Sand Nick Carys and Ben

The day has arrived. It's been very fun and very interesting, but unfortunately today is the last day of our trip around Europe. After an earlier-than-usual breakfast we drove about an hour west to Monaco. This is the second smallest country in the world, behind Vatican City, and while both countries are very wealthy they take a very different approach to displaying that wealth. Monaco is sooooo ostentatious! Our first stop was the famous Casino Square which is part of the Formula One circuit, and we found that it was hosting a small car show....Ferraris, Porsche, Rolls, Lamborgini, McLaren etc. Pretty amazing to be honest, but as our visit progressed we realized that the car show wasn't so special. There were uber-fancy cars on every street, and when we went down to the marina the mega-yachts ... read more

Today was a very relaxed day for us here in France. Our hotel does a very good basic breakfast by the pool....coffee and croissants etc. We enjoyed that and then, armed with a few local property magazines and my sunglasses, I took my place by the pool as the kids went swimming. A half hour later I was totally ready to make offers on several of the massive villas by the Med but then decided that a dip in the pool might be a better idea. A couple of hours around the pool was followed by a light lunch and then we piled into the rental car to look for a beach. Most of the coast around here is rocky but the hotel manager pointed us towards an area around Theoule-sur-Mer where there are a few ... read more

Our second day here in Prague has involved a lot of walking again but we included a few more drink stops and added a tram ride so our legs are less tired than yesterday. High on a hill close to the castle we'd seen Prague's answer to the Eiffel Tower and we made that our first destination this morning. We walked over the river to our second funicular railway of the trip. The 40 minute wait for a ticket may have been a mistake as I'm pretty sure we could have walked up the hill in half that time. But then again we'd have ended up with tired kids in this heat so maybe it was the right call. At the top of the hill is the Petrin Observation Tower which is a 1/4 size imitation ... read more

We left Vienna this morning on a four hour train ride to Prague. The trains have been a great way to get around but they've been very full so it was a great decision to reserve seats that evening a few days ago in Budapest as we'd never had found four seats together otherwise. Vienna was a great place to visit, but the fact that it was a little more upmarket was made clear by the fact that despite looking Ben did not find a single shop to buy a football (soccer) shirt. I don't think he'll have a problem in Prague! On arrival in Prague we ran into the now-familiar problem of not having local currency cash to pay the taxi driver. In Vienna we found someone reluctantly willing to take a credit card, here ... read more

Thanks to Midge Ure and Ultravox we have had a theme tune for today. Our last morning in Budapest was relatively quiet. We visited the nearby market to get food for the train ride to Vienna and headed to the station via the very-modern and efficient subway/underground system. The train to Vienna took just under three hours and gave us new views of Hungary, along with glimpses of Slovakia to the north across the Danube. The train was quicker and far cheaper than flying but it did have one big downside....more stinky people. I'm sure that 97f/36c is exacerbating the problem but there is real opportunity around here for Right Guard. On arrival in Vienna we took a short taxi ride to our hotel. Much like Kraków we are just on the edge of the town ... read more