We said our goodbyes to Jarrod, Tim and Isaac this morning at 6.30am. After an extra goodbye to Jarrod who left his puffer jacket in our hotel room and had to make an extra trip up to the third floor to get it, they headed for Munich airport for their flight home to Australia.

The 11 remaining tourists met in the lobby at 8am and rolled our suitcases to the train station for our 8.53am train to Zurich. We were there in plenty of time to grab croissants and pastries for breakfast, a cup of the worst coffee we’ve had yet, and also had time to work out the correct carriage and our correct seats for this trip.

Three and a half hours later we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland and had 8 minutes to get all our bags off the train and get to platform 7 for our next train, a 50 minute ride to Lucerne.

Once there we rolled our bags down a main street to our new hotel, Hotel Cascada. With breakfast included and free minibar use, we enjoyed our still and sparkling waters and Coke, as well as a much better coffee from the pod machine in the room. The kids went to McDonalds back near the train station for lunch, while Ross and Sam explored and found some quiches for us at a cafe nearby, and I stayed in the room with my foot up because my ankle has packed it in again.

We then congregated in the lobby and did our own walking tour of the Old Town. I had used the time elevating my foot to read every brochure available in the room, so took everyone to the Chapel Bridge, Needle Dam, Spreuer Bridge (built in 1407 as part of the city’s fortification efforts) and other sites. We even wandered as far up as the Lion Monument.

While this is another beautiful city with picture-perfect mountains in the backdrop, it is an expensive city. We struggled to find a restaurant for less than 50 Swiss francs a head – which doesn’t sound terrible until you times that by 11 at our exchange rate which means it will be almost A$100 each. We settled for takeaway pizza in our rooms!

While everyone kept walking in the “strollable” city as it is called, I caught the bus back to our hotel after our exploring, because transport is free for tourists who stay in the city and pay the city tax.

We are missing Jarrod and his organisation, but impressed ourselves getting here without his help today! We are also thankful for his detailed preparation including spreadsheets and budgets – Luke checked it to compare what we were charged when we arrived, and when we questioned it, the hotel was very apologetic that they had mistakenly overcharged us A$2k!

I was able to update Jarrod who was sitting at Abu Dhabi airport waiting for their second flight which was delayed an hour, and he suggested that “saving“ could be added to the boys’ beer budget, but it might just cover our meals while here!

We left our hotel at 9am, grabbed a croissant at the train station, and went out to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. We tried to pay to join an 11am tour (4 euros each), but the cashier had trouble believing we were all from the one family! Ummm, I don’t have all these people in tow for fun or because I don’t know them, mate….. He also suggested Oliver was too young to do the tour, but it said on the website it was not for under 12’s – Oli can’t help his short Jones genes!

The tour was very informative and a lesson once again that we should protect our democracies, and keep power in the hands of the people. We did have a couple from Chicago USA on the tour, who looked shocked when the tour guide described Hitler promising to make Germany great again and pointing out several other of Hitler’s Trump-like promises.

We visited the barracks, the gas chamber and several stops around the site. Only four of us had worn waterproof shoes though, so the constant rain and snow and melting ice underfoot meant we were all ready to find somewhere warm and defrost at the end of the tour. I am very thankful Belle had room in her suitcase for my new waterproof hiking boots when I couldn’t fit them in mine! I also can’t fathom being imprisoned here with one pair of striped pyjamas, basic clogs and a thin hat in weather like this.

Jarrod had seen a Subway near the train station, so once the bus from the camp site dropped us there, we grabbed some lunch and headed back home.

Jarrod, Luke, Ross, Tom and Abi alighted early to go and see the Nymphenburg Palace, but everyone else was too wet and just wanted to go home and dry out. I took everyone’s wet clothes and their other washing down to the laundromat Ross used two nights ago – Sam had helped him then so he came with me to show me what to do which sped up the process.

Then I sent him to walk the two blocks back to the hotel to shower and warm up while I sat amongst the machines – my happy place 😂 And I need a happy place because I am sad about Jarrod, Tim and Zac leaving us to go home tomorrow!

The Palace closed at 4pm in winter, so the others just explored the grounds and then headed back to the hotel.

On their way back they booked dinner at a restaurant for us all, two blocks in another direction from our hotel. The Altmunchner Gesellenhaus was a lovely large restaurant, with very few patrons on a Sunday night (until the 14 of us showed up!). We enjoyed more schnitzel, steak and vegetables, pasta, and chicken dishes for our farewell meal, then said a round of goodbyes with Jarrod, Tim and Zac.

We will miss them but for now are now trying to get them to finish packing and go to sleep, because they have to leave at 6.30am to get to Munich airport for their 10.30am flight home!

Luke found a two hour walking tour that began at 10.45am in the Old Town, so took his family to find breakfast before that began. When Jarrod went to add us on to the tour, he found the tour was full, so we decided to have breakfast near its starting point and see if we could still join, or just do the 2pm tour.

Free walking tours would probably have no-shows quite regularly, and while the tour guide at first said she couldn’t fit us in, she then counted her attendees and changed her mind, so added another 7 of us to the tour. Meanwhile, Jarrod had received an email at dinner last night to say that Tom’s phone had been found, so he and Abi were on a train by 6am to Frankfurt this morning to pick it up.

Our walking tour was very good and informative, but a lot of walking! We watched the Glockenspiel at 11am on the city hall, and saw several important sites and learnt more about the history of Munich. Two spots stood out to me more than the others.

The tour guide talked about the monarchy and the successive kings: Maximilian, Ludwig the First, , Maximilian the Second, Ludwig the Second…… She mentioned Ludwig the First having several mistresses as well as a wife, and how he was very taken by and influenced by one called Lola Montez. Well that made Belle blush immediately!

In 2020 during lockdown, Belle’s year 6 class was asked to research a famous person, and she stumbled across Lola Montez who apparently created salsa dancing (amid many more sordid and scandalous details) and, according to 11 year old Belle, “looked prettier on Wikipedia than the others the teacher suggested they research”. Belle prepared a presentation on cardboard to present to her class over Zoom, and it was only because I checked the information and was horrified at what I read that she came to realise what words like “exotic dancing” actually meant. She thought she tore up the presentation and started again with one of the approved research suggestions, but she doesn’t know I have that Lola research stored away for her 21st 😂. It was funny to hear the tour guide talk at such length about that character today!

The other spot that stood out to me was the commentary on Hitler’s rise to power (and its similarity to some aspects we see in politics overseas today, but I digress…..). A clash Hitler and his supporters had failed but the experience taught Hitler that an attempt to overthrow the state by force would bring forth a military response in its defense. From that time on, he was committed to taking advantage of the Weimar democracy to subvert the state from within. He sought to come to power by means of the popular vote. He aimed to influence that vote by using the freedoms of speech and assembly guaranteed by the Weimar Republic.

A statue created for 16 of Hitler’s supporters killed in this clash (the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923) had to be saluted every time people walked past the statue in Odeonsplatz. If they didn’t want to salute, there was an alternative route to avoid the statue that became a cobblestone street of silent protest, The alternative way that jews and brave dissenters took to avoid the Odeonplatz went through the small alley of Viscardigasse, and a small cobbled stone path marks their way. In 1995, a line of bronze cobblestones called “Argumente” (English: “Arguments”) was installed in Viscardigasse to memorialize those who resisted the Nazi regime.

The tour ended at 1.15pm and we decided to have lunch at a famous beer hall we had seen on the tour, Hofbrauhaus, where everyone ordered …..schnitzels!

From there we divided into two groups – one wanted to climb many steps to a Tower lookout and the rest wanted to take the elevator option to the top of Munich Cathedral to its lookout. I tapped out once I heard that option involved 90 steps to get to the elevator, and chose to sit in the Cathedral and wait for the others, but everyone returned quite underwhelmed with both lookouts.

Abi and Tom had arrived back by then, with Tom’s phone! We all returned to the hotel and ordered in pizzas for dinner so we didn’t have to brave the cold and go out again (it’s negative degrees here). This hotel has a rule that you can’t eat in your room or risk an additional cleaning fee, so they open up their dining room for free use. That suits us because once again we can all congregate together!

We enjoyed our last hearty breakfast at Hotel Hohenstauffen, packed our bags and said goodbye to the owner, who laughed at us (as she had in every interaction we had had with her) and told us we were a lovely family they had enjoyed hosting (I know…..she laughed at us all the time!).

Snow had fallen overnight so we crunched along on the ice, rolling our bags up to Platform 1 to catch a train to Munich. Cooper insisted on taking my suitcase as well as his – I think he just wanted me to focus on getting there without slipping on the ice!

We were in plenty of time for our train, but once again the carriages were not well signed or numbered sequentially, so we boarded the wrong carriage and by the time we found our correct seats, there were not 14 empty seats – other people had helped themselves to them! So we sat in the last carriage of unreserved seats for the 1 hour 45 minute journey to Munich.

The mountains surrounding Salzburg are so close and make everything look like a postcard. Salzburg is so close to the border that we had crossed it into Germany by the time we reached the first stop not long after we departed.

An hour and a half later I heard the message over the loudspeaker talking about arriving in Munich and thankyou for travelling with them. I commented to Luke that it was a quicker trip than scheduled, but still shuffled everyone off the train plus the 14 suitcases as quickly as possible so no one was left behind. As the doors closed and the train departed, Jarrod realised we had disembarked a station too early so were not close to our hotel. Simultaneously, Tom realised that he had left his phone on the train!

Jarrod (having experience in this area) multitasked extremely well……he looked up how to get us to the right station while getting assistance for Tom and filling out an online form for lost property. Once Tom had done all he could to lock the phone and hope soon for its return, we caught a local train to the next (correct) stop, and rolled our suitcases along the streets for 10 minutes to our new hotel, Hotel Brunnenhof.

As only one of our three rooms was ready, we left all the bags in there and went to explore Munich’s Old Town. After a late lunch at Five Guys, we looked around at the shops and historic buildings, and then returned to the hotel to check in and unpack. We only have three rooms here, so Ross and I took the family room to share with Abi, Belle, Jarrod and Tim.

We then returned into the Old Town for dinner at 7pm as Ross had booked us into an Augustine beer hall/restaurant – the boys said the beers were good, but the food was too big in portion size after our 2.30pm lunch.

Ross then did some laundry for me at a local laundromat, so I was still folding clothes at 11pm – a normal night time activity at home at that hour, but strange here to be up so late…..our days are so full and the sun goes down so early that I have found myself ready for bed by 9pm regularly on this trip.

The girls (minus Jess) had an earlier start today, as we had to be at the Mirabell Gardens at 9am for our Sound of Music tour! It was great, taking us to many sites used as filming locations, playing the soundtrack on the bus for everyone to sing along to, and giving us behind the scenes info about the filming of the movie.

It took us as far as Wolfgangsee and Mondsee (where the wedding was filmed). We stopped there for morning tea, but the service was so slow, we didn’t have long to spend in the church. The tour finished back at the Mirabell Gardens where a lot of Do Re Mi was filmed, so after Beck, Abi, Belle and I took a lot of photos and recreated some scenes, we went to meet the boys (plus Jess) for lunch.

Meanwhile, the boys plus Jess went to the Catacombs, visited two churches, and went to Dom Quartier, a lifestyle and art museum. I asked Luke for a guest post about their morning, and that’s what he told me, and this is what he showed me! 😂 Apparently there was lots of art to look at and dress ups to use…

We met them all at a restaurant not far from the gardens called Bärenwirt, where we ate yet another schnitzel! I actually asked for a pork cutlet not realising it was just a pork schnitzel rather than a veal schnitzel.

The boys picked that restaurant because there was a brewery nearby where they were hoping to do a beer tour after it opened at 3pm. With some time still to kill before 3pm, we decided to walk back into the Old Town to visit Mozart’s birthplace and the Mozart museum. It did teach me some facts about the Mozart family I didn’t know, but there were SO many people in the museum! At 15 euro per adult, it was not a cheap attraction but definitely drew the crowds, and for us it was included in the Salzburg card we had purchased.

The boys then headed back to the brewery, while the rest of us headed back to the hotel. Zac, Beck, Jess and Oli were keen to get inside out of the cold, while Abi, Belle and I continued on down the road to another attraction included in our Salzburg card called Bible World. It billed itself as an immersive experience of stories from the Bible. The concept and space was great, but the execution was…..well, we are still processing our experience…..

The boys couldn’t join a brewery tour without booking in advance, so enjoyed a couple of beers there instead at a table with an Austrian man called Rudolph who could not speak English.

They then picked up Subway for everyone on their way back to the hotel and we enjoyed eating all together again in the Baroque room. Everyone turned in early tonight though, with the last three stayers being myself, Abi and Zac, who has felt marginally better each day. He wanted to be the last one up for a change, even though he looked like this!

We were a little concerned about this accommodation because we could have been stuck in several different separate hotel rooms over the new year, but the Baroque room being made available to us allowed us to congregate and eat together every single night, which was lovely. It has been a lovely place to stay in a central location in a city I’ve never been to before but now love.

Our family had an earlier start today as we had booked a chamber music concert. It is an annual special event held each early January in the Golden Hall of the 900 year old Fortress Hohensalzburg. Works by Mozart and Strauss as well as others are performed by internationally-renowned soloists in a 1.5 hour concert. It was very well done.

The cousins tapped out of the concert and walked through the Mirabelle Gardens and visited the Natural History Museum while Beck visited the Christmas markets. They then grabbed some lunch and headed to Untersberg to meet us for a cable car ride up the mountain. Most of the experiences we have enjoyed here are covered by the Salzburg card (which also provides us with free transport).

We didn’t have time for lunch before we met them at 2pm, so once we all headed back down the mountain we went back to the Old Town for an early dinner. The boys had wanted to eat at the Goldene Kugel yesterday because they served Augustine beers but couldn’t get in, so we thought we might have more chance at 4.30 in the afternoon!

After more weiner schnitzels (and large Ox-burgers!), we explored the Christmas markets briefly again before they close tonight, and took three pretzels home for dessert.

The hotel owners again gave us access to and served us beer and cups of tea in the Baroque Room for the evening, allowing us to gather and play card games and discuss tomorrow’s plans.

We also asked the ones who braved the fireworks last night what it was like – they said they saw far more illegal fireworks let off than offical ones! They walked back to the Old Town and found a good spot near the bridge to watch the fireworks, but then found themselves in the line of fire when people around them started letting off fireworks, resulting in some people with singed clothes and near misses! 😳 The conclusion was once again that Sydney does NYE far better!

Our hotel is over 100 years old and has been run by the same family for the last three generations. They are warm and gracious hosts, and have rooms that are dated but clean. They also serve breakfast for over three hours every morning, which was a welcome change to not have to source that meal ourselves for a few days.

After we all met for breakfast at 9.30am, Zac who is still not well went back to bed, Luke took the rest of the troops into the Old Town, while Ross, Beck and I trekked to a laundromat a few blocks away with our several bags of dirty clothes. (Okay, we Uber’ed there because I didn’t want to carry dirty clothes for blocks and blocks, but they made me walk the clean clothes back!)

It was the best laundromat I have ever used – so clean, so many machines, choices of machine size (I know, only I could get excited by a laundromat….). While waiting for our washing, we explored the local area a little bit, then returned it to our hotel and bussed in to meet the others at a restaurant they had found for lunch. Following on from the best laundromat ever, at the Metzgersteig restaurant I had the best Wiener schnitzel ever! (And am looking forward to seeing if Munich can beat that).

We had intended to be at the stage near the Christmas markets, set up in Chapter Square, at 2pm. Salzburg start their NYE festivities by showing fireworks from places around the world, starting at 2pm with Sydney! But everyone was more interested in their lunch by then.

We then walked around to the Catacombs, which were closed, so took the funicular to the Fortress Hohensalzburg to explore, where the views were spectacular.

Many stairs were climbed (and my lung capacity ain’t what it was a few days ago with this chest infection!), so while the boys and Belle decided to walk down from the fortress, Abi, Jess, Beck and I caught the funicular back down (the others beat us to the bottom!).

I did want to be at Salzburg Cathedral by 5pm because the NYE activities Beck had listed included the live broadcast of the annual financial statements in the cathedral (picture attached to prove I am not making this up), but it was a whole church service. Belle and I could sight sing along with the hymns, but couldn’t understand what they were saying, so we didn’t stay for the reading of the financials. I do like its inclusion as a NYE activity though!

Those at the laundromat had missed exploring the Christmas markets, so we still need to do that, but decided to go back to the hotel with the others and revisit the markets tomorrow.

Our hotel has a happy hour in their Baroque room from 5-7pm each day, and the owner kindly let us all congregate in there for the evening. We had such a late lunch and main meal that most weren’t hungry, so they left in small groups to get a light meal from nearby shops (we are a block from the main train station, so have cafes and Subway and McDonalds close by), and we enjoyed being able to eat together instead of in our five separate rooms.

Subway was the most popular choice for dinner, which is a healthy option until Sam and Cooper find a side quest. They discovered they could order a foot long cookie!!

The Baroque room had a selection of games to play, and a guitar in the corner, so of course Jarrod spent some time playing and Belle singing. Even Uncle Luke joined in for one song – music really is in the air in Mozart’s birthplace!

I flicked through the guest book and came across a letter from the White House – it appears President Ford and his wife stayed here in 1975!

Most of us decided to turn in for the night (this is the first NYE in many decades I haven’t seen the new year in!), but Luke, Cooper, Jarrod, Tom, Abi and Sam decided to walk back to the Old Town to watch the fireworks. And so ends 2024.

Today’s roll call identified Beck feeling a little worse, Zac no better than yesterday, all others slightly improved? And I couldn’t stop coughing all night.

We took advantage of the late check out of 12pm to enjoy a sleep in, leisurely breakfast and suitcase pack, and met in the lobby at 12pm on the dot. By that time Ross and I had already decided we would go to the airport early and find somewhere for Zac to just lie and rest (ok, maybe me too) while we waited for our 6.55pm flight. Tim decided to join us, and I was very thankful he did. There were many stairs and levels to climb or descend to get the right train to the airport, and Tim swapped suitcases with me to make it easier for me. Paris stations do not seem to have lifts!

The other 10 left their bags with reception and caught the metro back into the centre of Paris. The cousins walked the length of the Champs-Elysees and had Burger King for lunch, and our family started at the Louvre for a quick look and then moved on to the Champs-Elysees for lunch.

We warned them all about the time we took getting to the airport (all stations train took an hour and a half), and my mistake taking us to the wrong terminal, so once they had enjoyed lunch and had a last look around, they returned to the hotel to get their suitcases and started the trek to the airport.

There was difficulty actually fitting on the same train, so Jarrod with Sam and Belle followed on the train behind – which was a bit stressful because Jarrod had all our flight information, and he also had responsibility for my two babies! We all met up in plenty of time for our 6.55pm flight to Frankfurt.

A layover there of an hour was followed by another flight to Salzburg at 9.30pm, also with Lufthansa. Both flights on paper were 1 hour 20 minute flights, and both took 50 minutes each. Baggage claim was extremely quick, so we were at the bus stop to catch the bus into the city to our hotel in plenty of time before the last bus for the night ran. It was 0 degrees when we arrived with a light covering of snow.

Remember me thinking the residents of Westminster would be happy to see us go after we click clacked our bags noisily at a very early hour to the station? Well we were click clacking our bags along the streets to the hotel here noisily at midnight! The boys did a Maccas run as we hadn’t had dinner, while everyone else unpacked and Zac and I drugged up yet again.

Supportive messages from home are appreciated. As are your ideas! Remind me to pack the three V’s next time I go away: Vegemite, Vicks Vaporub and Ventolin!

Everyone is now at least halfway through their holiday today. Unfortunately everyone is still not healthy…..

Ross bounced out of bed feeling much better this morning, so decided to go to Villers-Bretonneux with Jarrod. Jarrod has been keen on reaching that destination since his ancestry research, and decided last night even if everyone was too unwell to join him, he was going to head out there alone.

He told everyone he would be in the lobby ready to leave at 8.30am, and was probably surprised when Tim, Cooper and Ross all joined him. Luke had gone to bed early feeling unwell and missed the message, but after sleeping 15 hours he felt better and caught a later train out to Amiens to join them.

I felt worse, so stayed in bed and texted everyone for roll call. We are in rooms of two, so I had to wait a while to get all replies! Jess wasn’t feeling great so decided to stay in, and Zac was worse than yesterday, so he stayed in bed. Abi and Belle went to get us breakfast (after 11am by the time we all got organised!), and brought me a coffee.

Beck felt very sorry for Ollie missing Disneyland – he and Belle have both expressed they were most looking forward on this trip to Disneyland Paris and climbing the Eiffel Tower. So she decided to brave the trains, the masses, the crowds, the lines, the people (all of which she LOVES….) to climb the Eiffel Tower, and was even braver to do it alone with Ollie and Belle!

Once Zac and I had eaten something and drugged up again, I checked on Jess by text, and told Abi, Tom and Sam they should get out and do something rather than just sit at the hotel to keep me company. So they ventured off on their own quest, and Zac, Jess and I slept.

All of that to say……today’s diary entry needs to be written by others because all I did was rest! So today there are guest spots from Beck, Abi and Jarrod about their day, which will be as informative for me as everyone else reading this!

From Beck:

After a well earned sleep in, Belle, Ollie and I hit the streets of Paris (on our own) for what we thought might be a shortish visit to the Eiffel Tower followed by another shortish trip to the apartment and restaurant that doubled as film sets for the TV show Emily in Paris. Well we were wrong about anything being shortish! There was nothing short about our adventures today!
We left the hotel about midday and stopped quickly for a chocolate pastry for Belle as she hadn’t had any breakfast yet.
We travelled the 22 stops from Nation train station to Bir-Hakeim station, where the Eiffel Tower is a 700 metre walk away. We bypassed all of the men trying to sell us light up Eiffel Towers and Berets on the street and passed through our first security checkpoint.
Once inside the gardens and esplanade we had to decide whether to join the line for tickets using the elevator up or the line for tickets to walk up. The kids were keen to walk up to the second level as they said it would “enhance their experience “. We swapped lines from the elevator one to the walking one until Aunty Nik text me and said the walk included 600 steps. I pulled rank on the kids and moved us back into the elevator line!!
We were in line for so long that I had to leave the kids in the line and go and get them some lunch (Belle had Nutella crepes and Ollie had a sugar crepe and I had a bag of crisps).
Once I rejoined the kids in line with their food, we waited for just over two hours to get to the front of the line to buy tickets. We decided to again “enhance our experience” and get the tickets that took us all the way to the top of the tower (280 metres up of the 330 metre tower). We rejoined another line to get through our second security checkpoint, where we rejoined another line to get the elevator to the second floor. Once we finally got to the second floor, we rejoined yet another line to get the elevator to the top level. All in all it took us close to three hours from the time we arrived there to the time we got to the top of the tower.
Once up the top we took lots of photos and decided the wait was worth it. Albeit really cold, we had great visibility and because we had taken so long to get to the top, by the time we got down to the bottom (after doing all of the lines for elevators in reverse) the tower was lit up and beautiful.
The rest of the family had decided to meet up at 6:30pm for dinner close to home, so the three of us finished up and walked back to the station where we began the 22 stop trek back to Nation.
We arrived back at the hotel at about 6:20pm, so our shortish trip to the Tower was much longer than anticipated and we never even got close to the Emily in Paris sets. Maybe that can be on tomorrow’s todo list…

From Jarrod:

Leading with a bit of context: Each ANZAC Day of late, I’ve spent a couple hours researching the military connections of our family history. This year I was fascinated to find two distinct strong connections to Villers-Bretonneux, a small commune on the Western Front that was the scene of many Australian involvements in crucial Allied victories of the First World War.

On Mum’s side, Nicole’s great-grandfather William “Bertie” Lidgard served in the 36th Battalion, which was involved in defending both Villers-Bretonneux and the main nearby town of Amiens from the German offensive in 1918. Upon returning to Bankstown and marrying his wife, he named the family home “Villers-Bret” after the town, and it remained as such for decades afterwards.

On Dad’s side, Ross and Luke’s great-grandfather Richard Jones served in the war, following the footsteps of his older brother Harry Jones, who had enlisted at the outbreak of WWI. Harry survived the Gallipoli landings as Wounded in Action, ascended to the rank of Corporal, but then was Killed in Action on the Western Front in France in July 1916. At the conclusion of the war, an Australian National Memorial was established at Villers-Bretonneux, and the names of all diggers who had perished nearby without a marked grave during the war were inscribed on the stone walls. Harry Jones was one of those thousands of names.

With connections on both sides, it was an honour to visit the main town of Amiens, and the memorial itself at Villers-Bretonneux, with Dad, Tim, Cooper and Luke.

Amiens was convenient to get to by train from Paris – we arrived at 10:30am, had breakfast at a cafe, then explored the Amiens Cathedral. We were blown away by the cathedral – an architectural marvel (taller than Westminster Abbey), very ornate (including Australian memorabilia), and incredibly impressive for the time, having been completed in 1270. Lines for the recently reopened Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris were quoted by Beck yesterday as the longest queue she’d ever seen for anything, and yet here only an hour’s train away stood a building not at all dissimilar in age and magnificence.

Travelling to the Australian National Memorial was trickier than anticipated (to our surprise, despite being only two train stops over on the regional line, this service was only operating every 3-4 hours, so we had to settle for two taxis), and sadly the two museums out there were both closed over the Christmas break. Nonetheless it was a privilege to visit, especially when on reflection, we may have been the first visitors to ever seek the name of Harry Jones (which we located on the wall), or perhaps even as descendants of William Lidgard. We also enjoyed that the very few people we encountered were also mostly Aussies (hearing “g’day mate” is refreshing after weeks away!).

From there, we walked through the town of Villers-Bretonneux itself, which was very quiet with almost nothing open (Sunday + Christmas break, we suspect). A pair of Ubers took us back to Amiens, and we rejoined the rest of the family in time for dinner back near our accommodation in Paris. All in all, a day we felt privileged to share 🙂

From Abi:

Sam and I began the day at 11:45am by touring the shops near the hotel for supplies. These consisted of fruit and Gatorade for Zac (which also turned into extra snacks and water for everyone else) from two different supermarkets, croissants for five of us from a nearby patisserie and a coffee for Mum. Once we had bought everything we went back up to our rooms to eat and formulate a plan for the afternoon, when we decided that Sam, Tom and I were really the only ones healthy enough to go exploring.

Just after 2pm we set out for the train station and travelled to Anvers before climbing a steep hill and a number of stairs to reach the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. At this point we were glad Mum hadn’t come with us, for fear her ankle would not have coped! Although we had great views of the city at the top, the crowds were huge and there was a long line snaking around the Basilica to enter it so we soon left in search of a souvenir shop for me to buy a postcard from. (Abi is collecting a postcard a day from every destination for every day of our trip).

Sam was intent on visiting the ‘Miraculous’ bakery, a small patisserie that inspired the design of a key location in the show Miraculous. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far from the Sacre-Coeur, so once we managed to escape the crowds we headed there to take some photos and buy some pastries. The three of us ended up sharing a small moelleux chocolate cake and a hazelnut cinnamon scroll, both of which were delicious!

From the patisserie Tom walked us to the hostel he stayed at last year when he visited Paris with friends, and we were then able to walk to the Moulin Rouge. Sam got a bit of a shock from all of the storefronts we walked past on the way, but everyone was happy to take some photos of the front of the Moulin Rouge and leave it at that. By this point it was 4pm and we had achieved everything we set out to see, so the three of us got on the metro and headed back to the hotel to help figure out dinner plans.

[Thankyou for your contributions, you three who are my GOATs today! I couldn’t have got through today without them!]

Everyone was home from their quests by soon after 6pm, so we looked for a local restaurant to have dinner together. Across the large roundabout from our hotel was one called Le Dalou that was willing to take a table of 14 without a reservation. We all enjoyed hearty healthy meals, and even better, they had an entree of 12 l’escargots which I ordered because one thing I wanted to do in France was make everyone eat a snail!

We then returned to our hotel to have a glass of champagne on the rooftop. Ross and Luke bought a bottle of French champagne at Aldi when we were in Bordeaux, and everyone has been too sick since to try it. So tonight was our opportunity, and the general consensus was that we do not like it as much as the choices in Australia! The view from the hotel rooftop is spectacular though. And now it is time to drug up and head back to bed!

We THOUGHT we had our planning locked down……today we learned we were very wrong! Everything we had read suggested because this was not a busy time of year, it would not be difficult to line up for tourist attractions. And for some attractions, like the Notre Dame, tickets are only released the day before.

The cousins made an early start to fit in as much as possible and hit LONG queues everywhere they went. Online tickets for the Louvre were sold out, and the stand by queue was a very long line, so they moved on to Notre Dame where they found the same. They were able to enjoy a sit-down breakfast at a cafe they came across along the way, which was helpful because when they left the hotel it was zero degrees!

Ross and I both had really bad nights so decided not to push for such an early start. This was a good decision when we met our family for breakfast – Sam and Belle had both had horrible nights with sickness too. Abi and Ollie appear to be the only ones who haven’t had the flu we’ve been sharing, and I hope it stays that way for them because we have been quite unwell.

The healthier ones (Jarrod, Abi, Tom and Zac) went to find breakfast for all of us and returned with a selection of croissants and coffee. We then headed in with Jess to meet the others at the Arc de Triomphe. They had arrived first so Luke queued for tickets and the wait was not too long for us all. We all climbed the 272 steps and enjoyed some time in and on top of the monument.

After watching a presentation on the history of it, what impressed me most was that German troops as they marched through the city during WW2 did not march through it but around it, because they did not want to walk over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

From there we wandered down the Champs-Elysees for a while, and split up for lunch, some to fast food like Burger King or Five Guys, and some to Korean street food. Most of the cafes on the main strip had no seats inside, and it was too cold to sit outside – by 2pm it had reached the maximum for today of 2 degrees!

The wind was so biting that it freshened up the colds of those who were starting to recover, so most of us headed back to the hotel while Luke, Jarrod, Tim and Sam continued to explore. They continued on to Napoleon’s tomb and arrived at the Eiffel Tower in time to see its lights come on, and still made it back to the hotel before dark.

Being frozen to the bone, we were not keen to go out again, so ordered in some Dominos pizzas and planned our next move. Everyone ate in our room and Jarrod put up on the projector screen photos of the exploring they did after we returned to the hotel.

For the first time ever, there is a lot of pizza left over, which shows how many are unwell here! Zac being one of the ones who had recovered earlier on then went off to bed early, which is such a shame because I was hoping we could avoid reinfection.

We are horrified to find we can’t get Disneyland Paris tickets, nor Notre Dame tickets, nor Louvre tickets, and Jarrod’s plan to visit Villers-Bretonneux had the shine taken off a little when he discovered one of the museums is closed between Christmas and new year, and the other is closed on weekends!

He will still make the trek out there tomorrow though, but with a smaller crowd than initially planned because Luke is now feeling worse and Ross doesn’t think he will be up to it, even though they had planned to go with Jarrod. I will choose to believe it is a good thing that we haven’t been able to jam-pack bookings in so that we have some rest time…..because I don’t want to dwell on the devastating reality that we can’t get to Paris Disney!