Another beautiful breakfast of cheese, cold meats, fresh bread and coffee. Daniel and Gabi have spoilt us and we never want to leave this beautiful country! This morning we headed to Lucerne, Wayne fully recovered from his motion sickness of yesterday and Vicki with her cold. The drive to Lucerne is around 30 minutes on a wonderful 4 lane freeway, 2 lanes in each direction. Daniel and Gabi knew of a parking station not far from the Reuss River that separates the old and new town of Lucerne. The river is crystal clear and quite free flowing but controlled by a dyke that can be opened up depending on rainfall or I assume snow melts as well. The bridges are beautiful wooden structures. Interesting with different heights of the handrails. Daniel pointed out the high side ... read more

This morning we bid farewell to Rosemary, 52 Clichy (our Parisian home) and Paris. Our taxi was booked for 7:45am and arrived at 7:43. The travel to Charles De Gaulle Airport was very smooth. A bit of congestion around the airport which is typical of large cities. We found the taxis in Paris to be spotlessly clean, the drivers friendly enough (they don't talk while they're driving which is fair enough given the chaos they have to work within) and very efficient. We flew with Swiss Air from Paris to Zurich. The check in queue was lengthy but fortunately we'd checked in on line the previous day so were taken from the long queue to a very short queue and we were able to check our luggage very efficiently. Then it was off to our gate ... read more

Another great healthy breakfast with Rosemary at 52 Clichy B&B before heading out for the day. Our first stop was Notre Dame, we're old hands on the Paris Metro now and got there including a change of train without any issue. On the way to Notre Dame we stopped at Pont D'Arcole for a photo of the Seine River. A great view on top of the bridge before walking up to Notre Dame. A wonderful building but as is the Paris way plenty of people and very long lines but extremely detailed and wonderful architecture. Following a very nice lunch at Soliel D'or on Boulevard St Michel we boarded a metro bus for the Louvre. More stunning architecture and a great chance to just sit and take in more of the Paris atmosphere. After the Louvre ... read more

After another great breakfast we headed out to resolve Vicki's SIM card issues. In our haste to leave the hotel we never took our passports so we were unable to get anywhere. We'll resolve this in Paris one way or the other. Wayne has picked up a sore throat and runny nose so we found a chemist and got some drugs to get this sorted before it turns to full blown man flu, as no travel insurance known to mankind covers for that. While we were out in Mainz we also got a hat for Vicki and a cap and sunglasses for Wayne. His sunnies died a cruel death on the way over. Back to the Hilton Mainz to check out and get a cab to Mainz HBF for the train to Mannheim then on to ... read more

After enjoying a great breakfast at the hotel we caught a cab, Mercedes, to Mainz hbf (Hautbahnhof or main station in English). Buying a ticket on the train is fairly simple as the machines are in multiple languages. The trick is being able to find the right platform but it is also pretty easy once you work out the time of the day and what train number you're on. Also if in doubt ask the staff at the information booths as they understand English. We needed to be in Frankfurt for Ingelise's (Wayne's aunty) arrival at 10:30 and we were there in plenty of time. We'd heard of the ticketing officers who will gladly charge you 60 EUR if you don't have ticket. Today we met them. We were sitting on the train to Frankfurt and ... read more