Travelling Blog: 2024

33 Day Trip London -> Vienna -> Nuremberg (and surrounds)

London 12 Days, Austria 3 Days, Germany 18 Days.

Trip Counter:

Days: 33, Countries: 3

Trains: 44-54, Buses: 8, Trams: 3, Taxis: 2, Planes: 6

Parks: 23, Hospitals: 1, West End Musicals: 2, Theme Parks: 2

Driving: 700 km, Hike: 20 km, Run: 80 km

Steps: 16500 per day

Trip Synopsis:

Travelling with kids is equally insane and rewarding. Both being positives. Plans were kept very flexible with most things planned about five days ahead of time. We managed to do much more than expected and turns out you can push a 4yo to walk significantly more than they do back home. The overall goal of catching up with friends in Germany was completed with hosts kindly accompanying us for 3 full weekends of activities. Despite my semi-reluctance to go to London, it is easy (language/culture) and there's weeks of activities there we didn't do and the kids 6 months on are still saying they want to go back to London (and legoland) weekly.

Trip Itinerary:

UK (London)

12 nights, staying in an area dwelling in Craven Hill Gardens just north of Kensington Gardens, Bayswater/Paddington/Lancaster Gate Station.

Wednesday: Flights via Singapore with 2 hour layover. Smooth flights.

Thursday: Early arrival 6am, Kensington park and head to our Airbnb. Home cooked pasta for dinner. 1 Park. 1 Train

Friday: Hamleys, Buckingham Palace State rooms tour, Tessa and Zoe had the ipad and audio tour hilarious. Tessa completely lost it after a little bit of time so had to run through the latter half. Zoe had a blast on the tour, loved dressing up at the end. Dinner out near bayswater Pizza! Bus + 2 trains. 2am wake up.

Saturday: Battersea Park Zoo and Battersea power station and shore for lunch. Fajitas, never get the super-mild one, it's smokey. 2 Parks. 2 Trains and a bus. Tessa now on 3am wake up.

Sunday: Princess Diana Memorial Park / Kensington Garden / X Park. Tessa now 4am wake up.

Monday: Young V&A. Markets. Liverpool Street. Paddington Station. 2 Trains and a bus. 5am wake up

Tuesday: Shrek Adventure and Trafalgar Square. Pret lunch. 2 Trains. Full sleep

Wednesday: Natural History Museum, with some Pret for lunch (again) with a double header Phantom of the Opera. Snags for dinner. 1-3 Trains

Thursday: Bubble Planet. Very nice Boxpark Wembley Stadium Lunch. London minion tower tour half marathon. Waitrose chicken dinner Back to going to bed at 9pm. 4 trains.

Friday: Big Ben, Aquarium, Tower of London/London Bridge. Borough Market craziness for a quick pizza and too much free yogurt before dancing across to the tower of london before PD Kensington Park for T before some home cooked eggs and stir fry for dinner. 3 Trains. 1 Bus.

Saturday: Science Museum. 5 guys burgers for lunch in South Kensington. Les Mis Double Header. Extended our airbnb an extra night for gratis? That's 23 airbnb stays of varying length in the past 10 years and first time I've experienced that. 1-4 Trains.

Sunday: Rest? Cry? Scream? Should we Docklands museum? Post Office Museum? Nah, next time, perhaps just a quiet day dancing in Kensington Gardens before some more Italian for lunch. Weekends are noticeably stupidly busy compared to weekday activities. Head out to Heathrow for an earlyish flight Monday via out Hayes & Harlington and get the CC blocked as the uber never came. Zoe's first night in a hotel (according to her memory)

Attraction Rating

Top tier: Young V&A, Science Museum, Phantom of the Opera, Elizabeth Line, Tower Bridge

Worth it tier: Princess Diana Memorial Park, Shrek Adventure, Natural History Museum, Battersea Park Zoo, Les Mis, Buckingham Palace

Next tier: Bubble Planet, Hamleys

Lower Tier: Aquarium, Trafalgar squares/Piccadilly/Big Ben/Chinatown etc, Borough Market, Spitalfields Market

Missed out/Next time Tier: Post office museum, British museum, Mudlark Docklands Museum, Starlight express, London Zoo, Windsor Castle, Legoland, Waiting for Godot west end, Tower of London tour, Paddington Bear Experience, V&A, Camden Market, Imperial War Museum, Entire rest of UK/Ireland

Luggage fit check: Requirements, be able to carry all bags ✔️+ one child. ✔️

Comfy headphones fit check and quick stop in the Singapore lounge. Smooth run through customs - thanks for lift to airport from Karin

Found our plane

Leg 2 / 5

24 hours later, straight through Heathrow, Elizabeth line at 6 am and hit Hyde park

Adventure off to Hamleys to the see the queen

And pepper pig

Considered having a rest day straight up, but it was the last day for tours of the Buckingham palace state rooms.

South side after walking through Hyde Park

Carved tree just near Princess Diana memorial park entrance

Really should've brought the sunscreen - Battersea lunch after the Battersea park zoo

Phone was " " this close to being yeeted off the edge of the bridge after being shirt fronted by Paulette

SHREK

A little drizzle but sun came back out by the afternoon

Young V and A minecrafting

Girls quickly solved the loud tube squeels and were experts by the 24th train trip

Toot toot

Exploring the Diana park with apple

SHREK

Walking to another museum

Liked her pret sandwiches

Westend Show 1: Phantom of the Opera

Late night Piccadilly. Not worth it, watch out for phone snatchers!

Bubbles!

Daddy we are right here. See big Ben...

Loved tower of London

Science museum?

Austria (Vienna)

Staying at Airbnb near Praterstern station just north of Prater (Large park with old-time amusements, including a landmark giant wheel dating from 1897).

Monday: In at 10am, Prater, Ferris wheel. 1 Park, 1 taxi, 2 plane buses, 1 plane, 1-3 trains

Tuesday: Great day at the imperial palace. Buy the wrong tickets to the maze and end up hiking to the top of Gloriette. T and D head to Stephansplatz while Z and P go for a chocolate making adventure. Take a hire bike in the evening to go and do some needed clothes washing. 4-5 Trains. 3 Parks.

Wednesday: Train into Rathauspltz, Tram to Museum Area and zoom museum. Walk to Karlplatz and train to Stephansplatz. Get some free chocolate before heading to Prater. Spend the whole afternoon into the evening at Prater with lots of rides and dinner. Figure 8 run around in the evening. 4 trains, 1 Tram, 2 parks.

Attraction Rating

Top tier: Imperial Palace Maze and Gloriette

Worth it tier: Prater, Old town, Chocolate museum (?maybe)

Next tier: Kinder Museum

Lower Tier: Laundromat

Missed out/Next time Tier:

Still forgot that sunscreen, lots of steps today at the Imperial Palace

Zoe loves mazes

Zoe loves the shade on a hot day

Zoe loves chocolate

Free mozart chocolate (again) for the girls in front of Stephansdom

Prata - warm up for Legoland and Playmobil

One of many trampolines bungees

Germany (Nuremberg, and bits of Regensburg, Augsberg, Gunzberg, Schwangau)

Graciously hosted with friends in Nuremberg which was chaotic fun, if you are going anywhere with a 2yo make sure you stay and play with others also with a 2yo! Staying near Rennweg in Nuremberg before making a short trip south staying in Schwanau, Legoland and Aystetten. Hanging our with friends in the park noticeably more enjoyable than any activity to date, doublely good when spent hiking up a hill with an unknown destination.

Thursday: Train cancelled so try and find a new one to take us to Germany. 2 short trains to get to the hbf, two longer trains to get to Regensburg. Delayed for 40 minutes. Some quick take away dinner before a night walk around the delightful medieval town. 4 Trains.

Friday: Hotel breakfast B&B to the delight of the kids. Finally make it to our 'destination' on Day 16, with 55% of our trip to go, but not before a trip to the ED for a cut lip and gum of Zoes leaving her mark on the town centre square. Taxi out to the kids hospital, thankfully a bill of superficial wounds and 50 Euro lighter. Note when taking the RE with no booked seats, walk to the quietest part of the platform - was a bit manic trying to find a seat. 1 Train. 2 Taxis. 1 ED.

Saturday: Brief walk to the castle and through main town, before a play at park near the river/library. Make sure to shop because everything is closed on Sundays in Germany. A delicious home cooked V meal. Perfect day with friends. 3 Parks. 0 Trains.

Sunday: A terrific day of household activities and play with some up at 6am and others at 10. Head to the espresso lab for morning tea/ coffee/lunch. Head to another park and then more household fun activities with an afternoon of cooking class. A Nona handed-down special multi-handed potato gnocchi recipe delight. Late night park with slides. 2 Parks. 0 trains.

Monday: Stadtpark before a rainy afternoon. Some salmon bowls for dinner. 1 park. 0 trains.

Tuesday: Train museum. Must say better than expected outing from 10am-5pm, walk back through town or sleepy u-Bahn. Amazing shepherds pie dinner. 1-2 trains. 2 park.

Wednesday: The zoo. Another much better than expected outing from 9am-5pm. Come all this way to look at kangaroos? Great goat feeding, playgrounds, dolphin shows. Randomly Zoe also requested that we stay in a hotel as soon as we get back home to Australia. Not sure any hotel could beat the way too nice hosting at DVM Nuremberg with a lovely stew for dinner. Late night walk around old town. 2-4 trains. 2 trams. 2 parks.

Thursday: Day of rest, 2 outings to supermarket. Rice paper rolls and some bean Bonanza. 2 parks.

Friday: PlayMobil Park. Another terrific outing especially because Maya and Dennis joined. Take away pizzas with late return. Managed to connect the S4 to the 151 bus with only a 4 minute turn around both times successfully without too much stress at all. 4 trains. 2 buses. 1 giant park.

Saturday: Day of rest, outing to the city for some lite shopping, snacks (3xNurnberger) and craft. 1 Park

Sunday: Hike through Fränkische Schweiz in Pottenstein with Stephy, Ginny, 2 boys too. Car pick up at airport was mostly successful albeit took a bit too long. Delightful day at kids pace up and a much faster runnings kids pace down. Delightful lunch outside at Kapellenhof before some Vietnamese dinner with quite a few gins and card games. 1 forest, 1 train, 100km driving

Monday: Drive to Fussen/Schwangau. Stayed at Luna hotel room 6. Zoe got carsick pretty early on, so was a slow meader of 250km over 3.5 hours. Stopped in delightful Donauworth for lunch/playground/WC (although lets be honest, what small-ish german town is not seemingly delightful). More snitz for dinner. Paulette a bit freaked out by the autobahn, but most of the driving wouldn't be on autobahn. 1 Park

Tuesday: Day at Neuschwanstein, early run to pick up some tickets at 8am. Only person in shorts and t-shirt in the line (again). Picked up some tickets (17EUR each) for 10:10. Got to the P4 parking about 9:15 with lots of car parks available 12 EUR for 6 hours. Got a horse ride up (20 euro for the 4 of us) and walked into the castle just on our 10:10 tour 426. Zoe and Tessa did amazing during the audio tour and it was much better than expected. You could do the day without going to the either castle and just walk around, however the tour while shortish was well received. See diary entry circa 1983-84 for a description. Very well pointed, gold throne room, spiral stair case palm tree, central heating, and kitchen (zoe, apparently) were highlights. Roast Mexican sweet potato bowl. Lovely goulash and kids spagetti for lunch at Kainz Restaurant, although the proportion sizes were all wrong. 1 Forest. 4 km driving.

Wednesday: Drive to Legoland Deutschland leaving behind the awaiting the Austrian alps. Just a few days here and know that exploring this area would be a level above anything London could provide, however, as much as I much prefer this, driving with 2 under 4 counteracts all of that. I suppose we could get them an iPad each for driving, but, that doesn't sound fun. Legoland by about 1030 and immediately get cracking on some rides... and Zoe doesn't let up. Finish up about 3:30 and head back to our castle of the night. Pretty nice dinner before sleep. 155 km driving.

Thursday: Paulette expected that we would be done mid afternoon and lazily drive back most of the way to Nuremberg.... Instead we ended up leaving well after when the park closed and only got away closer to 1830. Full suite of rides again today, very much the parents getting the kids to move to the next ride than the kids. The weather for both days here was a bit dim and rained during the night, but never rained during the day. Park capacity was around 20-30%? Stay the night at our cheapest accommodation in Aystetten. 40km,

Friday: A foggy morning with a nice breakfast in Aystetten town with 'baby-chinos' the size of a large regular coffee. Head into Augsburg to check out the heritage listed waterworks. Paulette's observation is that everything in Germany is covered in scaffolding and the town hall here is no different, looks very impressive but it too is under renovations. Drive back to Nuremberg and return the car. 180 km driving. 1 train.

Saturday: Day of play in and around house. A park visit or two, some shopping.

Sunday: And last day already? Finally? Final brunch and Flora. Get to the airport way too early. Fly out 18:55, Nuremberg-Frankfurt-Singapore-Melbourne. Almost didn't make the Frankfurt connection due to intoxicated passenger, but overall smooth fast 27 hours door to door trip. 1 Train, 2 buses, 3 planes.

Attraction Rating

Top tier: Nuremberg Zoo, Play Mobil Park (3-9yo?), Train museum, Maya time, Neuschwanstein Castle

Worth it tier: Nuremberg Old Town, Legoland, Fränkische Schweiz/Pottenstein hike, Vanessa time

Next tier: Regensburg Children's Hospital, (Communication Museum? Probably?), Dennis time

Lower Tier:

Missed out/Next time Tier: Austrian Alps Hike (so so close), Tegelbergbahn, Nuremberg Toy Museum, Highline179, Erlebnisfelsen Pottenstein, Erlebnispark Schloss Thurn, Pepper Pig Park, Allgäu Skyline Park

Dancing in the streets - Hello Nuremberg

But first brief stop in Regensberg to give ourselves a bit of calm before imposing on DVM

No month long trip without at least one emergency hospital visit. No emergency teeth pulling and still made our train.

Walking through old town.

The ups and downs.

Family gnocci making!

Train Museum - A single button is enough to entertain a child for 15 minutes?

Perhaps it's time to get out Pa's layout at home

Racing

Equal and opposite

Heading to the Zoo

Terrific Nuremberg Zoo

With dolphin show! Rushed to get the early show because didn't expect to still be at the zoo for post lunch and before closing shows.

Playground number 1

Something about a lots of small kids and large body of water and rickety boats seems like a dangerous combination. Also a large number of slides that end up somewhere completely else leading to losing Tessa a few times.

Castle

Ride ons

Old town

Checking fit

P and D looking over Autumn Fränkische Schweiz

Potterstein Fränkische Schweiz. "I think we can all agree this looks exactly like Switerland"

Leaving Dennis and co to a week of work and quiet. Driving south to Austria.

Morning run get some Neuschwanstein tour tickets.

View from Castle

Looking back to the castle from a very busy Marienbrücke. The most touristy part of all the trip? We managed to avoid crowds and holidays in other parts of the trip.

Climb up towards Täfelessattel

1983/84 Neuschwanstein diary entry

Walk around the lake

To Legoland castle!

Tessa Safari -

"Canoe... canoe... canoe... canoe ... canoe... canoe... canoe ... canoe... canoe... canoe ... canoe... canoe... canoe ... canoe... canoe... canoe ... canoe... canoe... canoe .. canoe... canoe... canoe ... canoe... canoe... canoe" Zoe figuring out you can run out of the exit and sometimes duck under things to jump the queue back in.

Unicorns. Surprisingly not nearly as slick, themed and tight as Playmobil.

Maybe they spent creating entertaining queue entrances. This is one of my biggest fears in life. Queues at theme parks. https://queue-times.com/parks/278/calendar/2024/10. 37% and 34% and it was fine. The following week 99%, no thanks!