Yowza, well that was an EPIC series. That took me long enough and I still have to put together our album – eek!

Here’s a quick summary of the links:

Day 1 & 2: San Francisco

Day 3: San Francisco

Day 4: San Francisco

Day 5: San Francisco

Day 6: Napa Valley

Day 7: Napa Valley

Day 8 & 9: San Francisco

Day 10: San Francisco & surrounds

Day 11: San Francisco

Day 12: San Francisco

Day 14: London

Day 15: London

Day 16: London

Day 17 & 18: Berlin

Day 19: Berlin

Day 20 & 21: Dresden

Day 21 & 22: Prague

Day 23 & 24: Prague & Pilsen

Day 25: Cesky Krumlov

Day 26 & 27: Vienna

Day 28: Vienna

Day 29: Wels

Day 29: Salzburg

Day 30: Salzburg

Day 31: Innsbruck

Day 32 & 33: Dachau & Neuschwanstein

Day 34 & 35: Heidelberg

Day 36: Munich

Thanks so much for indulging me over the past few weeks. I’ve enjoyed sharing our travels with you but I’m looking forward to getting back into my regular content this afternoon.

I’ve got lots of fun things lined up for you, including new columns, themed months and easy projects. *Rubs hands together in glee* Can’t wait!

We left The Man’s family and took off to the beautiful university town of Heidelberg. Most of these photos are of the semi-ruined castle.

Can you believe this is a model?!

There was a small museum on the history of pharmacy, including this fabulous turn-of-the-century shop fitout.

We had our last dinner at a restaurant that served 100 different types of schnitzel!

After our time in Austria and Czech it was time to head back into Germany, this time in the south.

After a homecooked lunch and catch up with The Man’s uncle (who lives in a town outside Munich) we made our way to Dachau, the location of one of the Holocaust’s most horrific death camps.

We walked there from the train – not realising how far it was and that there was a bus – but it actually made the deepened the experience as we followed the journey of the prisoners’ arrival.

“Work sets you free.”

The bitter cold and bleak sky seemed appropriate for this awful place.

(I have to admit I was tempted to brighten up these photos so they looked nicer but it was actually nearing dusk while we were there so I kept them realistic.)

Words cannot describe the chilling experience of visiting the crematorium.

After our gut-wrenching sightseeing, we relaxed with another lovely homecooked meal, this time joined by The Man’s uncle’s niece and her husband (who all live in the house above). The niece and husband have excellent English, the uncle only a little, while The Man has good German and I have zilch. But we got by with a lot of bilingual talking and a lot of hand gestures.

The Man hadn’t seen his uncle since he was a boy and neither of us had met the niece, but they were so warm and friendly and their hospitality was embarrassingly good.

They were kind enough to drive us out to Neuschwanstein Castle a couple of hours away. I had been there as a kid (in summer) and it was just as magical.

We were at the top of the mountain waiting for our guided tour to start, when we heard our names being called out. It was a guy and a girl we went to school with! Totally bizarre.

On the way back, we stopped off at one of the couple’s favourite churches. It was very strange to see such an impressive church in what was essentially the middle of nowhere.

It was definitely a couple of days of opposites – both memorable in different ways.

We arrived in Innsbruck late at night and went straight to our hotel so we didn’t get a great sense of the city to begin with. Then we awoke to this view (above) from our hotel window. Wow!

We were on the opposite side of the river to the main town (closer to the ski slopes) but it was a beautiful walk so we didn’t mind at all.

Just for a change – ahem – we went to an Imperial Palace (we were on first name terms with Maria Theresia & co by this stage). Apart from the usual things you’d find in a royal residence, they also had a great display of the furniture through the ages and showed how they were actually constructed.

My 10am instant coffee just isn’t the same now that I’ve experienced Austrian hot drinks like this amaaaazing hot chocolate. I still have no idea how I managed to not put on any weight with how we were eating and drinking!

The Man kept threatening me with a snow fight but thankfully I always had the convenient excuse that he couldn’t throw snow at me while I was holding the camera.

Dear old men, you know they make small chess sets so you don’t have to play OUTSIDE IN THE FREEZING BLOODY COLD?

I’ve never got the whole moustache fad, but I had to admit this made me laugh.

There were plenty of galleries to choose from, but we felt we’d already covered a lot of 17th-20th century oil painting. So we ditched the idea of the fine art museum and instead went to the Volkskunst (Folk Art) Museum.

It was fascinating and well-presented. They even had entire rooms reconstructed to show how regular people would have lived (quite the contrast to the Hofburg Palace as you can imagine!).

Goodnight, Innsbruck!

I don’t know what it’s like in your part of the world right now but today’s photos might make you feel a little chilly!

Pre-school children tobogganing - cutest thing ever.

As you can tell by the volume of photos, we couldn’t get enough of the Mirabell Palace Gardens.

Our main activity of the day was a visit to the Fortress, which this guy is looking up to.

We found the entrance to the funicular (hillside cable car) but it was closed due to the snow!

It was not an easy walk, but thankfully the view was so beautiful I’m actually glad we weren’t able to take the funicular. Plus, it was probably good to work off some of the schnitzels and wine.

Sorry for the epic amount of photos – I couldn’t decide!

As well as the normal fortress exhibitions there was a also marionette museum which was quite cute.

After a more leisurely walk back down the hill, we treated ourselves to some shopping. Actually we mostly bought gifts for our family but it was still great fun.

My face lit up when I saw this shop consisting entirely of Christmas decorations!

…and this other store window featuring a giant Missoni ‘A’!

Next up, we head to Innsbruck.

After our morning in Wels, we arrived in Salzburg eager to start exploring.

We were blown away by the breathtaking view from the banks of the Salzach River.

By now you probably won’t be surprised to learn that our next activity was – you guessed it – a walking tour! Our local guide was very friendly and knowledgeable, although the tour was bilingual and she spoke way longer to the German-speaking tourists so we did feel like we were missing out a bit.

After the tour concluded, we went to Mozarts Geburtshaus (Mozart’s Birth House) which was a small but well-curated and fascinating museum of the famous Salzburger.

We had a pleasant (and by pleasant I mean pretty but effing freezing) moonlit stroll through the palace gardens.

On our way from Vienna to Salzburg, we hopped off the train for a quick look around the small town of Wels.

The Man’s maternal grandmother and auntie lived here until they emigrated to Australia, where his mother was later born. His great-grandmother remained here until her passing.

His mum gave us a couple of addresses where the great-grandmother had lived and we set out to find them. Unfortunately they were both old folks’ homes (one of which had been torn down and rebuilt) so it wasn’t a charming little house where his grandmother might have grown up.

Still, it was a lovely town and we enjoyed our short wander around. Come for the tour with me…

It was a tad cold if you hadn’t worked that out.

There were some surprisingly flash new houses, like this one. Very cool, huh?

The main street was very pretty.

I think my mother-in-law was really chuffed that we took the time to detour off the original itinerary and visit her family’s hometown.

After a couple of hours it was time to continue our journey. We were thankful to the person who had cleaned the train window so we could enjoy the view!

Having mostly visited cities, it was great to venture out to see the countryside and towns.

I took so many photos on this day that I’ve split up the afternoon in Salzburg into a separate post coming up tomorrow. See you then!

Our first activity of the day was a visit to the beautiful Schönbrunn Palace. No photos allowed inside so these will have to suffice!

No words required.

We met back at the Spanish Riding School for our walking tour (the one that left early without us the day before). It was kinda fun to see the same scene but this time with snow.

The tour guide told us a funny story about this fountain so I swear there is a reason why we went in for the money shot.

The mix-up with the walking tour somewhat screwed up our plans for the short time we had in Vienna. As such, we only had a very short amount of time to visit the Belvedere (so short, in fact, that the lady selling the tickets was like, uh, are you sure you want to buy a ticket?).

We visited Klimt and friends (one of the best displayed exhibitions, The Man and I concluded) but sadly not much else.

After closing time we did have some fun outside with the long exposure + tripod.

Til we meet again, fair Wien!

The four day weekend is almost upon us! I hear it’s still snowing in some parts of the world this Easter, so today’s recap of Vienna is quite appropriate really.

Okay, so that’s only a teensy dusting of snow (in fact we even had some blue skies for the first time in a while), but we were excited to see any.

Finding a train station with lockers proved more difficult than expected, so we were glad when they were finally stowed away so we could go and explore.

First up was the giant ferris wheel. I recall not being overly impressed even at age 7 when I last visited (it went too slooow) so I wasn’t expecting much. In fact none of the rides were open (being winter) but the fairground was still open so it was kind of eerie.

Still, it was fun to walk around and it’s such a pretty city it’s hard not to enjoy yourself.

We popped in to a random cafe for a quick bite of lunch and it turned out to be this awesome 100-year-old famous cafe complete with funky modern furniture. Score!

We spent the rest of the day at MAK (Museum of Applied Art) which was superb. There was an excellent chronological exhibition of the Viennese style through Modernism. There was also an exhibition of the finalists of a poster competition and a brilliantly displayed showcase of projects from a fascinating collaborative program between traditional artisans and young designers. Heaven!

I was soon brought back to earth – literally – when we had picked up our bags from the train station that evening. I fell over in truly spectacular style. And no, not into soft, fluffy snow either. Asphalt.

Carrying the pack and wearing seven layers of clothes obviously restricted my arm movement so I felt a bit like T-rex. Consequently I broke the fall WITH MY FACE.

I was out cold for a sec and when I came to I could taste blood and it hurt so bad I was convinced I’d knocked out my teeth or at the very least broken my nose. Some extremely kind locals helped The Man scrape me off the road before I could get run over by a bus.

Thankfully all of my teeth and bones appeared in tact. Even my camera and iPad (I fell directly onto my camera bag) were unscathed.

So with me looking like a right mess – crying, with a fat lip and grazed head – we rocked up at our hotel which was A PALACE.

(I know you mustn’t believe me that we are not fancy travellers, you can just get some seriously good deals in winter! Plus, I didn’t take photos of the shitty hostels we also stayed in.)

Upon further inspection in the hotel bathroom, my front teeth were indeed cracked and I remained in pain and concerned about permanent damage until we arrived home. Happy to report that my dentist tells me I didn’t do any damage to the nerves or ’structure’.

The Man cheered me up with cake (isn’t he a good husband?) which I could eat, if only in tiny bites.

ANYWAY, enough of my dramatic woe-is-me tale. It was hard to be too upset when I woke up to views like this from our hotel window:

Wasn’t kidding about the palace thing.

One of my favourite things to do in a new city is to simply walk around and take it all in.

Yes, one of the sights on our itinerary was an underground station. I am such a design nerd.

Gold stars to any readers who can tell us who designed it!

We were supposed to be meeting our walking tour guide here in front of the Spanish Riding School, but – as we later found out – he had left without us. No, we didn’t get there late, he left early!

More art galleries to visit of course, this one being the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum).

Continuing the arty theme, we visited the stunning Seccession Museum. I thought it was going to be dedicated to the history of the turn-of-the-century art movement of that name, however all but one of the exhibitions inside were actually contemporary art.

The highlight was Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. We had actually seen a replica not long ago in Canberra but it was amazing to see the original, especially from the raised viewing platform so you could see it up close and appreciate the details.

I promise that’s snow, not a dirty lens.

Kinda makes me wanna find my inner Midas and gold-leaf everything in sight.

We treated ourselves to dessert-as-dinner at the famous Cafe Sacher. Apple strudel and sticky wine, yes please!

We finished our day with a concert in the Orangerie at Schönbrunn Palace. Terribly touristy, I admit, but it was a great introduction to Mozart & Co.

Okay, that’s me signing off for the long weekend! I have lots of things to share next week so I may still post on Easter Monday.

Til then, have a wonderful Easter everyone!

The historical goodness continued in Cesky Krumlov, a UNESCO Heritage Listed Town south of Prague.

After the train ride there, The Man and I (sporting dreadful beanie-hair) stopped for a coffee while we waited for our guided tour to start. It was a cute cafe; the owner was obviously a bit of a collector as there were some great collections of coffee grinders, clocks and sewing tables.

Now being quite the fans of walking tours, we signed up for another one, this time with a lovely local lady who had witnessed the town rise out of neglect and hardship into a beautifully restored national treasure.

Despite the impressive the restorations were, it was actually really good to see one of the few remaining unrestored buildings to put the whole process into context. It’s charming in its own way, don’t you think?

The view from the top of the belltower was definitely worth the climb!

Unfortunately much of the castle is closed in winter for safety reasons (there’s normally heavy snow that time of year) and due to the fact that it’s unheated.

Thankfully we were still able to enjoy the museum which chronicled 600+ years of local history, in an interior had been reproduced in its original style. I’m quite fond of historical buildings that are set up as if the owners have just stepped out of the room, I find it makes it so much more realistic.

I’m so pleased we ventured off the major city route to visit Cesky Krumlov, if only briefly. We  hopped on the train back to our base in nearby Ceske Budejovice.

Tomorrow we go to Austria!