Tag: Europe

Posted on

Venice

Drove like 5 hours to get to Venice, Italy, and we only got to spend a few hours there in the very hot weather, but it was still fun. There are no cars there and has around 340 bridges connecting the 180 islands that it’s made out of, so it has a lot of small alleys to walk through, and they’ve had to put tiny bridges in between some of the buildings so that they wouldn’t squish together. Saw and sung (shoutout to Little Women) in front of the Bridge of Sighs, got some gelato and pizza, and saw the choir perform in the St. Marks cathedral. We also saw a glass making demonstration that was really cool. We had another 5 hour drive back, and got our first bad  weather driving through the rain.

Posted on

Innsbruck

We went to the Wilten Basilica and the choir got to sing in there. Then we went to the Olympic ski jump place (the Olympics have been held here twice) and actually got to see someone jump which was really cool. In town, we saw the golden roof and looked around Swarvsky in which there is a exhibit of everyday items like cereal and laundry detergent covered in jewels. We also got an Austrian apple strudel. We came back to the hotel pretty early, so we played cards before going to our concert.

Posted on

Lichtenstein & Austria

Drove about 3 hours to get to Lichtenstein from Crans-Montana, which is only about 14 miles long and 4 miles across. We had a couple more hours to drive to Austria, but the trip was quite entertaining because, little did we know, the German word for exit is Ausfahrt. The town of Seefeld is very quaint and cute and so we explored it a little before dinner, and after dinner we went to the Olympic sized pool and hung out.

Posted on

Matterhorn

We drove and then took a train to the town at the base of the Matterhorn, Zermatt, and then took another little train to the Matterhorn viewing place. It was a very beautiful and a clear day, so the mountain wasn’t covered at all. For dinner everyone got together where we had played our concert and had cheese fondue and some of the locals performed for us. They had a normal little band and classic Swiss dances as well as the classic long horn thing. There is also the tradition that if you drop your bread in the fondue, you have to go around the table and kiss everyone of the opposite gender on the cheek, so that was entertaining because a lot of people had to do it.

.

Posted on

Montreaux

We got up early before breakfast so we could walk around the town which is really beautiful. I was able to meet with Coco today and it was really great to see and talk to her! She followed us up to the Castle of Chillon where we took a guided tour. The castle has amazing views and has a gorgeous interior as well with the nice dark wood columns and ceilings. Then we took an hour walk next to the lake down to Montreaux, it was a very beautiful walk and then the town was very busy because they were setting up for the Montreaux Jazz Festival, so Coco and I just walked around and talked. It was great and it didn’t feel like it had been 3 years since we saw each other last. We got back to Crans-Montana, ate dinner, and then had our concert. It was definitely our best concert yet, and it was pretty fun because there was such a big crowd of locals. The Swiss really enjoyed our concert and the red band played Stars and Stripes three times.

Posted on

Drive To Switzerland

Took off a little after 7 this morning and rode the bus for 12 hours to get to Crans-Montana. Amy and I played Phase 10 which actually took up a lot of time, and for pretty much the rest of the time I was sleeping. Switzerland is a beautifully breathtaking country and everyone’s already fallen in love. There were some locals there greeting us with a sign when we pulled in and it was really cute.

Posted on

Eiffel Tower & Louvre

Went to the Eiffel Tower and climbed up to the 2nd floor and saw some great views of the town; there’s this interesting mosque looking building with silver dome top things, but there are also crosses on those so I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it looks cool. It’s definitely different seeing the police and military walking around with huge automatic weapons, but it’s actually pretty comforting and you don’t feel threatened by them at all. Next, we went to the Louvre, but we only had about 45 min there, so we spent half the time looking for the bathroom and the other half at the Mona Lisa, but I’m pretty ok with that because it’s not as interesting to look at all the stuff when you don’t know what it means, and all the plaques were in French. I was thinking yesterday that a French cream puff would probably be very good, and we got one as our dessert with dinner today which made me very happy!

Posted on

Paris

Had first French croissant today and it was very good. We went up to Montre-Marte and saw the Sacre-Couer catedral and explored the little village there with cute art; the catedral was cool because on the outside of the windows are gray, but on the inside they were colorful stain glass. Then I had a crepe with strawberry jam on it and we had a sandwich on a baguette. I learned some French phrases like “Can I please have some water” and “Where are the toilets” and I think I’ve gotten my French accent down pretty good; but also last night I asked our waiter where the toilets were in French and he just laughed and pointed while saying (in English) “Downstairs.”

Next we went to Notre Dam which was also gorgeous. I tried my first macaroon and it was so good. At the waiting spot, there was a whole flock of pigeons and Nick and Kat actually got some to land on them! Then we went on a river boat cruise on the Seine and saw the Eiffel Tower.

Posted on

Off To Paris

We got up at like 4 o’clock to travel to Paris on the ferry; the drive to the dock took a couple hours (and the dock had a great view of the White Cliffs of Dover) but the ferry ride was only like 45 min and then we had around 6 more hours of driving from Calais to Paris. The traffic here is already very crazy, our driver drove over a median to get around blocked traffic and has honked his horn at least 10x more in our first hour here than he had in all of London.

Posted on

Concert & London Eye

We had our first concerts today in the park and a church which took most of the day, and then we went to a pub and got fish and chips, and then went to the London Eye. The Eye was quite fun with a lot of the green bus in the same carriage thing taking lots of pictures.