Winter Wonderland in Europe - December 2008

Despite my very busy work schedule, I managed to get my leave approved for a 2 weeks Europe holiday to Paris, Brussels (Belgium), Amsterdam, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This trip was booked at the very last minute only after my annual leave was approved.... phew... but lucky enough, there were still seats available for us!!!

So here we are again.... the Sim family on another Winter holiday.... As usual, Amanda vomited in the plane.... this time, 3 times! Poor thing..... look at her expression before and after the flight....

upon arrival at charles de gaulle airport - look at her stained pants after vomitting 3 times....
First stop.... PARIS....
Look at the Eiffel Tower which Amanda drew immediately upon check in as she was sitting by the study table of the hotel room and staring out of the window and admiring Eiffel Tower at a distance.....

the drawing vs the actual...

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Next stop.... BELGIUM

lovely belgian chocolates......

AMSTERDAM.....

VOLENDUM DUTCH FISHING VILLAGE A lovely quaint town.... awesome... a MUST to visit!!! The entire town was so peaceful & serene.....

COLONGE CHRISTMAS MARKET

HEIDELBERG......

MUNICH & ROTHENBERG NIGHT MARKET plus AUSTRIA - SALZBURG (the birth place of reknowned composer, MOZART)

It was freezing cold throughout the entire journey.... Salzburg was 1 deg celcius at noon... but all of us just loved the cold weather and we were savouring every moment of it....

AUSTRIA - INNSBRUCK Lovely place. Look at the Golden Roof!
We also visited the Swarovski Showroom in Austria. It was awesome! We stayed overnight at FUSSEN, a place well-liked by Japanese tourists..... Just before leaving FUSSEN, our guide brought us to visit the NEUSCHWANSTEIN CASTLE (at our own expense) but the trip was worth it! The castle was BEAUTIFUL!!! All of us paid to have the horse ride up the castle at the top of the hill. However, on the way down, all of them chose to walk since it wasn't too taxing to go downhill.... BUT.... we chose to pay for the horse carriage.... WHY?.... because I didn't have the energy to walk down (though daddy & babe were so keen to walk down.... hehe).

BLACKFOREST, GERMANY We loved the hotel that we stayed... Guess what we had for dinner in Blackforest? YES! Soup and Huge German Sausages as main course with Blackforest Cake for dessert.... The cake was delicious, but the sausages were a little salty to our liking and soup was just so so.....

TITISEE TOWN, SCHAUFFHAUSEN & LUCERNE..... We never expected Titisee town to be so beautiful. After a "CUCKOO CLOCK MAKING SESSION", we were left to explore the little town on our own.... This short moment was one of the most memorable moments of our life.... we made a gigantic snowman at the park!!! Lunch was sumptuous too (though at our own expense - ala carte meal). We tried their BEEF GOULASH whilst Amanda drank Potato Soup. The Potato Soup was yummy but our Beef Goulash was EXCELLENT!!! so much so that Amanda ended up drinking my share of Beef Goulash. We tried out various main courses... but what was worth mentioning was my dessert... APPLE STRUDEL WITH VANILLA ICE CREAM.... it was reallly YUMMY!!! I would definitely go for another serving of this if I still had some space in my stomach.... After lunch, we were treated to a free serving to ICEWINE after the ICEWINE Demonstration. The Icewine tasted fabulous, but we didn't buy back to Singapore for fear of breaking the bottle... We regretted not buying it though, as we couldn't find it at the airport....

The next stop was SCHAUFFHAUSEN's THUNDERING RHINE FALLS.... very majestic! We took lots of pictures there.... and Daddy & I kissed in front of the Thundering Rhine Falls whilst posing for a photo.... :) Our journey for that day ended in Lucerne.....

SWITZERLAND - LUCERNE We stayed 2 nights in Lucerne. A quiet town but we enjoyed every moment of peace there... especially the swans/birds feeding session with the entire tour group... we even took videos to capture those wonderful moments....

Places we visited in Lucerne included The Famous Chapel Bridge, Bucherer, Lion Monument etc etc... and we did lots of shopping there.... totally relaxed and recharged...

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves soooo much during the entire trip... visited many places, understood various cultures, histories, spent quality family time, built snowmen, shopping, savouring delicious food and last but not least, enjoyed the super cold weather with so much snow around including snowflakes falling on us.... lovely experience!

It was truly a memorable experience and we are so so looking forward to our next trip....