us about the tower but took us to each side of the tower and explained what we were looking at and interesting things to do later.  It really helped us understand how the city was layed out and gave us some places to go and see.  

Some of the interesting things she mentioned about the tower (and I don't know if they are all true but since you are now reading it on the internet it must be!) are:

• It was built for the world's fair and was supposed to only be up for twenty years.  People hated it and property value around it went down because they did not like it and they were afraid it would fall over on them. Eventually they decided they liked it and made it permanent.
• It was not actually designed by Eiffel but by two people working for him, but since he was the boss and footing the bill he called it whatever he wanted.
• Remarkably no one died building it.  One guy went back after work climbed up with a bottle of wine got drunk and fell off and killed himself but that didn't count because it was after work hours.
• The Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas is half the size but took the same amount of time to build, about two years.
• Every hour on the hour at night there is a light show that was supposed to be a temporary thing for the Millennium but they liked it so much they kept, just like the tower itself.

There is much more and I'd highly recommend a tour if you are there.  Here are a few pictures of and from the tower for now

The Arc de Triomphe

Paris

Eiffel Tower Paris

It's been a while so what better way to get caught up is with our trip to Paris.  We went with my parents over New Years and had an amazing time.  What a great city Paris is, we really need to go back as there is so much to see.  In our stay we managed to do a Seine dinner cruise, Eiffel tower tour, Louvre tour, hop on hop off tour, saw Napoleon Tomb in the Eglise du Dome Church (a sight in itself), went to Notre Dame and much more.  Also the food and wine is amazing!  Anyway I will have much more later but just a few pictures for now.

Notre Dame Paris

The Louvre Paris