Light Rain, 14°C 22 Stanley Street The Future is Here It was an early start again as I had booked an activity for Emily and Matthew at the Queensland State Library. We stopped along the way for some hot chocolates as the weather had finally turned cold. It had been raining overnight and the forecast was for more rain during the day. The activity was … Continue reading The Future is Here
Clear Sky, 22°C 75 Grey Street The Longest Walk Yesterday was quite a long day as we left at breakfast time and didn’t return till after dinner. Today we decided to let Thomas have a sleep in the room in the morning and left around lunch time instead. We spent the afternoon at Science Centre and even had a play in the dinosaur park. Thomas … Continue reading The Longest Walk
Scattered Clouds, 24°C Stanley Street Plaza Busking and Cooking We were walking along Southbank when the boys noticed that a busker was setting up for his show and he had a 9 foot tall unicycle. Ben stopped to ask him for tips on learning to ride an unicycle. We then proceeded to stay and watch his show. He picked Matthew as his helper and Matthew … Continue reading Busking and Cooking
Clear Sky, 23°C 2 Montague Road A Marvel-lous Experience We went to see an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art that showcased the Marvel super hero’s. The exhibition included props from all the movies as well as details on how they created the sets, special effects and scenes. There was also a section on the history of the characters including the original comic books … Continue reading A Marvel-lous Experience
Few Clouds, 22°C 217-231 George Street The Holidays Begin It is always a rush to get out of the house at the start of the holidays. There are just so many little things to do, clean, store and organise. Our flight wasn’t till 11.30 so it gave us time to get everything sorted. In spite of all the planning we forgot Matthew’s frequent flyer card … Continue reading The Holidays Begin
Hungary is famous for its porcelain, lace and puzzle boxes. We walked down to a handicraft market in the morning to pick up some souvenirs. It started snowing as we left the hotel and it was quite an experience walking through it. It was just a light sprinkle but by the time we got to our destination we were all covered in a light dusting. … Continue reading Last Day
Clear Sky, 1°C Budapest We visited Sir Lancelot for dinner which is a medieval knight themed restaurant. The staff were all dressed in medieval clothing and there were knights, guillotines and swords everywhere. The boys also got to sit in royal seats with knights guarding them. We got a platter to share amongst all of us and it was a huge serving. It included skewers, … Continue reading Knights and Roses
Light Snow, -1°C Budapest We went on a walking tour of Budapest and got to take in some incredible buildings and got a great insight into the history of Hungary. One of the main things we learnt was the importance of 1896 and how most of the city was redeveloped them for the cities millennium celebrations. We started by the Opera House which had a … Continue reading Beautiful Budapest
One of the most fascinating things in Europe is how you can travel for only a few hours and go across countries, and all without any passport or visa check. We boarded our train in Prague at midday and will be in Budapest by 6 having traveled through Slovakia. The boarding of the train was a bit chaotic to say the least. We arrived at … Continue reading A Train Ride Through 3 Countries
Jiřská 3/1 Prague had a number of events on during the day to ring in the new year.This ranged from classical performances at various theatres and music halls through to huge fireworks tonight. We were keen to view the extended changing of the guards at midday today up at the royal castle. We had a lazy morning and didn’t leave till 11.30 and we had … Continue reading Happy New Year
Broken Clouds, -4°C Václavské náměstí 56 The official fireworks and celebrations for the New Year happen on the 1st of January in Prague. As there are no regulations on the purchase and use of fireworks, there were unofficial fireworks and noise makers all over town. I had booked a train restaurant called Vytopnia for dinner after having read a number of great reviews online. It … Continue reading New Years Eve
Jiráskův most We went on a walking and boat tour of Prague today. Bron decided to stay in the room with Tom so it was just me with the older kids. The tour was a big disappointment. I was hoping that the guide would take us from Old Town via Charles bridge to the Prague palace. Instead we quickly walked through Old Town and she … Continue reading Tour of Prague
Fog, -6°C Karlova 4-18 We headed to a tiny theatre on the top floor of a building near the Old Town Square to watch a puppet version of Don Giovanni with the original score created by Mozart. I have been really surprised with the number of theatre and cultural performances in Prague. There are classical performances on all the time ranging from operas and performances … Continue reading Puppets and Dinner
Mist, -4°C Staroměstské náměstí 4/1 We didn’t really have anything planned or organised for today so we decided to have a quiet and lazy one. After a late breakfast we let Thomas have another sleep in his cot and headed out on the late afternoon. Our hotel is conveniently located right near Charles bridge and close to Old Town which is almost like the tourist … Continue reading A Walk Through Old Town
Fog, -4°C Smetanovo nábřeží 324/10 We packed up and left Kakslautanen today. It was a real shame that it snowed all night and we weren’t able to see any more of the Northern Lights as there seemed to be quite a bit of auroral activity.The igloos had quite an interesting design and no matter how much it snowed over night the snow would just slide … Continue reading What a Show
The kids and I were booked on a husky safari today. We arrived all decked out in our warmest gear, and it was lucky that we did, as it was the coldest that I have ever felt on my life. Even before we got onto the husky sleighs our extremities were feeling numb. Poor Emily, she just had had enough and wouldn’t stop crying. As … Continue reading Mush
We departed from Rovaniemi to spend the next couple of nights in Kakslautanen. We seem to have increased the amount of luggage we have, and including the warm clothes we rented we had a luggage cart full. The bus trip to Kakslautanen was through some incredibly scenic parts of Finland. It was all covered in snow and the trees and frozen lakes looked spectacular. After … Continue reading Hey Hey Santa
The main reason for coming to Kakslautanen was to see the Northern Lights. This year is meant to be a good year for Auroral activity and northern Finland is an ideal location. Unfortunately it also depends on the weather on the day which we can’t control. We had organised a reindeer safari to see the northern lights. This entailed getting on reindeer sleighs at about … Continue reading Elusive Northern Lights
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