windplayer

Galileo Museum in Florence is good for kids about that age. We took our then 9 and 11 year old eighteen months ago. Telescopes and gadgets and some things they can get their hands on. It's a bit different to art and statues.

We were on the Grand Meditteranaen in 2013. We were travelling as a family of four, so even using private tours was very expensive, also the small folk were 9 and 11, so not interested in lots of history and cathedrals. We did most of the cities on our own. I got advice from Rick Steves book, and lots of information from cruise critic ports of call section. Aix, we booked a ships tour, that gave us a tour of the town and then left us to our own devices, and Kusadsasi we had a ships tour booked, although unfortunately, the wind was too strong, and the ship was unable to dock. The rest we caught trains or taxis into the city and wandered on our own. We did make sure we left plenty of time to get back.

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We were in a balcony BB on the Royal in September. Two singles below and two bunks from the ceiling. We were offered an upgrade to a deluxe balcony which had one overhead and I think the other bed was either the couch or a rollaway. In that cabin, the overhead blocked the door to the balcony when in use. We stayed where we were. The space was tight, our kids were older, 9 and 11, so once the bunks were down, we all tended to go to bed and watch movies in bed. We all survived though. One word of warning, as a grown up - watch your head!!If you look at the deck plan, it will tell you if the door is affected by the bunk.

4774papa, that is a great list. Might I add, Cockatoo Island? A ferry ride from Circular Quay, so great views of the Opera House, and then west under the bridge, it's a mixture of convict and maritime history. http://www.cockatooisland.gov.au/ we really enjoyed it.

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220 is a lot of money. You can buy the Birg(?) ticket for around 12 euros which will get you into Rome and you can also use it on the Metro system once in Rome. Not sure, but I think you can also use it on the buses. Google BIRG ticket and you will find lots of information. Again, you do have to make sure you validate it before you leave Civitavecchia.

We haven't used Airbnb in Rome, but we have used it in Paris, Seville, Granada, Barcelona, Amsterdam and London. We had great experiences in all of them. It does, however, pay to be careful. We only looked at apartments that had lots of reviews and we read them carefully. Some of them throw up some interesting facts that could be important to you e.g. nearby construction, train noise etc. We looked very carefully at photos and checked that at least some of them were airbnb verified and we looked very carefully at location. The only time we had a problem was when our accommodation in London was cancelled a week or two before we were due to arrive, but Airbnb was very good. Let us know and offered a refund with some compensation added as well. We rebooked through them, very easily and quickly, again, using all of the above criteria.

And purple! Everyone is buying purple to stand out from the blue and black :)

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Thank you so much for your thread, I'm enjoying it hugely!! We went on our first cruise ever last year on the Royal last year around the Mediterranean and we loved her. Your trip to Scandinavia and St Petersburg is the cruise I would love to do next. Ahhh... One day

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If you are interested in wines at all, the Hunter Valley can be done in a day trip from Sydney as well. That can be a lovely day, a cellar door or two and there are lots of good restaurants up there as well. There are tour companies that run from Sydney or you could drive it yourself. It's about 2 hours.

The trains leave from Liverpool Street Station in London. We caught the train coming from Harwich to London after getting off the ferry from The Netherlands. This site http://www.londontoolkit.com/travel/harwich_london_transfers.htm has lots of information. (apologies if this doesn't work as a link, technology is not my strong point, but it should work if you copy it into your address bar)

We actually had small backpacks each, 2 children and 2 adults, my husbands was slightly larger, and there was no suggestion that we should check them. We were there early October.

Beautiful Barcelona! We were there in September before our Mediterranean cruise. You're right it is very easy to get around, and the HOHO makes some of the further flung sites easy to get to. Having said that, we did use the metro the first day to get from Barcelona Sans station to the Sagrada and it was very easy to use as well. Thanks for your review and especially the pictures.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. The speed thing is a direct result of having the kids along, they don't linger! As I said to my husband, after we had seen Athens' major archeological sites in the space of 3 hours, if we had been on our own, we would have spent 3 hours just at the Acropolis - we would have had the guide book, the audio tour probably done a tour with a guide. It's a different experience with them along.

The Royal was our first cruise and we really enjoyed it. I agree with you on all points, although we did find the Horizon Court felt full at breakfast. However, we were on a port intensive European itinerary and everyone was wanting to get off at the same time, so certainly not unexpected. The food was good and the set up for movies in the room was fantastic, especially for the kids. In fact, on my wish list, but will never happen as we have just entirely blown the holiday budget for the next twenty years, is the Royal's cruise of Scandinavia and St Petersburg in 2014. Preceded by a few weeks in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Ahh, champagne taste, beer budget.

DAY 34 LONDON

This was our last day in London. We left that night for the 24 hour schlep back to Australia via Bangkok. We went to the Tower of London. My husband and I spent a long time here last time we were in London and we thought that the kids would like it. They had both heard the tale of the two missing princes so they were keen to see the tower where it all happened. Our daughter liked the Crown Jewels, we could walk around the tower walls which I don’t think we could do last time, and the White Tower had lots of armour, guns and swords. Our son was disappointed with the green where many people were beheaded. I think he had been expecting a bloodstained block of wood, the ghoul, but all in all it was a great way to spend our last day in London, although I think the kids would have preferred the London Eye. After the Tower, we went to Kings Cross Station to have a look at platform 9 ¾. This is great, it’s only a quick thing to see, but it is a luggage cart going through the wall. We had lunch and then went back home to have a shower and clean up our apartment before catching a train to Heathrow. We used the Piccadilly line. Our flight didn’t actually leave until 10:30 that night, but the trains had been so packed that morning that we didn’t want to be trying to get the four of us on plus our luggage onto the train in peak hour, so we left very early. This was easy, and of course once we were out of the centre of London, the number of people on the train thinned out.

So there you have it, thank you for sticking around to the end. We had a fantastic trip, and I think as the kids look back on it, they can see they had a fantastic trip as well, although, at the time there was lots of complaining.

DAY 33 – LONDON

We caught the DLR to Greenwich to have a look at the Observatory, the Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark. This was a great day out. A bit wet though. We started at the Maritime Museum. This had some good exhibitions including one of trading with the east. It also had a huge world map that you could walk on, so we plotted our travels on it, and they also had a royal barge covered in gold. The museum was a bit disappointing, there wasn’t really much to grab the children’s attention and with Britain’s naval history, we felt that they could have had more things. We had been to the Sydney Maritime Museum not long before going away and this has an Endeavor replica that you can go on, as well as a submarine and a destroyer. (So if you are ever in Sydney, can highly recommend our Maritime Museum) Then we walked up the hill to the Observatory. This is where the Prime Meridian is, so that was very cool, you could stand with a foot in the Eastern and Western Hemisphere. It also had marked along the directions to various cities, including Sydney. Then we had a look through the observatory, designed by Christopher Wren. It had lots of gizmos and gadgets for sta gazing and calculating distances, It also had the timepieces used invented for determining the longitude. There was also an amazing photographic exhibition of the finalists in a photographic competition of all things heavenly. Beautiful photos and very cleverly shot. There is a planetarium up there as well, which our son wanted to see, but unfortunately it was sold out by the time we got back to buy tickets. You need to be careful of theatres like that as there were a few schools there on excursions and then it doesn’t take many others to fill the theatre. We went back down the hill to information centre to have a coffee and afternoon tea. There is also a micro brewery there. The information centre is great, it has a lot of things that the kids can do and also has an exhibition of the original Tudor castle that stood on the site of the Old Naval College. The Cutty Sark, where we went next, was fantastic. This has all just been restored and rehoused, it has great interactive displays for the kids, and you can see the cabins where the crew hung out. Those beds are very tiny. We walked around to the front of the Old Royal Naval College designed again by Christopher Wren, a beautiful building, carefully designed so that the Queen’s House didn’t lose it’s view of the river, and then caught the DLR back into London. We spent the afternoon trying to clear up and pack a bit as we were leaving the next day to return home. We had dinner at a Brasserie in Threadneedle Street, not far from Liverpool Street Station and then caught the train to Westminster to have a look at Big Ben at night. We thought we might have a ride on the London Eye but we were a bit too late

Day 32 LONDON

I had been reading Touring Tom’s review of his British Isles Cruise and his trip to the Harry Potter Studio at Leavesdon. I knew it was out there but hadn’t realized it was quite doable from London. The kids were given the choice of The London Dungeon or Harry Potter and Harry Potter won, so, again having pre-booked it, off we went. Topped up our travel cards and caught the train from Euston Station to Watford Junction. (I should add that my husband is a die hard rugby fan and was very happy to take a picture of Twickenham station as we went through it.) We really enjoyed the studio tour, they had heaps of great props, costumes and sets. The special effects section was brilliant, with Buckbeak, and Dobby. Make sure you take the time to look up. The wallpaper from Sirius’ house with his family tree is there, but it is not at floor level, you need to look up to see it and there were a few other things that were up as well. Most importantly, the kids were not whining, although, there was a problem in the gift shop. One of the few things our son had wanted was a wand and, of course, the gift shop has many wands, but they are all a bit fragile to actually use, which he was very aware of and so didn’t want one as he wanted to be able to use it. Another great thing at the studio, is they have a room full of wand boxes, and each wand box has the name of someone who worked on the movies, so all the cast, but also all the crew, lighting, costume, make up etc.

On returning to London, we had lunch in Green Park and walked over to Buckingham Palace, and down to Wellington’s Arch, for the enthusiast. This was built as a tit for tat ,to honour Wellington for his defeat of Napoleon. Then caught the train to Westminster to have a look at Big Ben and walked along the river to find the buildings used as exterior shots for The Ministry of Magic inHarry Potter and Gringott’s Bank. We’re a bit dubious about Gringott’s. Supposedly the Australian High Comission, so a bit interesting for us anyway, but we think if it’s right, there was a fair bit of CGI involved. Anyway, a good way to see a bit of London, we wouldn’t ordinarily have seen. After this, we caught the train up to Oxford Circus, to go to Hamley’s toy shop. This is a huge shop, 3 or 4 floors, full of toys. There was a lego Queen and a lego Wills and Kate at their wedding. Most importantly, they had wands that a small boy could use, so Ron’s wand was purchased. That night for dinner, we walked down to Brick Lane for an Indian meal. We also found, much to my husband’s delight and Indian Sweet Shop. Very delicious.

DAY 31 LONDON

We had pre-booked a few things in London and today we were off to Windsor and Legoland, for the Lego enthusiast. We caught the tube to Waterloo Station and then topped up our travel cards to travel to Eton and Windsor Riverside. We walked to Windsor’s main street to catch the Legoland shuttle. Windsor is a pretty town, rows of traditional shops and of course the castle. You have to be careful with booking legoland and check the open days carefully. The day we went was the only day it was open that worked for our arrivals and departures. Legoland was fantastic!!! We enjoyed it much more that Disneyland Paris. All the lego constructions are amazing. All of London;s buildings including the Shard and the Gherkin. There also landscapes of Italy, Holland, France and a few other countries. Dinosaurs and African Safari, Egyptian Mummies, and the Star Wars Exhibit were brilliant, including a life size Darth Vader made out of Lego. Our children don’t really do rides, so Lego land was perfect for them as all of the rides were very tame. A fantastic day out!! We caught a taxi back into Windsor and had some lunch at a café and then had a wander around the town and around the Castle. We didn’t go into the castle, but it is very imposing from the outside. We caught the train back to London and decided to go Harrods to see if we could find a dress for our 11 year old for the year 6 formal. The first dress we pulled out was lovely. Red lace, jewels, fortunately she didn’t like it as it turned out to be Prada and two and a half thousand pounds!!! I mean, really, for an 11 year old? Found some more dresses that were considerably less, but still not less enough, and eventually found a lovely gold and cream one, that was slightly less outside the budget. Although, if Dad hadn’t been in tow, we would have moved onto Marks and Spencer. After this successful expedition we returned to our flat and had a quiet dinner at home.

DAY 30 LONDON

We are entering the home stretch now, not too much longer to go. We caught the train from Harwich to Liverpool Street Station after getting up obscenely early. The ferry gave a wake up call at 5:30. We cleared immigration fairly quickly, our son was even able to answer the specially for Australians question “what do you call a boomerang that won’t come back?” A stick. I thought he was quite quick for that hour of the morning, but it turns out he’s heard it before. It was still dark when we boarded the train but as it got lighter, it was clear that the day was going to be gloomy. We left our luggage at Liverpool Street Station and purchased tickets for the Underground. We bought 7 day travel passes for the grown ups, our daughter had to buy a daily ticket each day as they don’t have passes for the little ones, and our son was free as he is under 10. As it was pouring, we decided to go the British Museum. As did every other tourist in London and a fair few locals as well. Our son was very intrigued by the Acropolis reliefs and spent much time reading the story attached to it. (maybe we did this the wrong way around, maybe should have done London first and then Greece) We also saw many Egyptian mummies and the Rosetta Stone, many bits of ceramics and gold from various hoards found around the UK, and an Easter Island Statue. We spent a few hours there and after having some lunch, we walked to Covent Garden. We were using a Harry Potter self guided walking tour as way of showing the children London, so in Covent Garden we found the pub that might have been inspiration for the leaky cauldron, and two tiny alleys (Goodwin’s Court and Cecil Court) that may have been Diagon Alley. Even if not, these streets are rows of old fashioned shops and well worth seeing. Without the tour we would never have seen them. We bought some lemon sherbet from Hardy’s original Sweet Shoppe, (the inspiration for Honeydukes) they also had chocolate frogs but they were a bit pricey. There are many guided harry potter walking tours as well, which we had originally planned to do on this afternoon, but, rightly as it turned out, we were worried about the weather and decided if we did a self guided tour we could do bits and pieces as we wanted, so we saw different things during our five days in London. We also saw Trafalgar Square and found an arch for the arch enthusiast. After some afternoon tea, we caught the train back to Liverpool Street station to collect our luggage and get to our apartment. This was about a 5 minute walk from Bethnal Green Station and about a twenty minute walk from Brick Lane. After settling in, we went on a trek to find some dinner and found a Middle Eastern Restaurant that had good food at a good price.

DAY 29 AMSTERDAM – FERRY TO LONDON

We packed our bags and called a cab to take us out to have a look at another piece of family history and then to Centraal Station where we left our luggage for the day as we were catching the train to Hook of Holland to take the overnight ferry to England. We walked down to Dam Square. This has the Royal Palace, the Monument to World War 2, the New Church and Madam Tussauds. Our hop on hop off tickets were still good for a few more hours so we went back to Centraal station and caught a different route from the basin outside the station. This one went out into the harbor, past the Nemo science museum, and we got off at the Maritime Museum. This looked really interesting and they had an old trading vessel, I think, that you could have a look around, but the kids were most definitely not keen, and the entrance fee was not cheap to listen to a few hours of whinging, so we passed on that and walked down to have a look at a windmill. Unfourtunately, we couldn’t go inside, but you can’t come to Holland and not see a windmill. Not far from the windmill were the Dapper markets, so we strolled through these. They were great! Proper Saturday morning markets, fruit and veg, meat fish, snacks and lots of nik naks. After enjoying fried potato slinky on a stick, a cholesterol laden but very tasty treat, we reboarded the hop on off canal boat to take us up to the CityHall and Opera House. While we were having lunch in one of the restaurants nearby, the sun came out. Amsterdam sparkles in the sun. Back onto the canal bus to Liedesplein and then we spent the afternoon walking through Amsterdam. Saw a shop full of Dutch clogs in all sizes and colours, the ceiling was covered in them, hanging from racks. Lovely jewellery shops, cheese shops, diamond shops, delftware shops. Eventually we found our way back to Centraal Station to catch our train to the Hook of Holland where we were catching an overnight ferry to England. We were leaving very early. The ferry left at 9:30, but the time table was allowing a 4 minute change at Schiedum Central and we were worried about changing trains and platforms in that time frame and not leaving a buffer for late running trains. As it turns out, changing trains in 4 minutes is ridiculously easy. The train from Schiedum leaves from the opposite side of the platform that the train from Amsterdam arrives at, two steps away. This was a really worthwhile train trip to take. You got to see a lot of the Dutch countryside, with lots of windmills. Once you arrive at Hook of Holland, the train is right next to the ferry terminal, so all very easy. We had booked our tickets in Sydney over the internet, so all in all very easy. Our cabin on the ferry was very well laid out, and the bathroom was actually better than the Royal Princess. It actually had a shower screen rather than a curtain. We had dinner on the ferry and then settled into our cabin for another night on the sea.

If you ever get a chance to go to Amsterdam, take it. It is a beautiful city, easy to get around, good food and lots of things to see. We barely touched on the variety of things to do. I would dearly have loved to have a look at the houseboat museum, just ‘cos I’m a sticky beak and love to have a look in other kinds of houses, and there was a castle that you could go to as well. The Rijksmuseum is worth a day, at the right time of year, the palace is open, there is the Rembrandt museum and of course the Diamond Museum.

No, not something we will be doing every year either. :) We were able to cut costs in a few spots though. We used frequent flyer points to get us all there and to get from Paris to Seville ( yes it can be done) staying in apartments was cheaper than hotels would have been and meant that we could have some meals at home. On the cruise the kids were very cheap because we all bunked in together, some days we had lunch on the the ship and oddly enough when we started looking at getting between cities, flying was waaaay cheaper than training it, which was my original plan.

DAY 28 AMSTERDAM

It was pouring this morning. Our daughter and I had decided that we would go the Ann Frank House, which is just down the road from where our apartment is. My husband had been there before and we felt that our nine year old was a bit young, but our eleven year old daughter, after learning that her great grandfather had been hidden in Amsterdam during the war, was interested in having a look. So my husband and son went on the highly interesting task of finding a laundromat for our washing, and apparently eating pancakes on the way. Fortunately not too much of a queue in the rain. This is, of course, a very sad place to visit. I do not know how eight people, mostly adults, and the children not getting any smaller, lived in this very tiny dark space. Blackout curtains so that no-one outside would see any movement, and that yellow 1930’s light sapping wallpaper, and single bulbs. I can well imagine that Ann longed to see the sky. Finishing our tour, it was raining even harder. We met the boys and walked home to have lunch and decide what we would do with the rest of the day. The children were all for staying inside at home, but we decided that we would buy a twenty -four hour ticket for a hop on off canal tour. We walked up the Centraal Station as we needed to buy train tickets to get out to the Hook of Holland the next day, and then over to the basin in front of the station to catch a canal boat. This was very interesting and a good way to learn about the history of the city. The canal houses look as if they are leaning forward. We thought it was because they were getting old, the ground was settling, but no! It is deliberate! They all have hooks at the top to hoist furniture in and out and the buildings are slanted forward so that the furniture is not damaged! The canals are beautiful with the lovely houses even in the rain. We got off the boat to go the Willet –Holthuysen Museum. This is a museum in one of the canal houses that was owned by a wealthy 19th century couple. It was willed to the city to be opened as a museum. During the war it was used as a base for the resistance. They are currently restoring the rooms to how they would have looked when the couple occupied it as there have been many changes over the years. It was interesting to see inside one of these houses, beautiful staircase and all the period features. It will be very interesting in a few years when in a few years they have had the opportunity to restore the whole house. The garden out the back is beautiful as well, even in the rain. WE walked from the house up to Rembrandtplein to look at more family history. What my husband completely missed, was the statue of Rembrandt surrounded by figures from his painting “The Night Watch” I don’t think he values old Dutch masters. We kept walking to the shopping district, past the flower market, to look for the Pandora shop, and then back to the Jordaan district to collect our laundry. We had another lovely Italian meal, and then walked home.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I have been a bit slack the last week or two, we are winding up the school year and my daughter finishes primary school this week, heading into hight school next year so it's been a bit hectic. That will be our last 5 week holiday for a goodly many years as well, and we had a shocking realisation the other day that we have actually been back home longer than we were away:eek:

We started the morning with a walk along Prinsengracht to the Museumplein where planned to see the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam is such a pretty city, the sun was shining and the beautiful canals are all lined with the lovely canal houses. All about 3 floors with detailed facades, many look like gingerbread houses. We bought timed tickets for the Van Gogh Museum at a little kiosk next to the Iamsterdam sign, and then went to the Rijksmuseum. Only a bit of a queue to buy tickets for this. When we left at lunchtime, they weren’t letting people in. The Rijksmesuem is amazing, so many things to see, so many unusual things to see. There was an exhibition of model ships that were used to as scale models for real ships, an exhibition of swords and guns that appealed to our nine year old son, beautiful clothes from the 1800’s, jewellery, china, clocks, fantastic dolls houses, and of course a vast collection of Dutch paintings. We, of course were speed sight seeing, but like the Louvre, the British Museum and the New York Metropolitan it would be very easy to spend a day going through it. We walked across the park to the Van Gogh Museum where we were due to go in at 1:30. This is a beautifully laid out museum, showing the development of Van Gogh’s work as you work your way up the three floors. It includes some his Irises, a Sunflower and his Bedroom in Arles. I really like his more colourful works, though and I was disappointed that there weren’t more of them, but it was still an excellent collection of his work. I must say, the gift shop there was brilliant. I do love a good gift shop. After the Van Gogh Museum we walked to the Jewish Museum. My husbands father’s family is from Amsterdam, which is why we went to Amsterdam, and his grandfather was Jewish and in Amsterdam during the war, so he was very keen to have a look at the museum. This is a very interesting and poignant museum. It is housed in four synagogues of varying ages and follows the history of the Jewish people in Amsterdam. It covers the various rites of passage through displays and video recordings. The section devoted to the **** occupation is particularly moving,

After we had been to the Jewish Museum, we walked up to Newmarket to see where my FIL family lived before they emigrated to Australia. There has been much redevelopment in this area and the street where they lived has made way for a block of flats, but we were still able to have a wander around the streets, alleys and canals that surround the area. We had dinner at a café in an old gatehouse. Lovely food and amazing atmosphere, it was actually lit by candles! A proper ring of candles hanging from the very high ceiling. It was very relaxing after all of the walking we had done. We walked back to our apartment in Westerdok, carefully skirting the Red Light District, as we were with the munchkins. You get a good idea of the city walking through it, all the shops and restaurants, and Amsterdam has a lot, and lots of people everywhere. Also, the Christmas decorations were starting to go up, so there were lots of pretty lights

DAY 26 VENICE – AMSTERDAM

Sadly, the time has come to leave this beautiful ship. Although, really looking forward to not having 4 in one cabin. We left all but one of our suit cases out the night before and elected to stay on the ship as long as possible as our flight wasn’t until 2:00pm. We had a reasonably early breakfast as we had to be out of our cabins by 8:30 and then sat in the atrium until our departure time was called at 10:30. It was a day with lots of waiting. Our flight to Amsterdam was leaving from Treviso Airport not Marco Polo, so we decided to catch a cab. You can catch a bus from the Piazzale Roma as well, which would be a lot cheaper. The taxi was easy to find, just as we came off the ship, but cost an absolute bomb. The flight was on time, another of Europe’s many budget airlines, and comfortable. From Schipol airport we caught the train into Amsterdam Centraal and then walked to our apartment. The apartment was in Westerdok .It was beautiful and very spacious after spending 12 nights in very close quarters. It also had amazing views down the canal and was a short walk from the Ann Frank House. After we had settled in, we went on a trek to find somewhere for dinner. Must say, we hadn’t missed this. WE finally found a lovely Italian restaurant, because of course, this is what you eat in Amsterdam, (and every country apart from Italy apparently) I think it must have been run by a genuine Italian. I shared a pizza with our son, our daughter had cannelloni and my husband had pasta. I finished off with a divine home made Tiramisu.