Turkey

This is an obelisk at the Hippodrome in Istanbul, as you can see it is not smooth, this is because the outer layer was removed and used for other things (weapons mostly).

Here is another obelisk in the Hippodrome, and sorry about them being on a lean I didn't rotate the picture lol sorry.

Again the striped obelisk

Mainly I put this in as you can see that this column is well below ground level, this is because when it was built that was ground level and as with most cities that are built layer upon layer this is the case here with ground level slowly rising over the years.

Here is the top of the column, it is made of bronze. The column was made following a battle that the Turks won and was made from the melted weapons that were collected from the battle field, at one point there were serpent heads at the top as it is two serpents coiled together, but the heads have since come off though it is not know what happened to them.

Hmm what can I show you now?

Well if you look closely you might see the hunchback!!!

Bit of over kill with the candles, but then when you don't have electricity you have to make do somehow.

Ok now on to Paris

This is our room in Paris...very small and not nearly as wonderful as the one in Vienna

And the view out the balcony.

This obelisk is originally from Egypt...I actually saw where it came from.

You will never guess who was the last one out of these three cars.


It was the one in the middle, quite a mission.

Well what does this look like??? Yes it is the Louvre.

The last of Vienna

Who ever said I am not cultured??? Here I am at the Schonbrunn Palace for a bit of a concert. It was really quite good too.

Ok these two pictures are taken in the crypt of the Habsburg's the royal family, this is where the bodies of the royal family are kept. The hearts are kept in a church a short walk away and the guts again in the Vienna Cathedral. They were split as it was believed that the each part of the body belong to different things, the country, the family and the people.

This is me outside the Spanish Riding School in the center of Vienna, it is in the center of the city and attached to one of the other residences of the royal family.

Thought I would throw this in for luck. It is the view from the back of Schonbrunn Palace looking towards the back of the property...I would love to see it in summer.

The last three friends that I meet were Ellie in the picture above, Henry, Harry and Heather in the picture below

And lastly it is Fran and her friends.

Schonnbrun Palace Zoo

Here is the Schonnbrun Palace Zoo, below is a picture of some Pandas. We mainly wanted to go to the Palace Zoo as it is the only Zoo in Europe that has Pandas, but wouldn't you know it the Panda enclosure was SHUT!! So we didn't get to see the Pandas after all.

Seeing as it was so cold we had to find ways of keeping entertained, so we decided to take pictures of ourselves on cold metal statues!! Lol.

This is me and Leo...

Me and Ronny...

Me and Freddy who was not my Prince Charming...

and wait there are a couple more lol.

Schonnbrun Palace

There you go the Royal Palace it is quite big and really pretty even though it was gray skies. The area the Palace is on is enclosed completely by a wall and within the confines is the Palace itself and extensive gardens as well as a reasonable sized Zoo.

Hows that for cold!!!

This is the back view of the palace, looking towards the rear of the estate and below towards the back of the Palace.

Out and About in Vienna

There is me all wrapped up against the cold.

Here is the Ferris wheel in Vienna, this was originally built in 1897, it was only built to be temporary but it was found it cost more to demolish it then to leave it standing so it has remained ever since. Crazy huh?

Me and Ange in one of the cars, and below one of the views of Vienna though it was not very good due to the weather.

Well we went to Vienna to have a white Christmas and this is about the extent of the snow we had, SUCK!!

Christmas Dinner

This is the oldest pub in Vienna, it was just across the road from our hotel so we decided to have Christmas dinner here.

This is what is left of Angela's dinner, we both had Goulash, Angela veal and I had beef. Man it was nice!!!

This is Angela's side, it was gnocchi, basically pasta balls, not the most exciting of things but nice with sauce.

Mmmmmm my pudding!!!

Only in Vienna would you find a Opera Toilet, and yes for a small fee you can pee to Mozart!

There you go some Apple Strudel.

I don't know who many of you know of the Hundertwasser toilets in Kawakawa but he was originally from Vienna and here is a building that is of similar design to the toilets.

And there you go it the giant Tracey looming over the minions on earth! Sorry, this is a model of St Peter's.

St Peters Church

Here is Saint Peter's Church, It is known for its striped roof which you can see in a few of the pictures.

There is the horse drawn carriages that Vienna is famous for, though I must admit the horses did stink, but then what did I expect??

One thing about Europe is when the notable places are getting refurbished on the outside they tend to like to put pictures on the scaffolding of what the building should look like, kind of ruins the pictures I must admit.

See rubbish bins do come in handy!! Just lucky no one ran off with the camera as well, considering the distance we are from the camera!!