The good, the bad and the ugly of travelling Europe with a baby

So we've taken a little break from blogging while recovering from our trip but I've had complaints from the loyal audience that there has been a lack of blogs. Never fear, a few more are coming your way.  As promised a wrap-up of our Europe trip is today's effort....... to be followed with the what we have bought post, and of course our Christmas wrap-up.

People seemed to think we were brave/stupid for doing a long trip with a little one but on the whole it was a very positive experience.  It was great watching Astrid experiencing new things, eating new foods and seeing (and feeling her first snow).  While it was very different travelling as a family as opposed to as a couple it was on the whole a good experience. There were times we would gladly have posted her home or we heartily wished the grandparents would fly over to give us a night 'off' but all in all we had a ball.

We had to make a few concessions travelling with a small child. We tried to give her adequate rest periods when possible. Either by trying to be in our apartment or a hotel room for her lunch time sleep and trying to get her to bed at a 'reasonable' hour. At home she would normally have a 12pm sleep for a couple of hours and a 6.30pm bedtime. On the road this just wasn't possible. Many days she napped in the stroller or carrier, often for short intervals. Other days she had to nap on a train or a bus. Bedtimes were a bit random too.  If we were travelling it often wasn't possible to get dinner until 7pm or later and her bed time would just have to wait. We also travelled a bit at night and she would have to go off to sleep on a train, only to be woken a few hours later to be carted back to our Paris apartment in the cold and dark.

When we had been travelling for a few days in a row we would try and have some quiet days back in Paris to let her catch up on some sleep.  This meant we had to organise our sightseeing so that we didn't have her out all day in the cold, when she was tired.  Generally though, Miss A was a trooper. She happily ventured out in rain, hail, snow (and minimal sunshine) to see the sights of Europe. She would fall asleep when she was tired and had been seen sleeping while soaking wet and being snowed on!  She got used to being in a different bed every night and would often excitedly find her cot when we got to a new hotel room.  She got used to not always having food when she needed it. We always tried to keep a stash of biscuits on us for snacks (and way too many biscuits were consumed during the trip). She would happily eat a croissant or 3 too!. When we weren't in the apartment dinners were often late and she was very patient with waiting for food, often after her bed time. We won't talk about how little fruit and vegies she ate while we were away. Potatoes (fried or otherwise are vegetables right?).

The downsides of travelling with a baby........... firstly the stuff. You need lots of stuff! We always had to make sure we had several outfits when out for long periods as it wasn't fair to keep a small child in wet (or filthy) clothes. Given how often we got rained on she often got wet.  Plus, there are the sleeping bags, comforters, bottles, nappies, bibs, wipes and other bits and pieces that come along with a small child. Even when we packed light we had to take quite a few things with us just for Astrid.  We also had to carry the Astrid, which involved strollers, carriers and lugging a lot of weight. Thanks goodness for carriers which were often more convenient than strollers! One of the best things we did was use compression sacks. Great for compressing sleeping bags, blankies, nappies and other bulky items. As a bonus you can put your dirty and wet clothes in them when you are done and they keep space for all your shopping!

Second downside..... the lack of down time. If we were just travelling on our own, flights and train trips could be used to relax or catch up on sleep. When you have a small child this just doesn't happen and we were constantly entertaining her or trying to settle her to sleep. Even if we got her to sleep on a train or plane we were usually having to resettle or I was holding her while sleeping.  You also knew that no matter how late you went to bed, the small child-sized alarm clock would have you up pre-dawn the next day.

Third downside........ not always getting the time to do what you want to do. Museums with a toddler - forget it! We managed a few museums here and there but in reality asking a small child to sit still for any length of time is impossible so we would try and see what we really wanted in the shortest space of time and take it in turns to look at stuff while the other baby-wrangled.  We also couldn't do many things at night. While Astrid was pretty well behaved, keeping her up late at night to go sightseeing or to a show wasn't a sensible idea. We generally stayed in at night and if we wanted to do something we took it in turns to go out while the other stayed with the bub.

Fourth downside......... nappy changes! European cities are not big on baby friendly facilities. We came across bugger all baby facilities in our travels. Particularly in Paris, where any toilets are a rare commodity and you tend to have to pay to use them, and they are often questionably clean.  They also rarely contain change facilities. Even a shopping centre (of multiple levels and buildings) might have 1 change room. Most places had none. Good old McDonald's and Starbucks had a change facility about 50% of the time so we often ducked in for a quick nappy change. However, 90% of nappy changes were done alfresco. We changed nappies on park benches, up the Eiffel tower (under a staircase), in side alleys, in the stroller and in the rain, snow and cold! Astrid also experienced many high speed and high altitude nappy changes on trains, planes, up monuments and towers and at the highest railway station in the world (over looking a glacier).  We have no idea what parents with toilet training toddlers do about the lack of facilities.......

The upsides..... plenty! It was fantastic watching Astrid experience new things. She also really came out of her shell with all the travel. People also love little kids and we often had people fawning all over her. She was great for getting us pushed through lines, security screens and even immigration. Have a baby, no need to queue and no security screening required!  We had so many comments on how cute she is (and we agree) and it was lovely to see so many people excited to meet her.  We also did and saw things we wouldn't have done if we didn't have a little one.  We had fun at great parks (Paris parks, complete with puppet shows are amazing), went to the Zurich zoo in the snow, stopped at countless fantastic cafes for a croissant refueling.  We visited amazing toy stores and cute baby boutiques (yes Anto groaned every time I entered one!). We walked around for countless hours while she slept in the carrier or stroller, so she didn't wake...... often seeing things we wouldn't have otherwise seen. It was so much fun seeing things for the first time through her eyes as well as ours.  Even simple things like chasing pigeons in a Parisian park were extra special!

How to travel on planes, trains and buses with a little one:
We were really worried about all the travel we had to do and how Astrid would go on long trips. Particularly 30+ hour flights!  We shouldn't have worried too much as she was really good most of the time. When overtired she had her moments of being cranky but 99% of the time she was good. I honestly think that the parents worry about the kids behaviour more than other passengers.  We went with the 'whatever keeps her happy philosophy' and let her watch tv on the tablet (Playschool was the winner) and let her eat constant snacks. So yes many biscuits were eaten, but in the end it doesn't matter. She would generally settle into watching some tv and eating some food. We would also play with toys we had with us and look out the windows at things we could see.  When possible walks up and down the aisles helped.  Even a walk to a nappy change was a good change of scenery.

We also tried to stick to her routine as much as possible. If it got to bed/sleep time we would pop her in her sleeping bag and give her her comforter and try and get her off to sleep.  This usually worked although we had a couple of times that a lot of screaming ensued, at which point we gave up and let her play so as not to annoy other passengers.  We always took snacks with us and heaps of nappies, and changes of clothes for the inevitable spills. We took a few small toys on long trips but she was generally happy to play with a  piece of paper, a magazine or the headphones.

Long flights were actually easier than short flights. The longer flights were bigger planes with more opportunity to walk around. We would also be seated in a bulkhead so she could play at our feet when the seatbelt sign was off.  On long flights we could settle her to sleep for big chunks of the flight. Short flights she was confined to our laps with nowhere to go. Short flights were often over 3 hours and this could be tough! Food is a great distractor :) and she would inevitably only fall asleep as we were about to land. Trains were pretty good. Lots of space to move around and things to look at out the window. Buses were difficult as there was usually nowhere to go, little space and the trips weren't long enough to get her to have much sleep.

Our other tip is to use a small baby carrier like the ergo. Walks around train stations and airports are often very long and involve stairs, luggage and dangerous situations (well train stations at least). If we kept her confined in the ergo we could move around easily and she was contained. It is easy to get on and off even when squished between seats in a plane or train and folds down to nothing. You do have to take them off for security screening, which is a pain when you have a sleeping baby, but we could also use the ergo to keep her still when on trains. Sometimes strapping her to one of us when she was tired made her stay still long enough to fall asleep!

Lastly, our mantra, was that 'we don't know anyone and we will never see these people again'. We figured if she was truly feral then they would just whinge about it to every person they met for the next 10 years, but we would never know.  Luckily I don't think she disgraced herself, and we mostly got comments on how good and cute she was!

.....and just for the record once we were home Astrid has settled into a good routine again. Has given up most of her bad habits easily and is actually eating fruit and vegies again! We kind of figured this would happen but it's always worrying when you think you might have undone good parenting work by relaxing the rules while travelling.  Turns out she can tell the difference between home and travel rules. Doesn't stop her from asking for a biscuit every time she gets in a car or the stroller though :)

Our best and worst - Nic
Best: Hotel - for luxury, Sofitel Heathrow Airport, London, for style and charm, Huyze Weyne B&B in Bruges. Honorable mentions though to the Boutique Hotel View in Amsterdam and Hotel St Josef in Zurich
Worst: Hotel - I think the Shaftesbury in London as the staff were just so surly and unhelpful. The Merkur hotel in Interlaken, Switzerland is the runner up though as it was old, tired and very noisy but the staff were lovely and the breakfast nice so it wasn't that bad overall.
Best: Train trip - the day we did the Swiss alps to Jungfraujoch. Amazing scenery! I did love the trip back from Zurich to Paris in the snow though, travelling at 300km/h hurtling through snow at sunset and drinking wine.
Worst: Train trip - the trip from Stockholm to Karlstad in Sweden. Long, crowded, noisy and a very tired and cranky baby.  The trip from Brussels to Bruges was similar but not as long. All other train trips were great so it's hard to pick a bad one.
Best: Thing about travelling with a baby - watching her experience new places, new things and new foods, priceless!
Worst: Thing about travelling with a baby - no down time and no breaks, ever!
3 highlights of the trip: Hard to narrow it down to 3.......  One of the first mornings in Paris when Astrid woke early and we were out pre-dawn walking by the Seine, around the Louvre and down to the Eiffel Tower as the sun rose, stopping for some morning croissant and coffee. Walking around Bruges in the freezing cold, with all the Christmas lights on, it almost snowing, horses and carriages clip-clopping around the streets and stopping to drink Belgium hot-chocolate. Watching Astrid play in the snow for the first time ever and having a ball at the highest point in Europe at Jungfrau Joch, Switzerland........ and a fourth because I couldn't resist - walking around Mont St Michel in Normandy in the dark with noone around when it was quiet and all lit up. Totally magical!
Worst moment of the trip: When Astrid was really sick in Paris and we had to get her to a doctor who could speak English. Runner up would have been realising we had lost the passports, we were cold and tired and had to go back to Bruges to get them.
Best parenting moment: so many it's hard to pick but just seeing how much fun Astrid was having and how excited she was at all the new adventures. How well she travelled made me very proud.
Worst parenting moment: Probably the flight from Stockholm to Paris which was late, crowded and we had an overtired child who would not settle and screamed, kicked, bit and generally was miserable for 2 hours until falling asleep on us half an hour before landing.Two exhausted adults and an over-it toddler was not a good combo!
Place I want to go back to: So many, but Zurich, Switzerland is on the list as somewhere we have to see again.  I would love to visit Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, and Paris again too though....... oh and the Loire valley in France.
Place I am not keen on ever visiting again: probably Geneva. I was so looking forwards to it and it underwhelmed me. I also am not in a rush to go back to Luxembourg. It was interesting but I don't think it's worth a second visit.
Best meal (s): I had so many good ones but the 5 course dinner that was 19 Euro in Bruges Belgium is hard to beat! The meal at Shalstromsgarden, Sweden with Bjorn and Linnea was also extremely memorable, as was the cheese and mushroom fondue we had in Luzern, Switzerland.
Worst meal: probably the greasy spring rolls from a takeaway in London
Best chocolate: definitely anything in Belgium although some of the truffles from our street in Paris were damn good.
Best waffles: our first lunch in Gent, Belgium - with chocolate sauce and rich vanilla icecream.
Best Crepe: Anto's home made crepes in our Parisian apartment were awesome but for atmosphere the crepes we got from a takeaway vendor and ate by the Seine on a cold morning while listening to an accordian player and drinking hot coffee can't be beaten.
Best patisserie: anything from our street in Paris but I adored the Ideale Pistache and Gateaux Opera.
Would I do it again: In a heartbeat. We are already thinking about our next big European adventure!


Our best and worst - Anto
Best Hotel: - luxury Sofitel Heathrow Airport, London. For Style and charm the Boutique Hotel View in Amsterdam, for a great room, wonderful surroundings (including a big dog for Astrid to meet) and the best host you could ever come across Huyze Weyne B&B in Bruges
Worst Hotel:  The Shaftesbury in London was pretty bad as far as the (female) staff go, which was annoying because aside from being pokey it could have been a fairly pleasant place to stay. Followed closely by The Merkur hotel in Interlaken, Switzerland - not that there was much wrong - just noisy un-homely & with an annoying pushed together single beds arrangement with a huge wooden bed frame constantly annoying you out of sleep. However the staff were really nice & the breaky was good. It must be a testament to whoever did the hotel research just how good most of our accommodation was :)
Best Train trip: for tourist value Jungfrau Joch in Switzerland - constantly climbing up the mountains with no end of scenery was amazing. For constantly breaking my brain the 80 minute high speed to Brussels - how you can be in an entirely different country - with different culture, languages etc in 1 hour 20 minutes from our apartment still makes my head spin. For cinematic effect the Zurich to Paris - standing on the platform watching the (heavy) snow fluttering down followed by flying through the countryside looking at the snow covered scenery was just magical (and once you are on the train it was warm :)
Worst Train trip: The only one that was not really good was the first trip in Sweden - a older noisier crowded train with a fairly grumpy bub - the only saving factor was Bjorn (now known as 'Bjorn Man') who met us on the train & for some reason became Astrid's favourite person within about 30 seconds.
Best thing about travelling with a baby: Skipping lines! Plus you have a ready excuse to play with all kinds of things you otherwise would have to avoid.
Worst thing about travelling with a baby: 24 hour a day restrictions - everything was organised around Astrid with quite a few things just not done because it was just going to be too painful / difficult to organise.
3 highlights of the trip: The Alps of Switzerland - while I could take or leave the high altitude the trip up was spectacular. Visiting the Zurich zoo in the snow - so very different from the kind of experience that we would get in Australia. Walking around in the dark in the North(ish) of Sweden looking up at the stars (it was probably 4.30pm :)
Worst moment of the trip: Hauling the (excess) luggage from Paris to London on my own - mostly the Paris end - once on the train it was fine.
Best parenting moment:  People telling us they didn't even realise that Astrid was on a flight, train etc - How well she behaved (in public) most of the time was amazing.
Worst parenting moment: The bribery - at times it was just so much easier to bribe with food etc than 'do the right thing' trying to keep her quiet and happy in difficult situations was a challenge.
Place I want to go back to: Most of them :p Another visit to Amsterdam, Zurich and the Loire Valley, France would have to be on the cards - Absolutely Paris.
Place I am not keen on ever visiting again: For me Brussels - although the Chocolate could lure me back and London, for it's expense without class - although once again there is enough stuff to do that I'm sure I will be lured again.
Best meal (s): Mussles in Brussels round one (chez Leon) where Astrid and I ate like kings. The 'set menu' in Bruges was something so very different and so good that it would have to be on the list - although the 'meaty' version at 23 Euro was so much worse value than Nic's 19 Euro vegie version :) For best 'unusual' meal the 'picnic' we had on our London hotel room floor with things from Mark & Spencers express at Heathrow - which demonstrated that when the British put their minds to it they can create good quality tasty food at a very reasonable price.
Worst meal: Indian in Interlarken - and not just because it rhymes. Coming from Australia where our immigrants seem to have carried with them excellent cuisine I was a tad let down by the Swiss version. That and they appear to not have access to (cheap) vegetables most of the year meaning the dishes were missing the stuff that would normally fill them out.    That being said it was still edible and took little effort to obtain - as a generalisation the food everywhere was fairly high quality & picking somewhere to be 'worst' was a fair exercise.
Best Chocolate: Neuhaus in Belgium, although the hot chocolate in the snow in Bruges is pretty much up there.
Best Waffles: I had less experience with this than other members of the party :p however the last lunch in Gent at a little tucked away place would win it for me.
Best Crepe: Has to be the crape eaten on the bridge just up from Notre Dame, accompanied with a shot of espresso and an accordion playing in the background - I don't know if it tasted the best (it probably did) but it was the full Paris experience.
Best Beer: The 'local' at Mont St. Michel - which was only improved by sitting near a nice fire out of the weather.
Best Patisserie: Gateaux Opera from the Patisserie across the road from our apartment - although that one time there wasn't quite enough gold dust on the Macaroon almost dropped it down the list - see the things that you can fault when surrounded by quality!
Would I do it again: In a heartbeat - I'm sure that if there wasn't a mortgage to pay I would have spent the last 3 weeks of the trip convincing Nic that we could stay longer.


Most useful travel items, gadgets and apps:

• the compression sacks. You just roll them to squeeze the air out and they save heaps of space and keep your dirty clothes away from other clothes
• phone apps for public transport. We used one for the Paris metro that gave us all the connections and times and it made it super easy. There was a similar one for the London tube. Other countries had websites you could use to figure all your connections. It makes life very easy!
• Tripit - an itinerary organising program (and web-site), while it 'looks' fairly dull we lost count of the number of times refer to our phones to verify travel details etc. Heaps easier than hunting though paper. It also updates from email confirmations and it was great for referring to flight, train and tour times while on the go. It also kept all the hotel details sorted. We gave 'read' access to family at home so they could see where we were at any given time should they need to contact us.
• Tripadvisor - for 'real world' reviews it is a great resource - you can fairly easily sort through which hotels you should just avoid and which are hidden gems. There is a note of caution - you need to read the comments on reviews to make sure they match your expectations. Frequently people would down rate an otherwise good looking hotel / museum / thing for something we would not be bothered by - the same thing happens with people up-voting for trivial reasons. That all being said it's a fabulous resource.
• GPS and google maps on our phones. You can get walking directions from any point to another and even create walking routes. It makes it hard to get lost! The downfall was when walking city streets with lots of high buildings as it often couldn't get an accurate signal. It was so good to rarely have to use paper maps.
• an ergo for quick trips and the big carrier for long days of walking. We did use our stroller for a lot of walks around Paris but we wouldn't have taken it if we had of been on the move more, but it was convenient for the type of trip we did.

Things lost and gained along the way:

Lost:

• A glove of Nic's at Zurich zoo
• Astrid's shoe on a tram in Amsterdam
• A bottle of Astrid's left at Bjorn's house in Sweden
• The passports at the B&B in Bruges, Belgium (although we did get these back)
• Nic's hat on a train in between Ghent and Brussels, Belgium
• about 2kg each for Nic and Anto (yes we ate ALL that food and still lost weight). For the record Astrid gained about a kilo!

Gained:

• 72 kg of luggage. We left with 58kg (3 checked bags, 3 onboard bags and a stroller) and came back with 130kg (6 checked bags, 3 onboard bags and a stroller).

.......and our thoughts on Paris:

we went to heaps of wonderful places but we spent the most time in Paris. Anto was keen to go to Paris. I wasn't resistant to the idea but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to spend so much time there compared to moving around.  I wondered whether Paris was over-rated. Well, we loved it! Paris is, well Paris! It is spectacular to walk around and soak up the Parisian culture. Living in an apartment in a bustling residential area made it so much easier to immerse ourselves in the Parisian lifestyle, it was amazing that in just under two months we started to look at some of the things back in Australia as strange and unsusual. Oh and the food. the pastries, breads and wine was to die for!

Trip stats:
Days: 60
Countries visited: 8
Cities visited: 16
Flights: 10
Days with long regional or international train trips: 16
Days with local trains, buses and trams: about 55!
Distance travelled: 40,603km (as recorded by tripit)
Distance walked: about 700km (we didn't record all our walking but based on what we recorded this seems a fair estimate, we wore through some boot soles!).
Fun had: too much too count!

10 November - Wet, wet, wet in Luxembourg

We were up early and off to Gare de L'Est railway station via the metro for our train to Luxembourg. We didn't get lucky this time and Astrid woke up with our alarms so she was also up early.  This was a slightly later train so the bakeries in our street were open and we managed to grab some brioche and croissant for the train journey.

Our train was on time and as we had booked this trip on our Eurail pass we were in first class, which meant big seats and lots of room to spread out. We had made a last minute decision to take an extra bag to leave at the train station so we could bring the tablet and some toys for Astrid. It turned out to be a good decision and she happily watched playschool for the entire train ride while eating chocolate brioche and croissant.  Walking up and down the train pretty much everyone was watching tv on laptops or i-pads so we weren't the only ones.

The train was particularly efficient and spend most of the trip on 300km/h between stations and we reached Luxembourg in a little over 2 hours.  It was looking like a nice day when we left Paris, and the forecast for Luxembourg was acceptable but when we got there it was grey and cold.  Unfortunately the forecasts seem to be unreliable and we don't have many options with which days we pick to go places, so we get stuck with whatever weather we happen to get. It's a real pain when you only have one day in a city and it's awful weather.

The entire country of Luxembourg is only about 5% slightly bigger than the whole of the A.C.T and it's population about 20% bigger than Canberra. It's a little weird that it's a whole other country, but we thought it would be interesting to explore. Luxembourg city area is fairly small (about the size of Civic at home) and we were just planning to walk around it for the day.  The railway station is about 2km from the main city area and in the newer part of town.  Once out of the station we discovered our GPS and maps weren't working on our phones so we had to go old school and follow signs and find a tourist office!

Luxembourg city is split by the Alzette river and has a huge valley running through it. The 'Grund' is the area located at the base of the valley. The newer part of town is near the railway station and seems to be mostly office buildings and departtment stores. Being a Saturday other than chain stores, not much was open. We walked over the bridge towards the old town and the valley and river did look quite picturesque despite it being a very grey and misty morning.  The trees were displaying all their Autumn colours and if the sun had of come out it would have been spectacular. We did note that we haven't had much luck with getting anything other than grey days in many of the cities we have visited.

The old town was full of lovely buildings and cobbled streets. We did immediately notice that the streets are full of *very* expensive looking shops, equipped with security guards and that Luxembourg is much closer in feel to the Swiss cities than the French ones.  It seemed very proper and people quite polite.  It did feel a little odd though.  They are officially tri-lingual with French, German and Luxembourgish (yes that is a language, apparently!) all spoken. Plus, pretty much everyone spoke English (and also Italian and Portugese are also widely spoken). The signs were all a mix of French, German and Luxembourgish and it was kind of hard to make much out because Luxembourgish is a mix of French and German words with some other stuff thrown in we couldn't make out at all. Most people asked what language we wanted when we spoke to them and it was hard to know what to use when ordering things, so we mostly just went with English.  Apparently in schools they teach all three official languages plus English and you are supposed to be proficient in all to graduate.

We noted that within 5 minutes of leaving the railway station we had the first Ferrari drive past us at high speed and we frequently spotted very expensive looking cars all day long.  They also LOVE their dogs. Dogs were everywhere. Big ones, small ones, and many dogs dressed up in arrays of sparkly outfits. We also saw a dog come into the lunch cafe in it's own 'wheely carrier' dressed up in a sparkly top.

We wandered around the old town and despite having read reviews of how expensive the food was  in Luxembourg we were impressed to see the variety was huge, with lovely restaurants, impressive patisseries and chocolatiers. It was very similar to Paris, with slightly more German influence and bigger, cleaner more polite streets.

Astrid had fallen asleep in the carrier so we wandered around having a look in expensive shop windows (we were unlikely to buy much here we decided) and found some markets with delicious looking Italian food and Viennese nuts. We found the tourist office and picked up some maps. At this point Astrid was awake so we decided to grab some lunch. In the town square and streets surrounding it there was a ton of cafes, mostly French and Italian influenced. We were keen on some of the more German influenced food but it seemed very meat heavy and nothing vegetarian for me. Same with most of the French influenced cafes. It was hard to tell though as most menus didn't have English and the language mix was random so we had minimal idea what most dishes were other than picking out the odd French or German word we knew.

We eventually found what looked like a nice cafe place spread over 3 levels. It had a lots of crepes, salads, pizzas and focaccias and waffles. It was well priced and we got a whole pizza, a ciabatta and salad and a croque monsieur and 2 hot drinks for under 25 Euro. We didn't even made a dent in all the food, which was a shame since the crepes and waffles looked yum. The drinks menu was amusing. It was literally about 30 pages long and most of the drinks came with various assortments of alcohol in them. You could also get cocktails for around 6 Euro and it seemed common to drink cocktails or coffees with alcohol at lunch.  We have since learnt that Luxembourg sells the most alcohol in Europe per capita. A fact reinforced when we visited supermarkets that were 30% chocolate and biscuits, 50% alcohol and 20% everything else.

After our lunch we headed out to do some sight seeing to discover it was raining. Undeterred we headed back towards the river and down the many many stairs into the valley. The steep stone walls and cobblestone paths are lovely to walk down but it was quite wet and slippery, especially as most were moss covered. We couldn't get many photos as it was raining quite heavily and we forgotten our umbrella.  We wandered for about an hour and a half, along the river and back up over the bridge. Rocky cliffs surround the river on three sides


The cliffs contain the casemates which are tunnels, passages and galleries originally used for defending the Castle and moving armory. The total 23km in length but are only open until October so we missed going in them (not that I minded since I don't like small, dark spaces). You could see the barred windows from the outside in places though. We also walked through some of the UNESCO listed heritage sites and the old fortifications. If it wasn't pouring with rain and we weren't totally sogged through it would have been more pleasant.

Astrid was being good despite being wet and we thought we all needed to warm up. We found a cafe and got some hot chocolate (which was rich and delicious) and some afternoon tea pastries. We weren't the only ones huddled in a cafe trying to dry out. It enjoyed our snack and watching them bake baguettes. It was pretty similar to being in Paris except the food was cheaper and the languages weirder.

Totally sodden but wanting to do a bit more sight seeing we went out to find an umbrella. We found the ugliest Luxembourg umbrella imaginable but it was cheap. It was a complicated transaction though involving many bits of paper and waiting around for an 8 Euro umbrella.  We decided that it wasn't worth seeing the Palace that the Duke lives in as the photo in the tourist brochure makes it look like most of the other buildings around. So we headed back through the valley for another walk through the cliffs and the Grund. It was raining less and we took a different path and got a few photos, although it was still grey and misty.

5 November - Schedules and plans gone awry....

When we originally planned our little overseas trip we were trying to keep things fairly flexible, so we had options, and made our life easier while travelling with a baby. Our idea was to have a base (our apartment in Paris) and do multi day International trips and single day trips within France, all while haveing time in Paris to explore, and enough time to and flexibility to allow for weather, illness and toddler tantrums. Sounds all good and easy right?

Some of our plans may have come a little unstuck.  Having the apartment in Paris has been great. We have seen most of the things within Paris we really wanted to see, although we have a couple to go still we have mostly ticked our to-do list. Our Switzerland trip went well but the next month is looking a little crowded at this point.

We have all been sick on and off (or in my case continuously) since a few days before Switzerland. This has meant we have delayed some of our out of Paris trips and some of the more physical activities, like cycling around Versailles.  Astrid being sick the last few days has meant we haven't wandered far from our apartment, trying to get her to rest.  All of this, and the fact that we didn't take into account many tourist attractions closing or reducing hours over Winter (read from the start of November) into account, tt looks like we might not get everything done we want.  Anto wanted to take Astrid to Parc Asterix, but they are closing tomorrow for the year and she just hasn't been well enough to allow a day running around a theme park.  Then we have had huge issues with our train pass.

We got a Eurail pass to allow us to get train tickets more cheaply and allow us some flexibility in booking trips. Flexibility, hah! Using it is akin to trying to book flights with frequent flyer points. We booked as many of our trains as possible before leaving Australia, but bookings only open a certain time period before travel and not many seats (or any) are available on most trains.  Even booking before leaving we couldn't get all the seats we wanted and have since discovered the trains to be mostly empty, which is a little frustrating.

This brings us to today. We needed to finalise a few bookings for next weeks trips so spent the morning in the apartment trying to make sure we had our trains, accommodation and activities sorted for Brussels and Amsterdam.  We also needed to book some trains for later in the month when we head to Bruges and Ghent. Astrid spent the morning watching tv and driving us up the wall as we utilised the laptops and wifi to it's full advantage.  It's hard to get much done with a small person wanting biscuits, playschool and attention constantly. Here is Astrid chilling with her pal Violet, watching Playschool, while dad 'researches':


After awhile we went out for some groceries. Not such a chore when you can wander up and down your street obtaining fresh produce!  Then we decided to have an early lunch at our favourite organic cafe (opposite our apartment). It's always a fun place to go as it's communal seating and you meet some interesting people. The food is always delicious. Today I had a winter vegetable tartine with goat's cheese. Anto had an apple, prosciutto and blue cheese salad and Astrid had a croissant and a copious amount of bread from the American family sitting at our table (spread with various Belgian spreads).  They were all delicious and I also tried their unsweetened cardamom chai latte which was yummy!

Full of lunch Astrid had a lovely long sleep while we tried to book more trains. This is where our frustration went through the roof.  We have limited days left to do trips within France and we want to use up our Eurail pass days but we can't book online with the pass so we had to go to a train station to book with the Eurail pass.  Even researching online we were pretty sure we couldn't get the trains we wanted on the pass.

If you aren't travelling with a child it would be easy to rock up at a train station, pick the cheapest point to point ticket and just hang around drinking coffee and killing time til your train. It doesn't work so well when you have a small person to consider.  Most of our trips we are only planning one day in each location so we want an early train out and evening train back to maximise our time. We also try to pick times that don't make the day too long for Astrid, or allow her an opportunity to have a decent sleep on the train.  We also ideally try to plan our activities so if we have a really long travel day we have the next day free so that she can catch up on sleep and not get too over tired.

The next month is looking very hectic with trips and our inability to book things for this week has meant we might be faced with a lot of back to back long days in the last couple of weeks before coming home.  In Switzerland Astrid was really good with travelling 5 days straight but she did get a bit cranky after a few days. Some of the days we have planned for the next few days are longer travel wise than the Switzerland days so it could get ugly.  If we weren't travelling with a baby we would be happy to get up at sparrows fart, snooze on a train, look at things all day and then snooze on a late train back to Paris and sleep in the next day. This does not work with a 16 month old though! She just gets overtired as she will sleep during the day but only short naps. She also will get up early the next day no matter what time you get in the day before. I guess this is why coffee was invented :)

Once Astrid got up from her sleep we decided to go for a bit of a walk and try and book some train tickets. We walked up to Gare Du Nord and as usual the Paris weather decided to be unpredictable and we got rained on. It was a pleasant walk and we walked through some areas we hadn't seen before. Once at the station it took us ages to find the correct ticket station. We were lucky to find an extremely helpful ticket officer who both spoke English and was happy to play peek a boo with Astrid through the glass ticket office window.  She eventually managed to find us tickets on our pass for both Luxembourg this weekend and our trip to Bruges.

An another annoying fact about Eurail passes, you have to pay booking fees for each trip you book, even though the pass gives you travel on whatever trains you want for that day.  The 'booking fees' vary between train companies and can get quite pricey. Today's example, the return trains to Luxembourg cost us 24 Euro in booking fees for both of us, fairly acceptable and even including the pass cost it's very good value for first class tickets on a 2.5 hour each way trip. The one way trip to Bruges was 84 Euro in booking fees for the both of us (Astrid is always free) and it's a shorter trip........  It drives you mad!

It was now pouring so we metro'd back to the apartment for dinner and Astrid's bedtime and hit the internet into the wee hours trying to fit in a day trip for this Wednesday.  On the good news front Astrid is much better and actually managed a whole day without baby panadol..... and she slept through without waking us up.  In the spirit of good news here is a photo of one of the MANY lovely chocolatiers on our street:

.... and Astrid enjoying her Pistachio eclair for dessert: