Around 3plus, we took a 30-min train ride to Château de Versailles, which is located in the suburb of Paris. It is a very grand palace, with a very big garden.

KAPPA???

The last night in Paris. After a few days of having meagre meals on prudent spending, it was time for us to try out the authentic French cuisine. We read that restaurants in a non English-speaking country that have a lot of English descriptions on the signboards and menus are normally more expensive as they are frequent by tourists. We walked along the streets in the old city, looking for a French restaurant with little English words, yet readable, and hoping to spot a menu with affordable prices.

Fortunately, just before we dropped “dead” of hunger, we found this friendly French restaurant. We were welcomed with “Bonjour!” and “Bon Appétit!” when the food arrived. We had a candle-light dinner, but the food was never enough. We ordered duck meat, salmon, and crepes, but it was the typical fine cuisine that could never satisfy the appetite of starving travellers like us.

First post of Paris:Romantic Paris

Next: Amazing race to Geneva, Switzerland!

We woke up early in the morning freezing due the cold mountain air that had crept in through the windows that we had left ajar for ventilation, we thought. Shut the windows tightly and went back to sleep. The next morning, I found yellowish powder scattered all over our clothes that we hung out to dry in the open air at the balcony. We were puzzled and later we found out that the it was spring-summer pollen season. The yellowish powder was pollen.

To get to the nearest train station from our resort, we had to walk all the way down the mountain slope to the town at the valley, and by the time we reached the train station, we almost burnt out. We met a friendly English couple at the train station and had a small chat with them. They had been to Singapore before and found it interesting to see hawker centres selling many kind of food. They even asked what is our staple food which we said is rice. We asked them back this question and they replied, “We eat potatoes…”

Salzburg is famous for its baroque architecture. It is also the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the famous landmarks for The Sound of Music. We bought ourselves a Salzburg card each and it was worth the price we paid for, since we got free admission to all city’s attractions and free use of public transport throughout the city too. I would say it’s a must-to-have card to explore Salzburg. To pay an extra more, one can buy a Swatch “Access” wristwatch to keep and enjoy the same privileges too.

Here, we ate a very, very saltish pretzel, with big rough salt sprinkled on it. From the Hohensalzburg Fortress museum, you can see the great view of the well-preserved baroque city - a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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We visited Schönbrunn Palace, the best palace we had seen in Austria so far. Its surrounding buildings and the huge park is one of the most significant cultural monuments in Austria. The palace served as summer residence to various Habsburg rulers. Schönbrunn Palace is so big that part of it is a hunting and recreation ground. It was a tiring walk up the hill to take this photo. The view is great. Read the full story