Horton travels to Europe

We have had three wonderful days in Switzerland with Madline's family. We have done so much, that it's hard to know where to start!

On our first day here, we travelled up tiny winding mountain roads to visit St Luc, which is Francois' home village. Matt skiied with Arno, who is the same age as him, and learnt to ski on ski blades. He now wants a pair!

We had a beautiful lunch with some of the extended family.

We experienced 'racellete' for dinner - a dish Madline often spoke about when she was in Australia.

The next day, we travelled to Burgerbad which was natural hot springs, set in a beautiful hotel/resort. It is a very strange feeling to be swimming in a pool, surrounded by snow and towering Alps.

Then yesterday, we travelled to Brig and toured the hospital with Madline's uncle, who is a cardiologist there. He proved Matthew has a heart, by doing an ultrasound! So funny! We lunched in Brig with Anne, Madline's cousin, who was celebrating her 18th birthday. Manuella and Zita went to see Madline's dance group in their final rehearsal for a concert, while Kelsey went with all the boys to an ice-hockey match. Sadly, it was not a good game, as Sierre lost.
We have had some beautiful food, including two different types of fondue. The weather has been perfect - blue skies and nothing below zero.

Today, we catch the train to Geneva, then a flight to London, where Kelsey will leave us for twelve months. It's a sad thought.

As Kelsey will be takiing the laptop with her, I may not have the chance to write another entry for a while. C'est la vie!

We left Austria yesterday, after a wonderful time with the Schuster and the Taylor families. Bryan, Annabelle, Rae, Andrew and Sam have been great fun to meet and to spend time with. Andrew and Sam have been very patient snowboard teachers, and together with Bryan have ensured that we found our way around the mountain.

On our last night in Austria, we went out for dinner together - an evening that will remain long in our memories, partly for the walk home uphill in the dark through the cow paddocks! Telfes im Stubai is a lovely village, and a place we would really like to return to someday.

Than it was off to Zurich on the train, where we met up with Andrew (my cousin) and Ursula Denholm, and their gorgeous little baby Leah.

We haven't seen Andrew ofr many years, and it was wonderful to meet his wife and daughter, and enjoy lunch with them. they also helped sort us out with train tickets to Sierre, in the Swiss canton of Valais, where we will be staying with Madline's family.

Skiiing here in Austria is awesome! The mountains are ernomous, the snow is wonderful, and the sky is blue.

Matt spent yesterday snowboarding, and his bottom is very sore. Today he decided to ski again to have a bit of a rest, but then it's back to the snowboard tomorrow. Kelsey has been told (by her parents) that she is not allowed to try snowboarding, as she is heading off to England for twelve months and we can't risk injuries at this stage.
Benjamin and Bethany snowboarded today, and Ben is a natural! He was hooting down the slopes and taking on all the little bumps and jumps. Bethany has joined Matthew's 'sore bottom' club, and will also return to skiing tomorrow.

The good news - Kelsey just checked her Uni offers, and has recived an offer in the first round to the University of Queensland studying Speech Pathology. We are all delighted.

Life here at Annabelle's and Bryan's house is lovely. They are very accomodating and genourous hosts.

Tonight, all the kids set off fireworks in the back yard. They can't believe that fireworks are legal here. As a surprise, we bought some in Italy, and we gave them to the kids tonight. It was 'cracker-night' revisited for the adults.

We're currently skiing in Austria!!! It's so cool to be able to write that.

We figure that in the last few weeks we've covered most of the major forms of transport. We travelled by train from Rome to Florence, a day trip to Pisa,

then from Florence to Venice, and then from Venice to Innsbruk.

Then we caught the light rail (which looks like a longer Melbourne tram) to Telfes.

Venice was magical - however I think Kelsey was a bit surprised. I don't know what she was expecting ... but she said it was dirtier than she thought it would be.

It is winter after all. Taking the vaporetto (water taxi) everywhere was great. We only had one night there, so we decided to take the vaporetto all the way along the Grand Canal. It was very cold, but so worthwhile - especially when we thought we were heading out to sea! The kids fed the pigeons in San Marco Square, which was great fun,, but they soon discovered that pigeons ar every dirty birds.

Here in Telfes, we are staying at the home of Brian and Annabelle, who are friends of the Schusters. They have a huge home, and are a very welcoming family. We skied today under clear sunny skies, with lovely dry snow. Fantastic!

We arrived in Rome on New Year's Eve, and settled into our accommodation - which is very centrally based near the Spanish steps. We have even been able to see the Spanish steps at times when they are not completely covered with tourists!
Our days here begin with sampling coffee and pastries at lots of the little cafes around the area. Matt joined us one morning, and had a hot chocolate so thick that his spoon stood up in it. It was like drinking melted chocolate.
We have visited the Trevi fountain a couple of times, and even manged to see it one morning with the water turned off. The workmen were cleaning out all the coins that get thrown into the fountain, supervised by a couple of policemen.

We have also spent some time walking past the Colluseum, and went on a tour inside yesterday (2nd Jan).

Everywhere you turn in the centre of Rome there are ruins, and they are fascinating. One of most interesting tours took us into a church (San Clemente), then underneath the church to a 4th century church, then below that again to a 1st century church! And they think that there are at least two layers below that, but they are flooded.

Yesterday, we conquered the Rome Metro, which is not too difficult as there really are only a couple of lines. they can't make an extensive Metro system, because there are so few area that are not hisorical sites. Must make getting building permission in Rome for property developers very difficult!

We went through the Vatican museums, the Sistene Chapel, and St Peter's today. The sheer amount of artwork is overwhelming!

The kids have discovered their favourite pizza shop, which is just across the road and down a bit, and also love going for gelati. Matt is good at comparing the prices of Coke at different venues, and has also developed a talent for map-reading and getting us back home from a wide variety of locations. Kelsey window-shops, and is a great source of information on ruins. Those last few years of learning Ancient History are really paying off!
We're off to Florence in the morning, so tonight we are having a toga party for the kids.
Great to hear from those of you in Australia who are commenting on the blog. It's news from home - and much appreciated!
Check the Schusters blog for heaps more info.