Koblenz, Germany: Just about getting by...

Welcome to Koblenz. I've lost my purse and David's already been given the key to someone else's hotel room *cue brother being frog-marched back out of it again with his backpack still on*

Motorbike and bikes allowed!

But we only have feet.

And there don't seem to be any pavements.

Um.

We sort of want to be over there (on the other side of the Rhine).

'Eek'

Here's us walking down a main road in Germany, narrowly escaping death everytime a car drives past...

!?

'Phew'

After about 2 miles of avoiding death by fast car and falling chunks of mountain, we find a bus stop.

But by the looks of this person...

...and this confusing bus timetable...

'NO BUSES EVER' run along this route.

Distracting ourselves from a long wait by acquainting ourselves with a small university village on the side of the road.

Pretty gardens!

Cool trees!

...and big, fat men wearing green pyjamas looking out into the night's sky, on garage doors

'Cool'

'NOM'

Family members fast-walking back towards the bus stop

To see this huge banquet table in the middle of Koblenz...

These cool hand-painted chairs...

A palace!

(We don't know who lived here and we, despite there being forty thousand doors across the front, didn't know how to get in either)

Lots of the places surrounding Koblenz on both sides of the Rhine...

...and a small washing machine shop paying homage to the greatest music magazine on earth.

Kruger :)

Salzberg and Vienna: Solving the "Vienna Riddle"

My friend's mum told me to write down the number of smiles I got in return for dishing out a few of my own. So I grinned my way all around Paris and I spread a few in Salzberg too. 

Only two people smiled back. 

And I'm not sure I'd even count those as smiles...

On the train from Salzberg I met the first of the smilers. His name was Michael and he seemed to find it amusing that my sister and I were trying to teach each other German phrases for the trip. He worked in advertising and before this, had worked as a DJ at a commericial station in Munich.

After teaching us how to politely ask for a cup of tea, he pulled out a biro and drew a "Vienna Riddle" for us in my diary.

It was now our mission to find each of the places illustrated on the above page...

Got one.

St Stephen's Cathedral, built in 1147.

Church with a crazy roof? Tick.

Then we had a little look through our tourist book for some wheel-shaped attractions.

There were two.

FOUND IT!

The Wiener Riesenrad

(We opted to find the older of the two which spins around in the oldest fairground in the world. Prater in Vienna opened in 1766.)

IT'S HUGE!

JUST LOOK!

We looked small.

 Then we found some cake in the Nascht Market. I don't think it was the one Michael meant for us to find, but it tasted good and had definitely been made in Vienna.

When we returned to the UK, we wrote Michael an e-mail and attached the photos above.

It went a bit like this...

"Hallo!

Guten abend!

We're back from our long trip, and here are the answers to the Vienna riddle with photos of proof that we visited each landmark attached... :) Thanks for telling us about these places!

1. St. Stephen's Cathedral - this was amazing! We came out of the subway and it was just right there! No searching necessary...

2. You nearly caught us out here because we found two wheels. But we figured that you meant the older one of the two, which we found in the fairground on our last evening in Vienna... The Wiener Riesenrad

3. CAKE. Did you mean Viennese whirl? We wanted to buy cake all day, but were so busy that we had to run and find some in the Nascht Market (the one you said would be "full of odd crap"). It had almonds on the top and tasted REALLY GOOD. Does this count?

We will send a riddle for you soon. Would you like one for London or Liverpool? Or Manchester?

We used all of the phrases you taught us! I think the people of Vienna were impressed with our accents.

Bis dann!
Helen and Cathryn x"

We are still waiting on the certificate...

***

Zurich, Switzerland: To venture out or not to venture out?

We stopped in Zurich to get a new train to Salzberg in Vienna. By this point we were all mega tired, and train prices had meant that we were coping on just one of cup of tea every few hours (hard work). It was debateable how much of Zurich we would push ourselves to see in just half an hour, having consumed so little caffeine...

The station. Which had a giant double decker bus parked inside it for no apparent reason.

Nice bell.

'Shall We?'

- a question posed by old housemate Charlie Mallard in response to all adventure-related suggestions...

Helen: Hey Charlie, shall we bake cakes and then eat them on the doorstep in our pyjamas?"

Charlie: Shall we?

No. Let's just gaze out across this bridge while it's sunny and then get back on the train for a top-up...

***

Interlaken, Switzerland: Scraping about in the mountains

The next place we visited by train was Interlaken in Switzerland.

Here it is on a map...

While France had lots of grey concrete buildings and angry Parisians, Switzerland had lots of mountains...

Mum wouldn't let me chalk inside this one. Or take photos. In case I dropped my stick and camera and jumped in the middle of the mountain to save both. I didn't leave any messages, but a photo was necessary. The waterfall fell right through the middle of a gigantic mountain, and it was immense.

Drinking tea out of the world's tiniest cups, and writing messages on a chalkboard, on the back of a hostel door. The door to a loo...

Looking at houses with funny shaped roofs, and houses full of chopped wood, instead of people.

Walking along...

For my friend Emma Huckerby...

To show that I am thinking of her whilst on holiday, and hoping that she uses her experiences to write a best-selling novel. Or, at least, a column in a glossy magazine.

Beautiful.

***