Europe Road Trip - Part 3

My last post was written shortly after Naz and Piper departed for a month in Australia leaving me sad and lonely on the other side of the world. Since then a lot has happened.

48 hours after they departed and completely, coincidentally, I was required to head to Melbourne to work for 3 weeks, you can only imagine how much I needed to stop and consider that request. Given I was originally supposed to be working in Washington for August a change to Melbourne and a chance to catch-up with family and friends was a very welcome change.

So with travel and work commitment I have not blogged in over 4 weeks and here we are now in September.
We are all together back in Dubai but as usual life is never boring. We move house this coming weekend, the new school year started today and I have hit the 30 week mark (all healthy but feeling very pregnant now).

I have posted up some final pics below from our European holiday (which seems so long ago). I will be back later this week with some Piper school pics and a baby update x

One of our favourite discoveries - Lake Achansee, Austria. We cycled 20km around the lake this day (this pregnant mumma needed a rest day the next day).

Piper decided on this holiday clothing was optional.... no matter where we were! This was our lunch stop on our bike ride.

Cycling - Lake Achansee, Austria

Lunch in the most beautiful city ever - Salzburg, Austria

Posing in the square at Mozart's museum - Salzburg, Austria

Streets of Salzburg

Walchansee, Switzerland - stunning rural town

Walchansee, Switzerland

Zurich Switzerland - beautiful but wowsers, most expensive city I have visited!

Triberg Falls, Black Forest - Germany - this hike tested my preggy belly!

Munich

Munich, Hofbrauhaus Beer Garden - sausages and pretzels for lunch of course!

Snapshots of our Road Trip through France

 Still playing catch-up and now I am even more behind as we have just spent a long weekend camping in the mountains of Oman to escape the Dubai heat.

Here it is, the final leg of our Europe trip!

Our motorhome for the next 8 days, we picked up just outside Paris and headed north to the Champagne Region

Our camp set-up in Epernay

Roadside lunch stop overlooking the vines of the Champagne region, near Reims

Never too young to join in a day of champagne house tastings (just don't tell her it was only water)

Piper's set-up on the road

Another lunch stop on the road in a little village
After the Champagne Region we had planned on driving further north and into Belgium, however, the weather started to get colder the further north we went and our Dubai blood was not happy. 

So we changed planned and headed south to seek the sun and instead explored the Loire Region. We came across a stunning little village Bracieux with the best municipal camp ground we had seen. We ended up basing ourselves here for a few days and hiring bikes to explore the area. 

Cycling in Chambord

Views out cycling

One of our camping stops was conveniently located next to a chocolate factory

More cycling. Most routes we took between small villages were a combination of quiet country roads like this and bike paths

Refreshment break... my cycling was never very good after a few of these wine stops.... a rose bush may have been a victim of one of my after lunch rides. (Thanks Photographer Piper for taking this snap)

Lunch stop out cycling

Piper founds some donkeys on our ride to Cheverny

Exploring the Chateau at Cheverny

We loved the experience of travelling unplanned through France by motor home. Now that we have tried it once we are planning a big trip through Europe by motor home next year...... hint, hint.... maybe some family members or friends might want to join us? 

Snapshots of Paris

We are back in Dubai just in time to celebrate Naz's birthday. I am going to try and catch-up on the holiday photo's this week. Our last week in the motor home was amazing, the absolute highlight of our trip.

We are all suffering a bad case of the holiday blues.... Dubai is too hot, too sandy and Ramadan is still going. Hopefully things pick up soon!

Here are some happy snaps from Paris.... unfortunately not a lot of pics but I have to be honest and say I am totally over Paris. Tried it several times now but it just doesn't do it for us. French countryside however is the bomb!

From left to right

1. Champs Elysees (all the fences and signs were still up from the Tour de France finish)

2. Minnie Mouse and Eiffel Tower

3. Eiffel Tower

4. Cool cat at the Louvre

5. Relaxed Naz

6. So Parisian snacking on her croissant at the Louvre

Snapshots of DisneyLand Paris

I am a little behind on the posts but will catch-up soon. Following Rome we flew to Paris and straight to DisneyLand Paris where we stayed for two nights with tickets for three days.

The first day we arrived at dinner time and explored briefly before settling in for the late night parade and fireworks show at the princess castle. Overall DisneyLand was amazing, a toddlers wonderland and we definitely needed the two days to explore everything. Staying at Disneyland was also a very smart move and made the three days easy and fun.