This winter we've embarked on a long driving holiday in Europe covering Berlin, Brussels and Paris. We wanted to spend winter in Europe ( last year we were in the States and the year before in Europe) seeing the wonderful festivities around Christmas- its like being in India for Diwali. Some Internet research showed us that the three top cities for Christmas was Berlin, Paris and Brussels and we are always game or long drives so off we set.
The girls have 3 weeks holidays and the hubby took off three weeks as well. I manged to get 2 weeks and 2 days :) So on Wednesday evening I got back from office at 6 and we set off for the first hotel at Nurenberg- halfway between Berlin and Zurich. We had chosen a hotel just off the highway and it was just a night stop to break the 9 hour drive to Berlin. We reached at 10:30 at night, and after a leisurely breakfast ( the girls discovered a children's play room near the breakfast room) and were thrilled, we set off at 11 am. After many breaks ( let me tell you the loos off the German highways are terrible) we reached our apartment in Berlin in the evening. It's a nice service apartment so we can have our own breakfast, have either lunch or dinner in the apartment and only suffer the tasteless European food for one meal :)
On Friday we walked past the famous Berlin sights- Brandenburg gate, victory statue etc and reached the Berlin zoo. The kids were quite sporting, except for the last 15 mins when A insisted on being carried.we realized it was a 3 km walk in the cold weather. The Berlin zoo was awesome and there were so many animals-seals, hippos, lions, tigers, rhinos etc etc and all quite close up. We ended up spending the whole day there. We got back to the hotel and after an evening siesta set out for. South Indian restaurant which was terrible. That night S got a stomach bug and spend the whole night throwing up and recovering the next day. Luckily it was 24 hour thing and by the next evening she was bouncing around.
On Sunday we went to the national history museum which has the tallest mounted dinosaur on display in the world and it was great fun. The museum had really informative stuff about the solar system, dinosaurs, animals and birds and evolution, and S was a bit interested in it ( gets better each time) but A got quite bored after the animals section. In the afternoon we saw Frozen in the cinema- a treat for the girls as they are not allowed in Zurich cinemas (even for children's films). Unfortunately that night A got the same stomach bug so we spend the night rushing to the loo, and the day recovering in the room.
Over the next two days we saw some of the famour Berlin sights - the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Dome etc and on 24th night Santa visited and the girls were happy with the contents of their stockings on 25th morning. They had written a list of items Santa should bring and after a last trip to the shop on 24th evening (while the girls were asleep) we were able to get at least 2 items on each of their lists plus some additional small stuff (like Olaf the snowman).
We left Berlin for Brussels on Christmas day, more on that in the next post.
The girls have 3 weeks holidays and the hubby took off three weeks as well. I manged to get 2 weeks and 2 days :) So on Wednesday evening I got back from office at 6 and we set off for the first hotel at Nurenberg- halfway between Berlin and Zurich. We had chosen a hotel just off the highway and it was just a night stop to break the 9 hour drive to Berlin. We reached at 10:30 at night, and after a leisurely breakfast ( the girls discovered a children's play room near the breakfast room) and were thrilled, we set off at 11 am. After many breaks ( let me tell you the loos off the German highways are terrible) we reached our apartment in Berlin in the evening. It's a nice service apartment so we can have our own breakfast, have either lunch or dinner in the apartment and only suffer the tasteless European food for one meal :)
On Friday we walked past the famous Berlin sights- Brandenburg gate, victory statue etc and reached the Berlin zoo. The kids were quite sporting, except for the last 15 mins when A insisted on being carried.we realized it was a 3 km walk in the cold weather. The Berlin zoo was awesome and there were so many animals-seals, hippos, lions, tigers, rhinos etc etc and all quite close up. We ended up spending the whole day there. We got back to the hotel and after an evening siesta set out for. South Indian restaurant which was terrible. That night S got a stomach bug and spend the whole night throwing up and recovering the next day. Luckily it was 24 hour thing and by the next evening she was bouncing around.
On Sunday we went to the national history museum which has the tallest mounted dinosaur on display in the world and it was great fun. The museum had really informative stuff about the solar system, dinosaurs, animals and birds and evolution, and S was a bit interested in it ( gets better each time) but A got quite bored after the animals section. In the afternoon we saw Frozen in the cinema- a treat for the girls as they are not allowed in Zurich cinemas (even for children's films). Unfortunately that night A got the same stomach bug so we spend the night rushing to the loo, and the day recovering in the room.
Over the next two days we saw some of the famour Berlin sights - the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Dome etc and on 24th night Santa visited and the girls were happy with the contents of their stockings on 25th morning. They had written a list of items Santa should bring and after a last trip to the shop on 24th evening (while the girls were asleep) we were able to get at least 2 items on each of their lists plus some additional small stuff (like Olaf the snowman).
We left Berlin for Brussels on Christmas day, more on that in the next post.
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