Vienna...Awesome Amusement Park and Giant Schnitzel!

We spent one night in Vienna and made the most of it.  We took the Big Bus tour and our main stop was the Prater Amusement Park.  It is a cool old amusement park in the middle of the city.  It had crazy rides and tons of fun houses and haunted houses. 

The famous Ferris Wheel

Crazy ride where first it spins you around, then goes up and you spin upside down!

At the end of the haunted house ride the guy scares people with a mask, I stood outside and waited for this shot of the girls-Katie was so scared she said she kept her eyes shut the whole ride!  I like how they are both scared here!

Giant swings!

4 Level funhouse-kids had a ball in this thing...

Charlie as a hamster!

As you exited the funhouse the ticket collector would press a button that would shoot up air..we thought Katie's hair looked cool when she got the air blast!

Happy on the swings together!

From the bus..a lighthouse along the Danube River

They also did a night tour on the bus, we had a little time before it started so we went into the opera house just as the show was getting started.  We even figured out how to buy standing room tickets, but we had to get to our tour-next time!

Looking for Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible!

They believe everyone should have access to the opera, so here is the outside viewing area that streams it live!

This looks like a grocery store...but everything in here was made of crystal...and super sparkly to prove it...what crystal comes from Austria?

Here was the flagship store for the crystal...

 That was one order of schnitzel!!  When we saw our fellow diners plates we quickly decided to share a few orders!!

Before we departed in the morning, we walked the beautiful park and found statues to many of the famous composers!

Vienna was a beautiful city, we were sad to leave but excited for our next stop-Budapest!

Hanging with a Crazy Llama!

We drove through the countryside of Slovakia to get to our cottage, the drive was pretty flat and could have been a back road in Illinois!   The little cottage was perfect, it even had a thatched roof to remind us of Africa!  The kids loved the backyard hammocks...

 Charlie built a nice fire on our last night, he liked rocking in the rocking chair.

The highlights were riding the bikes down a long dirt road, passing an old water wheel...

The whole area was some sort of Nature Reserve all along a little river..no idea how to read that sign though!

The owner of the cottage told me there was a little petting zoo/farm in the next town.  At the farm we were happy to meet two friendly dogs for Charlie to pat.  We went around back to see the animals and found small horses, chickens, goats, and most importantly a llama.  We were super worried about the llama because this is how we found him.

Katie immediately started googling how to know if a llama is ok, and we learned that this is how llamas sunbathe and that this behavior is very normal and doesn't mean the llama is dying!

We could not take our eyes off the llamas crazy teeth..they were always sticking out...crooked and so darn funny.  The kids named the llama Sebastian.  Greg began do impersonations of the llama, he kept this up for the rest of the entire trip and the kids would beg him to do it. So next time you see him, please ask for him to do Sebastian for you!

The only other thing to do in this area is visit the Thermal Baths...I was super excited and Charlie was too, he loves to swim in warm water.  Greg went along to be a sport....I had some good laughs at his misery, the girls didn't like to see all the "old, flabby skin" on the locals... I don't have any inside photos, I left my phone in the locker, the girls would tell you that is a good thing!

We were pretty much the only English speaking tourists here, everyone else was locals...this was a popular place...they bring their own bathrobes and wander around in them!

We departed our cottage early...next stop Vienna...which was about an hour and a half away...everyone excited to see this famous city!  Here is the border crossing leaving Slovakia and entering Austria! (again its so nice to just drive across)

3 Capitals on the Danube-1st stop Bratislava, Slovakia

Lucky us, we got to travel the week after Easter, we flew into Bratislava.  The kids had me watch a clip of the movie Eurotrip, where they go to Bratislava and it is a total dump.  I am happy to report that the Old City of Bratislava that we visited was beautiful and charming.

We arrived just before sunset and got to stay right in the heart of the old town.  We loved having a nice dinner and walking around the old city...

The theater building was lit up beautifully.

Charlie liked this pig out in front of a restaurant.

This statue of a sewer worker popping up from the street was fun to find. 

The city added this sign after people had tripped or driven over the statue!

Happy wanderers..even Charlie which made it into a wonderful night...a tired little boy is torture!

The entry into an old bomb shelter which was now a tea house, it was fun but eerie to go down into it.

Checking out of our apartment, cool entry way into the old building, inside was nicely renovated, but many stairs to climb!

A hand painted Easter egg that was a gift from the people of Croatia.

We arrived on April 4 which was the anniversary of the liberation of Bratislava by Russia in 1945, they must have had a ceremony on the 4th, we walked by the next morning, here are all the flowers sent by countries around the world.

Here are the flowers sent by America..thought all of you American people would be happy to see this!

 At the restaurant we ate at there was this picture (of two heads on the wall). We didn't know what it was of..but as we walked around Greg found the two heads...they were on a cannon!

Good detective work I think!

 We walked to a breakfast place that had good reviews online.  Charlie thought the walk was way too long and had a bit of a meltdown on the way!  The menu was first in Slovak...we couldn't decipher any of it...I asked the lady if they had an English menu and luckily they did...we instantly found all sorts of breakfast foods we recognized!

We were surprised how much English was spoken.  It was very easy for us to get around here!

Our walk took us by the President's Palace and we must have just missed a changing of the guard ceremony at noon, they walked past us on the street...

 We then walked by the front of the palace and saw the new reliefs standing watch.

Looked like kind of boring duty, I felt for them!

Better view of the palace.

Leaving Bratislava we crossed what is known as the UFO bridge...you can see why...

Our next stop was for two nights in the countryside.  I knew I would need a break between all the big cities...Greg and the girls were not excited about the boring countryside..but Charlie and I were looking forward to it because we knew the place had bikes to ride and was by a river.