Swedish summer at its best

Three Weeks on the Rails in Europe

Whoa, three weeks travelling around Europe by train requires a few days of recuperation, so this post has been a bit delayed. But it's a whopper.

Our route took us all over Western Europe exclusively by rail, though our feet naturally did get a workout too (and yes, despite some last minute hesitation, I took my travel bike as well, without any real complications!).  We started with a relatively short trip to Copenhagen, where we had a hotel stay and a visit to the Tivoli amusement park to get Bea used to walking...

Pirate-themed dinner...

A pretty nice hotel.

The next day we had a late departure, so we took a walk along Ströget, the famous pedestrian street.  They've opened a fantastic Lego shop here, where you can buy bricks in bulk, which we did of course:

...and played with on the next train to Hamburg.

After a ferry crossing we changed to a sleeper train in Hamburg:

We had the top bunk for this journey, which was nice.  Like having a little private room with very limited headspace.  There was an Alex Singer and some other nice randonneur bike in the cycle compartment.

Upon arriving in Paris we took the Metro across town to Austerlitz and left our bags in a storage locker for 10€ and headed out for a day in Paris.  We lunched by Notre Dame...

...But the crowds there scared us away.

...so we continued to the Louvre...

...and the Tuileries...

...and onward over half of Paris it seems.  Finally we could board our night train to the Riviera.

We took a walk on the Cap that evening...

Bea and Clara played on the beach.  Here "selling" colored stones.

When it was time for a siesta the store closed and the rocks were turned over.

One night there was live oldies Rock and Roll:

One night we had Bruno and Sophie for dinner:

One morning they entertained us by pruning the palm trees outside:

I took some pretty nice rides with my bike.  We don't have terrain like this in Sweden:

On Friday the 13th Roquebrune celebrated Bastille Day, a day early as usual.  Bea got her face painted...

...and Clara's mother Giorgia finally showed up.

There was a crazy, flaming bicycle contraption parade:

After one and a half wonderful weeks of sun, saltwater, cycling, and the fruits of French summer, we boarded a little wreck of a milk run train in Ventimiglia to take us to the next phase of our adventure:

Cinque Terre:

We stayed in a room with a bath off the main street of Vernazza, the middle of the five villages that make up this area.  One night we were entertained by live Opera on the village square:

The next morning we watched boys and men fishing off the pier before taking a train to Corniglia  east of town to hike the trail back to Vernazza.

...we packed a refreshing melon with us.

We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant above the town on the way in.  The waiter was friendly and gave us the scoop on the aftermath of the previous fall's floods.  The view from our table looked familiar...

...later we walked up the trail on the other side to see that view of the harbor...

That evening we watched a Swedish boy play a game up pick-up soccer with the locals...

But all too soon it was time to board another train...

To Florence.  We took a quick walk and ended on the Oltrano, where we saw live music in front of Santo Spirito:

...and then walked home in the dark.

The next day, it was straight to the Duomo after a quick breakfast at the market.

...and up...

...and up...

...and up...

...and up...

...and up...

An amazing accomplishment of Renaissance architecture and engineering, a real highlight of the trip.

We visited more churches before the day was through.

The next morning we had a 10:15 appointment at the Uffizi, but saw this puppet maker and had to stop:

Bea picked out Little Red Riding Hood.

...lunch was followed by gelato at Vivoli again, and a long walk home.

The last picture from the Sigma DP1, which died on our last day in Florence.

Children's art classes in Oltrarno, and Madeleine with the Ponte Vecchio.

Our next train journey took us on ÖBB from Bologna to Munich.  A wonderful train ride in old-fashioned compartments.  Bea made fast friends with German girl Nina.  People thought they were sisters.

We were met by André, a friend of Madeleine's from her English courses at Cambridge.

A day of walking around Munich finished with a dinner at the brewery across from the train station.

A nice German ICE took us back to Copenhagen, again on a ferry:

And finally we were back in Scandinavia.